Paycheck & Take-Home Pay Calculator

A raise is taxed at your top rate, not your average one

Net take-homeThe path from your full salary (gross) down to what actually lands in your bank account (net). comes from a chain: gross pay minus income tax, minus social contributions, minus pre-tax and post-tax deductions, then divided across your pay periods. The most useful number that chain produces is not the net figure itself but the effective deduction rate — total deductions ÷ gross — because it strips away the noise of different salaries, currencies and pay frequencies and puts two pay structures on one scale.

Take a salary of 60,000 a year paid monthly, an average income tax rate of 15% and social contributions of 7%. Income tax is 60,000 × 15% = 9,000; social contributions are 60,000 × 7% = 4,200. Net annual pay is 60,000 − 13,200 = 46,800, which is 3,900 a month. The effective deduction rate is 22% and the net-to-gross ratio is 78%: you keep 78 of every 100 earned.

Now the trap. That 78% is an average taken across the whole salary, not the share you keep on the next unit of pay. Under a progressive schedule the extra gross from a raise stacks on top of everything already earned, so it is taxed in the highest band you reach rather than at the blended rate, and 78% of a raise is not what arrives. Keeping 55–75% of a raise is normal and is not a sign that something has gone wrong with your payroll. The asymmetry runs the other way too: above a social-contribution ceiling the marginal social rate can fall away entirely, so pay that crosses a cap is sometimes taxed more lightly than the pay beneath it.

This is the point at which the flat rates of Simple mode stop being good enough. Switching to a sourced country model replaces one blended percentage with real bands, thresholds, caps and rebates, and the result usually moves. Each country panel lists exactly what its model includes and excludes for that jurisdiction — read that list before assuming a figure covers something, because the distance between an average rate and a marginal one is where most take-home surprises are born.

Gross-to-net formulas

Why net → gross is solved by bisection, not by dividing by (1 − rate)

The obvious way to run a paycheck backwards is to divide. If you need 3,900 a month, that is 46,800 a year, and at a 22% deduction rate the gross salary must be 46,800 ÷ 0.78 = 60,000. That answer is correct — but only because the example above used flat rates that do not move when the salary does.

Under a progressive schedule the same shortcut is circular. The average deduction rate is itself a function of gross pay, so it cannot be used to solve for gross pay: raising the salary pushes income into higher bands, past standard deductions and allowances, and sometimes over a social-contribution ceiling, each of which changes the very rate you divided by. The ÷(1 − rate) formula therefore understates the gross that a target take-home requires, and it understates it by more the further the answer sits from the salary the rate was measured at.

So the reverse mode does not use a formula at all. It runs the full forward model repeatedly and bisects: guess a gross salary, compute the net pay it produces, compare that against the take-home you asked for, halve the search interval, and repeat until the two agree. Because every trial travels the same code path as the forward calculation, brackets, caps, rebates, standard deductions and the pre-tax ordering are all honoured automatically rather than being approximated a second time. It costs more arithmetic than a division, and it is the only approach that stays right across a bracketed system.

The pay-period arithmetic underneath every mode is deliberately plain. Annual pay is the salary you entered, or hourly wage × hours per week × weeks per year, assumed to run a full year at that rate. Per-paycheck pay is annual ÷ pay periods: daily 260, weekly 52, bi-weekly 26, semi-monthly 24, monthly 12, quarterly 4, semi-annual 2, annual 1. Country modes estimate the annual liability first and then divide it evenly across those periods. Pre-tax deductions come off taxable income and take-home; post-tax deductions come off take-home only — put a retirement contribution in the wrong one of those two fields and the net figure moves for no real reason.

CTC is not salary, and most of the gap is employer-side

Cost to company bundles your gross salary together with employer EPF, gratuity provisions, insurance and variable pay. Working from CTC down to in-hand pay, the employer-side components come off first and they come off completely: they were never monthly cash in your account, whatever the offer letter totals them into.

Only then do the employee-side deductions apply — income tax under the regime you have chosen, employee EPF at 12% of basic pay, and professional tax. A ₹12L CTC commonly yields ₹95,000–97,000 in hand per month under the new regime, and the exact landing point moves with how the package is split, because EPF is a percentage of basic pay rather than of CTC.

That split is why two offers carrying an identical CTC do not pay the same. A package weighted towards basic pay drives higher EPF and heavier gratuity provisioning, which is forced saving rather than money lost, but it lowers the figure that reaches your account each month. A package weighted towards allowances and variable pay puts more cash in hand while making part of the total conditional on performance. Comparing the two on CTC alone compares the wrong number, which is the reason the India mode asks for the structure and not just the headline.

India mode applies FY 2026-27 figures and lets you switch between the old and new regimes, because which of them is cheaper depends on how much of your package is exemption-eligible rather than on the size of your salary. It stays an estimate model rather than a payroll run: surcharge marginal relief at the top of the scale is out of scope, and the mode prints what it includes and excludes beside its own result.

Employer contributions belong on the payslip, never in the paycheck

Every country mode can show an employer-cost card next to your result: gross pay plus employer Social Security and Medicare in the US, employer National Insurance in the UK, employer CPP and EI in Canada, employer EPF in India, or the 12% superannuation guarantee in Australia. Those amounts appear optionally and always separately, and they are never mixed into take-home pay, because they are not your cash.

The separation matters because recruiters and CTC-style packages quote total employment cost while payslips quote gross salary. Compare a total-cost number from one employer against a gross-salary number from another and you have handed the first employer a headline advantage it never earned. The employer card exists so the total-cost figure stays visible without being allowed to contaminate the net figure the calculator is actually solving for.

Retirement contributions are the one place where that boundary genuinely moves, and the tool models them where the money really changes character. Simple mode carries a deductions-are-pre-tax toggle, and Australia mode has a dedicated salary-sacrifice-to-super field that correctly reduces income tax now while still counting towards HELP and HECS repayment income — a detail that catches people out, because sacrificing salary does not sacrifice the student debt with it. Salary packaging for other benefits, such as a novated car lease, is not modelled as its own category; approximate it with the generic pre-tax deduction field when your arrangement behaves the same way.

One framing is worth carrying into the result. Superannuation and provident-fund contributions are deferred pay, not tax: they land in an account with your name on it. Treating them the way you treat income tax when you weigh two offers makes the job with the more generous retirement package look like the worse one, which is precisely backwards.

The bigger salary is not always the bigger paycheck

Compare Offers ranks two jobs on usable cash after tax and deductions rather than on the headline number, because two identical salaries in two different places are not the same job. Take the $60,000 salary from above. Offered in Texas, which levies no state income tax, the federal-only figure is your real take-home. Offered in Pennsylvania, the flat 3.07% state rate takes $60,000 × 3.07% = $1,842 a year — about $154 a month — before any municipal earned income tax is added on top. Same salary, different paycheck, and nothing in either offer letter would have told you.

Pay frequency is the other quiet difference. It never changes annual pay, but it changes every cheque and it changes how the year feels. That same $60,000 is $5,000 paid monthly, $2,500 paid semi-monthly, and $2,307.69 paid bi-weekly — and the bi-weekly schedule delivers 26 cheques a year rather than 24, so two months of the year contain three paydays. If you are budgeting from a per-paycheck figure rather than an annual one, put the two offers on the same frequency before deciding either is worse.

Deductions finish the job of separating the two numbers. Health insurance premiums, retirement contributions, and post-tax items such as garnishments come off after the tax comparison is done, and they are rarely identical at two employers. The three editable scenarios exist for exactly this: hold the job constant and vary the assumption you are least sure about — a different state, a bonus that may or may not land, a higher retirement contribution — and watch which of them actually moves the number worth moving.

When the question is a target rather than a comparison, work the other way round. Decide the monthly take-home the job has to produce, feed it to the net-to-gross solver, and negotiate against the gross salary it returns. A figure derived from what you need to bank is a far steadier position to hold than a figure picked because it sounded like a reasonable raise.

Five payroll systems are sourced; everywhere else uses your rates

The country modes cover the US, India, the UK, Canada and Australia, and each is pinned to a named tax year: the US uses 2025/2026, India FY 2026-27, the UK 2026/27, Canada 2026, and Australia 2025-26 and 2026-27. Those are the same citations listed further down this page and carried on the Sources sheet of the Excel export, so the page and the workbook cannot quietly drift apart. They remain estimate models rather than official payroll, and your payslip is the authority whenever the two disagree.

Simple mode is not the lesser option, it is the general one: it is exactly as accurate as the average income tax and social contribution rates you feed it, and it works anywhere. New Zealand, Ireland, or any country outside the sourced five belongs there — and so does any tax year outside the list, since an earlier year such as 2024 is not modelled but is perfectly reachable by entering that year’s own average rates.

Inside Canada the province matters nearly as much as the country. Canada mode carries a full province and territory selector, Ontario included, and applies provincial tax on top of federal tax and CPP and EI. Quebec is flagged separately as a rougher estimate, because it runs a parallel system of its own through Revenu Québec, with QPP in place of CPP and QPIP alongside it: close enough to plan against, not close enough to file against.

The other modes carry their jurisdictional detail the same way — PAYE, National Insurance and student loan plans for the UK; the Medicare levy and HELP repayment thresholds for Australia; the old and new regimes and EPF for India; W-4 settings, FICA, 401(k) and a state selection for the US. Rather than hiding the edges, each mode prints its own included-and-excluded list next to the result, so what the model covers is something you can read instead of something you have to guess.

Paycheck calculator by state

Switch to Country Payroll → US and pick your state in the calculator above — every state below is already built in, with rates verified for 2026. No-tax and flat-tax states get an exact state figure; progressive states get a starting estimate you can refine with your own effective rate.

All 50 states plus DC are in the state dropdown, including Alaska, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming (also no-tax), and every other flat- and progressive-tax state.

Where the estimate stops and payroll software begins

Everything here is an estimate of a paycheck, not a filed computation and not payroll software. Official per-period withholding tables — IRS Publication 15-T, the CRA payroll deductions calculator, the ATO withholding schedules, HMRC PAYE codes — are approximated by computing the annual liability and dividing it evenly across your pay periods. Real payroll withholds against those tables period by period, so individual cheques can differ from an even split even in the cases where the annual total lands in the same place.

The known edges are worth stating plainly rather than burying. US state tax is a flat-rate estimate: progressive state brackets, local rules and state credits are not computed. Country-specific nuances are out of scope by design — India surcharge marginal relief, UK salary-sacrifice National Insurance treatment, Quebec running a tax system of its own, the Australian Medicare levy surcharge. And the calculator does not estimate a year-end refund or a balance due; it answers what lands in your account each period, not what the tax year finally settles at.

This is a paycheck estimate, not a filed computation. For annual tax liability, refunds, and band-by-band detail use the income tax calculator; for consumption taxes see the VAT/GST calculator.

These limitations are structural rather than a backlog waiting to be cleared. An estimate that divides an annual liability evenly cannot reproduce a per-period withholding table, and a flat state rate cannot reproduce a progressive one; no amount of extra input fields would change either fact. What the tool can do is be explicit about it, which is why every country mode prints its own included-and-excluded list rather than presenting an approximation as a settled figure. Where the number carries real weight — a mortgage application, a resignation, a negotiation you cannot revisit — check it against your payslip, your employer’s payroll team, or the revenue authority itself.

Sources and methodology

Every bracket, contribution rate, threshold and cap in the five country payroll models comes from the revenue agency that sets it, pinned to a named tax year. These are the same citations the Excel export carries on its Sources sheet, so the page and the workbook cannot drift apart. Each entry names the figure it backs. Links open in a new tab.

• Topic 751 — Social Security and Medicare withholding ratesInternal Revenue Service (IRS) · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• Publication 15 (2026) — supplemental wage (bonus) withholding ratesInternal Revenue Service (IRS) · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• Tax year 2026 inflation adjustments (Rev. Proc. 2025-32) — brackets and standard deductionInternal Revenue Service (IRS) · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• Working Families Tax Cuts — the OBBBA deductions for “no tax on tips” and overtimeInternal Revenue Service (IRS) · tax year 2025–2028 · verified 2026-06-11
• 2026 state individual income tax rates and bracketsTax Foundation · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• Tax Rate Schedules — 3.99% for taxable years after 2025North Carolina Department of Revenue · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• HB 463 signed — Georgia income tax rate lowered to 4.99% from January 1, 2026Office of the Governor of Georgia · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• Income Tax Department — slabs for individuals (new and old regime)Income Tax Department, Government of India · tax year FY 2025-26 / FY 2026-27 · verified 2026-06-11
• EPFO contribution rate cardEmployees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) · tax year Current · verified 2026-06-11
• Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027HM Revenue & Customs (gov.uk) · tax year 2026/27 · verified 2026-06-11
• Income Tax in Scotland — Scottish bands and ratesHM Revenue & Customs (gov.uk) · tax year 2026/27 · verified 2026-06-11
• Student and Postgraduate Loan deduction tables 2026/27 (SL3)HM Revenue & Customs (gov.uk) · tax year 2026/27 · verified 2026-06-11
• Canadian income tax rates for individuals — federal and provincial/territorialCanada Revenue Agency (CRA) · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• CPP contribution rates, maximums and exemptionsCanada Revenue Agency (CRA) · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• EI premium rates and maximumsCanada Revenue Agency (CRA) · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• Parameters of the Personal Income Tax System for 2026 — the $54,345 / $108,680 / $132,245 bracket thresholds and the $18,952 basic personal amountMinistère des Finances du Québec · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-09-01
• T4127 Payroll Deductions Formulas — 121st edition (January 2026)Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• QPIP premium rates (RQAP)Régime québécois d’assurance parentale · tax year 2026 · verified 2026-06-11
• Tax rates — Australian residents and foreign residentsAustralian Taxation Office (ATO) · tax year 2025-26 / 2026-27 · verified 2026-06-11
• Medicare levy — rate and low-income reductionAustralian Taxation Office (ATO) · tax year 2025-26 · verified 2026-06-11
• Study and training support loans — rates and repayment thresholdsAustralian Taxation Office (ATO) · tax year 2025-26 · verified 2026-06-11
• Super guarantee percentageAustralian Taxation Office (ATO) · tax year 2025-26 · verified 2026-06-11

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Read the guides

For the difference between gross and net income and a step-by-step worked estimate, see How to Estimate Take-Home Pay Without Confusing Gross and Net Income.

For what a tax estimate captures and when to check official sources instead, see Why Tax Calculators Are Estimates and When to Check Official Sources.