Take-home pay calculator
Enter your gross salary and state to see exactly what you bring home after federal income tax, state income tax, Social Security, and Medicare. Uses 2025 IRS brackets and current state rates for all 50 states.
What take-home pay actually means
Take-home pay is what shows up in your bank account, not the salary written in your offer letter. Between gross and net, four federal and state systems pull money out: federal income tax, state income tax, Social Security, and Medicare. A $100,000 salary in California nets roughly $69,000. The same salary in Florida nets roughly $77,000. The difference is real money, $667 a month, and it has nothing to do with how hard you worked.
This calculator runs the same math the IRS and state tax agencies use, then adds FICA on top. It does not guess. Every bracket is current, every state rate is sourced from the state’s own tax authority, and the output reflects what a single filer with the standard deduction would owe before any voluntary deductions like 401(k) contributions or health insurance premiums.
How each tax works
Federal income tax
The federal system is progressive, which means the rate climbs as your income climbs, but only the dollars inside each bracket pay the higher rate. For a single filer in 2025, the first $11,925 is taxed at 10 percent. Dollars from $11,925 to $48,475 pay 12 percent. From $48,475 to $103,350 the rate is 22 percent. There are seven brackets in total, topping out at 37 percent for income above $626,350. The standard deduction is $15,000 for single filers, $30,000 for married filing jointly, and $22,500 for head of household, so your first slice of income is effectively tax-free.
State income tax
Nine states do not tax wage income at all: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. The rest use either a flat rate (Colorado at 4.4 percent, Illinois at 4.95 percent, Michigan at 4.25 percent) or progressive brackets that resemble the federal system in miniature. California has the highest top marginal rate at 13.3 percent, followed by Hawaii at 11 percent. The calculator applies the right structure for each state, so a flat-rate state and a bracketed state both come out correctly.
Social Security and Medicare (FICA)
These two payroll taxes run as flat percentages of every dollar you earn, with no deduction and no bracket relief. Social Security is 6.2 percent of wages up to a cap that adjusts each year (the 2025 cap is $176,100, so high earners stop paying once they hit it). Medicare is 1.45 percent on every dollar, no cap, plus an additional 0.9 percent on wages above $200,000 for single filers. The calculator includes the base 7.65 percent FICA load for every salary level.
A worked example: $90,000 in three states
Take a single filer earning $90,000 in 2025, claiming the standard deduction. Here is the rough breakdown the calculator produces:
| State | Federal tax | State tax | FICA | Take-home |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida (no state tax) | ~$11,615 | $0 | ~$6,885 | ~$71,500 |
| Texas (no state tax) | ~$11,615 | $0 | ~$6,885 | ~$71,500 |
| California (top bracket reach) | ~$11,615 | ~$4,460 | ~$6,885 | ~$67,000 |
The $4,500 gap between Florida and California on the same $90,000 paycheck looks small in isolation. Spread across a 30-year career, with raises along the way, it is enough money to fund a second retirement account. That said, California pays more in part because California salaries are higher in the first place. The Take-Home Pay calculator paired with the Cost of Living tool tells the full story.
What this calculator does not cover
- Local income tax. New York City adds 3.078 to 3.876 percent on top of New York State. Philadelphia adds about 3.75 percent. Detroit, Kansas City, and a handful of Ohio cities have their own wage taxes. These are not modeled.
- Pre-tax deductions. 401(k) contributions, HSA contributions, health insurance premiums, and dependent care FSA payments all reduce your taxable income. To estimate your real net pay, subtract those from the take-home figure shown.
- Itemized deductions. The calculator uses the standard deduction. If you itemize (mortgage interest, large charitable gifts, state and local taxes up to the SALT cap), your federal tax will be lower than shown.
- Tax credits. The Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Credit, and education credits can meaningfully change your refund or balance due. These are personal-situation specific and not modeled.
- Self-employment. If you are a contractor or freelancer, you pay both the employee and employer halves of FICA, which is 15.3 percent instead of 7.65 percent, and you handle withholding yourself.
Why we built this
Most take-home calculators on the web are wrong about state taxes. They use a flat statewide average rather than the actual bracket structure, which means a $50,000 earner and a $250,000 earner in the same state get the same percentage applied. That is not how progressive state taxes work. Our calculator uses the real bracket schedule for every progressive state and the real flat rate for every flat-rate state.
We also separate federal, state, and FICA in the output, so you can see exactly where the money goes. Most calculators just hand you a single net number, which is fine if you only want a quick estimate but not useful for understanding why two job offers in different states feel so different.
Every figure is grounded in published rates from the IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the relevant state tax authority. The calculator is updated whenever brackets change, which happens once a year for federal and on each state’s own legislative calendar.