Take-Home Paycheck Calculator

How this calculator works

Your pre-tax retirement contribution is subtracted from your gross salary first (that's what "pre-tax" means — it reduces your taxable income). Your effective tax rate is then applied to what remains, other deductions are subtracted, and the result is your take-home pay.

Why we ask for your tax rate instead of calculating it: real tax bills depend on your location, filing status, credits, and rules that change every year. Calculators that hide those assumptions are precise-looking but often wrong. Here you control the number — which means the result is honest, and you can test scenarios in seconds.

Finding your effective tax rate

• Best source: a recent pay stub. Divide total taxes withheld by gross pay for the period.
• Rough guide: many US workers land somewhere near 20–30% once federal, state, and payroll taxes are combined — lower for modest incomes in no-income-tax states, higher for large incomes in high-tax states.
• Your effective rate is your total tax divided by total income — it's always lower than your top "bracket" rate, a distinction that confuses almost everyone.

What to do with the number

Your monthly take-home figure is the correct input for budgeting — feed it straight into the 50/30/20 Budget Calculator. And notice what the retirement line shows: raising your contribution 1% barely dents the monthly figure, because part of it comes from money that would have gone to taxes.