Take Home Pay Calculator
Model the complete 2026 stack for an hourly worker — base pay, overtime, tips, the new deductions, payroll tax and state tax, down to what actually reaches your account.
Take Home Pay Calculator
Results recalculate instantly on every keystroke. Nothing you type is transmitted.
What this result does not account for
- Assumes a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependents or tax credits.
- Tax credits are not modelled and can substantially reduce tax for lower earners.
- Health premiums, HSA contributions, garnishments and local wage taxes are excluded.
- State tax is a flat rate; no state deductions, exemptions or local surtaxes are applied.
In short: An hourly worker on $24 with 260 overtime hours and $9,000 of tips grosses $68,280 and takes home $53,246.18 — 77.98% of gross. Federal income tax is only 6.15% of gross while FICA takes 7.65%, so payroll tax is the larger burden despite all the attention on income tax.
Formula
FICA is calculated on gross earnings before any 401(k) deferral, because retirement contributions are exempt from income tax but never from payroll tax.
Worked Example
- Build gross pay. $24 × 2,080 hours is $49,920, plus $9,360 of overtime at time-and-a-half and $9,000 of tips gives $68,280.
- Apply payroll tax to everything. FICA of $5,223.42 is computed on the full $68,280 — the 401(k) does not reduce it.
- Claim the new deductions. $9,000 of tips and $3,120 of overtime premium are deductible, worth $12,120 off taxable income.
- Compute income tax. After the 401(k), standard deduction and both new deductions, taxable income is $37,060, producing $4,199.20 of federal tax.
- Read the balance of burden. Take-home is $53,246.18. Payroll tax at 7.65% of gross exceeds federal income tax at 6.15% — the tax nobody talks about is the bigger one.
For most hourly workers payroll tax now exceeds federal income tax, and the gap widened when the tip and overtime deductions removed income tax without touching FICA. Any conversation about tax relief for hourly work that ignores the 7.65% is describing less than half of the burden.
Strengths & Limits Of This Model
Where this engine is strong
- Models the complete 2026 stack including both new deductions rather than income tax alone.
- Computes FICA on gross pay, correctly showing that a 401(k) does not reduce it.
- Reports the marginal keep rate, which is what actually decides whether an extra shift is worth taking.
Where it stops
- Cannot capture employer-specific deductions that appear on a real payslip.
- Assumes overtime is paid at time-and-a-half throughout the year.
- Ignores tax credits, which are the largest omission for lower-income households.
Practical Use Cases
Budgeting from an hourly wage
Work from take-home, not gross. The 22% gap between them here is the difference between a workable budget and a failing one.
Deciding whether to pick up more shifts
The keep rate on your next $1,000 tells you what an extra shift is really worth after all three taxes.
Comparing an hourly offer against a salary
Convert both to take-home before deciding — the Hourly To Salary Calculator handles the hours side.
Checking whether your paycheck looks right
Compare the monthly figure here against your actual deposit; a large gap usually means a withholding issue, which the Tax Withholding Calculator diagnoses.
Methodology & Editorial Standards
This engine models a single filer at 2026 thresholds: the $16,100 standard deduction, the Rev. Proc. 2025-32 bracket table, a $184,500 Social Security wage base and uncapped Medicare with an additional 0.9% above $200,000. Overtime is priced at time-and-a-half and the qualifying premium is the half above the regular rate. The tip and overtime deductions under IRC 224 and 225 are applied against modified AGI after the 401(k) deferral. Traditional 401(k) contributions reduce income tax only — FICA is computed on gross pay. State tax is a flat rate on income after the 401(k) and does not apply the federal tip or overtime deductions, matching the majority of states that have not conformed. Health premiums, HSA contributions, garnishments, local wage taxes and tax credits are outside scope, and credits in particular can change the answer substantially for lower earners. The engine implements the standard published formula for this calculation. Inputs are validated for domain and sign before evaluation, and any undefined case returns an em-dash rather than a spurious value.
Computation runs in IEEE-754 double precision at full internal precision; rounding to two decimal places occurs strictly at the display layer, so no cumulative drift enters the result. All monetary outputs use accounting presentation — grouped thousands, two decimals, negatives in parentheses — so figures can be transcribed directly into a model or working paper. Division-by-zero and out-of-domain inputs return an em-dash rather than a misleading number.
This engine was reconciled against an independent reference implementation and hand-verified for the worked example above before release. Our full five-stage review process is published on the About Us page.
Disclaimer. This calculator is provided for informational and modelling purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, legal, medical, or engineering advice. Verify all figures with a qualified professional before acting on them.
Take Home Pay Calculator — 20 Expert FAQs
20 analyst-written answers to the questions practitioners actually ask — optimised for voice and answer-engine retrieval.
How much of my hourly pay do I actually keep?
77.98% at this income — $53,246.18 of $68,280 gross, after payroll tax, federal income tax and 4% state tax.
Is payroll tax bigger than income tax?
For most hourly workers now, yes. Here FICA is 7.65% of gross against 6.15% for federal income tax, and the new deductions widened that gap.
Do the tip and overtime deductions increase my paycheck?
Not automatically. They reduce your annual liability, but withholding tables ignore them, so the benefit usually arrives as a refund.
Does my 401(k) reduce payroll tax?
No. Traditional 401(k) contributions escape income tax but never Social Security or Medicare, which are computed on gross pay.
How much do I keep from an extra shift?
76.35% of the next $1,000 at this income, after federal, state and payroll tax. That is the number to weigh, not the hourly rate.
Why is my take-home lower than I expected?
Because gross-to-net loses roughly 22% here. Payroll tax alone takes 7.65% before income tax touches a single dollar.
Does my state tax my tips and overtime?
Most states do. Federal conformity is not automatic, and the majority have kept taxing both in full.
What is the Social Security wage base for 2026?
$184,500. Once your wages reach it the 6.2% stops for the rest of the year, though Medicare continues without limit.
Are tax credits included here?
No, and that is a meaningful omission for lower earners. Credits such as the EITC reduce tax directly and can exceed the deductions modelled here.
How is overtime valued in this calculator?
At time-and-a-half. The qualifying premium for the deduction is the half above your regular rate, not the whole overtime payment.
Should I contribute more to my 401(k)?
It reduces income tax at your marginal rate but not payroll tax. At a 12% bracket the saving is modest, so an employer match matters more than the deduction.
Why does my paycheck vary between periods?
Overtime, tips and the timing of the Social Security wage base all shift withholding period by period, even when your annual figures are stable.
Does this work for salaried employees?
Partly. Enter your salary as rate times hours, but note that exempt salaried employees generally cannot claim the overtime deduction.
What is not deducted in this model?
Health premiums, HSA contributions, union dues, garnishments and local wage taxes — all of which reduce your actual deposit further.
Is 78% take-home typical?
For a mid-income hourly worker in a moderate-tax state, yes. It falls as income rises and improves where there is no state income tax.
Is this take home pay calculator free to use?
Yes. It is free, requires no account, and has no usage limits. ApexConverter is funded by contextual advertising, never by selling user data.
Is my data sent to a server?
No. The engine runs as Vanilla JavaScript inside your browser under our Zero-Server Client-Side Execution model. Your figures are computed locally and are never transmitted, logged, or stored.
How accurate is this calculator?
It applies the standard closed-form formula in IEEE-754 double precision, rounding only at the display layer. The engine is reconciled against an independent reference implementation before release.
Does it work on mobile?
Yes. The interface is mobile-first with numeric keypad hints and is tested down to a 320-pixel viewport with no horizontal scrolling.
Can I use it offline?
Largely, yes. Because computation is client-side, the page continues to calculate without a network connection once it has loaded.