Paycheck Calculator — Take-Home Pay by State (2026)

For 2026 the child tax credit is $2,200 for each child under 17 who has a Social Security number, and $500 for each other dependent (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 section 3.05; 26 U.S.C. § 24). It comes off the income tax you owe, dollar for dollar. It is reduced by $50 for each $1,000, or part of $1,000, that your income is over $200,000 ($400,000 on a joint return). If the credit is more than the tax, part of the rest is refundable: up to $1,700 per child, and no more than 15% of earnings above $2,500.

Example, head of household with one child, $60,000 salary, Texas: federal income tax is $3,948 before the credit and $1,748 after it, so take-home pay is $53,662 a year instead of $51,462. A married couple with two children and a $30,000 salary owe no federal income tax at all, so there is nothing for the credit to reduce; they get the refundable part instead, $3,400 ($4,400 would be the full credit, but the refundable limit is $1,700 a child), as a refund when they file. That refund is not in any paycheck, so the calculator shows it separately and leaves it out of take-home pay.

Your employer only counts the credit if your Form W-4 claims it (Step 3). This calculator spreads it over the year the way a correctly filled-in W-4 would; if yours has no dependents on it, your paychecks are smaller and the credit comes back as a larger refund. State credits are not included; the earned income credit, the child and dependent care credit, the education credits and the saver's credit have their own options.

Both credits are in 26 U.S.C. § 25A and figured on Form 8863. The American opportunity credit is 100% of the first $2,000 and 25% of the next $2,000 of a student's tuition, fees and course materials, so at most $2,500 per student, for the first four years of college; 40% of it is refundable, so you get that part even if you owe no tax. The lifetime learning credit is 20% of up to $10,000 of expenses per return, for graduate school, later years or job-skills courses, and is not refundable. You cannot use the same expenses for both. Both shrink between $80,000 and $90,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($160,000 to $180,000 on a joint return), and these dollar amounts are fixed in the statute, not indexed. Scholarships and grants that are tax-free reduce the expenses that count.

Example, single filer in Texas, one student with $4,000 of adjusted expenses: at a $50,000 salary the credit is $2,500, of which $1,500 comes off the income tax and $1,000 is refunded when you file (not in any paycheck). At $14,000 there is no income tax, so only the $1,000 refund is paid. At $85,000 the phase-out removes half, leaving $1,250. The non-refundable part is limited to the income tax left after the child and dependent care credit, and these credits are claimed before the saver's credit and the child tax credit. Tick “I pay for college” above for your own numbers; who may claim the student, the four-year limit and the Form 1098-T rules are not checked.

The saver's credit (Form 8880, 26 U.S.C. § 25B) pays part of what lower-income workers put into a 401(k), 403(b), IRA or similar account, on top of any tax break the contribution already gets. It depends on adjusted gross income: 50% of the first $2,000 per person if your income is at or below $24,250 (single), $36,375 (head of household) or $48,500 (joint) for 2026, 20% up to $26,250 / $39,375 / $52,500, 10% up to $40,250 / $60,375 / $80,500, and nothing above (IRS Notice 2025-67). You must be 18 or older, not a full-time student and not claimed as someone's dependent, and withdrawals from retirement accounts in the last two years and up to the filing deadline reduce the contributions that count.

Because the contribution comes out of your wages before the income is measured, it can lower your income into a better band. Example from this calculator: a head of household in Texas with a $38,000 salary who puts $2,000 into a 401(k) has $36,000 of adjusted gross income, which is in the 50% band, so the credit is $1,000and take-home pay is $32,908 instead of $31,908 before the credit. The credit is not refundable: a married couple with one $30,000 salary and the same $2,000 contribution is in the 50% band too but owes no income tax, so the credit is $0. It is claimed before the child tax credit. 2026 is the last year it exists in this form: from tax year 2027 it is replaced by a government match paid into the retirement account (Form 8880 instructions). Tick “I save for retirement” above to see your own numbers.

It is a credit against income tax for what you pay someone to look after a child under 13 (or a dependent or spouse who cannot care for themselves) so that you can work. Starting with tax year 2026, the 2025 budget law (P.L. 119-21 section 70405, now 26 U.S.C. § 21(a)(2)) raised the top rate from 35% to 50%: the credit is 50% of your care expenses if your adjusted gross income is $15,000 or less, falling one point for each $2,000 (or part of $2,000) above that down to 35% (reached just over $45,000), then a further point for each $2,000 above $75,000($4,000 steps above $150,000 on a joint return) down to 20%. The expenses that count are limited to $3,000 for one person and $6,000 for two or more, reduced by any dependent care FSA you exclude from income (which is now up to $7,500), and to the lower of your and your spouse's earned income (IRS Instructions for Form 2441). Those dollar amounts are not indexed for inflation.

Example, head of household with one child, $60,000 salary, Texas, $5,000 paid for care: only $3,000 counts, at 35%, so the credit is $1,050 and federal income tax falls from $1,748 to $698 (with the child tax credit also claimed). The care credit is not refundable, and it is claimed before the child tax credit, so a family with little income tax gains less than the rate suggests: at a $26,000 salary the same family's care credit is cut to the $185 of tax there is, and the child tax credit's refundable part makes up the difference, so the year's result is the same with or without it. A dependent care FSA at work is the alternative: it takes the money out of your taxable wages instead, and whatever you put in lowers the expenses the credit can use. The calculator does not decide which is better for you.

No. The earned income credit is paid when you file your return, not through payroll, so it never appears in a paycheck and this calculator keeps it out of take-home pay and shows it in its own box when you tick “Estimate my earned income credit”. It is fully refundable: it first reduces any income tax you owe and the rest comes back as a refund. For 2026 the maximum is $4,427 with one qualifying child, $7,316 with two, $8,231 with three or more and $664 with none (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 section 3.06), reached once earnings pass $13,020 (one child) or $18,290 (two or more). It stays at the maximum until $23,890 ($31,160 on a joint return) and then shrinks, reaching zero at $51,593 with one child, $58,629 with two and $62,974 with three or more ($58,863, $65,899 and $70,244 on a joint return).

Example, head of household with one qualifying child, Texas: at a $25,000 salary the credit is $4,246, and at $45,000 it is $1,050. Take-home pay is the same with or without it ($23,003 a year at $25,000); the credit shows up as a bigger refund in the spring. A traditional 401(k) contribution lowers the wages the credit is looked up on, so it can raise the credit when you are above the threshold.

Who qualifies is set by IRS Publication 596: a Social Security number valid for work for you (and your spouse) and for each child counted; earned income; investment income of no more than $12,200; a home in the U.S. for more than half the year; and not filing Form 2555. A qualifying child must be your child, stepchild, foster child, grandchild, sibling or a descendant of one, living with you for more than half the year, under 19 (under 24 if a full-time student, any age if permanently and totally disabled) and younger than you. With no child you must be 25 to 64 and not claimable as someone's dependent. The estimate follows the IRS EIC Table's method (the credit for each $50 band of income); the 2026 table is not published yet, so the amount on your return can differ by a few dollars. It does not decide who may claim a child when more than one relative could, and it does not model married filing separately. The credit also lowers the “Social Security and Medicare tax” route to the additional child tax credit for families with three or more children, which the child credit calculation takes into account.

A bonus is wages, so federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare tax all apply. What differs is how the employer withholds. Under IRS Publication 15 (2026, section 7) an employer that pays a bonus separately from regular pay may withhold a flat 22% federal rate (37% on the part of supplemental wages over $1 million in the year), or may add the bonus to a regular paycheck and withhold on the total using your Form W-4. The flat rate is not your tax rate: your bonus is taxed in whichever bracket it lands in when your year is added up.

Example from this calculator: a single filer in Texas with a $60,000 salary and a $10,000 bonus. The flat method withholds $2,200. The federal income tax the bonus actually adds is $1,550, because part of it falls in the 12% bracket and part in the 22% bracket, so about $650 of the amount withheld comes back as a refund when the return is filed. Someone whose bonus falls entirely in the 24% or higher brackets would instead owe more at filing. Tick "I'm getting a bonus" above to see your own numbers. The choice of method changes how much is withheld, not the tax for the year.

This calculator divides your estimated annual tax bill evenly across every pay period — it's not a payroll-withholding simulation. Real paychecks use IRS wage-bracket withholding tables applied per pay period, which don't track annual tax evenly (a bonus check, for example, is often withheld at a flat 22% federal rate regardless of your actual bracket). Your actual withholding also depends on the elections on your Form W-4 — extra withholding, additional income, or dependents claimed there all change the number your employer calculates, independent of what your annual tax actually works out to.

Yes, if you enter them. The "Pretax retirement" and "Pretax health insurance" fields reduce your taxable wages before federal, state, and FICA tax are calculated (traditional 401(k)/403(b) contributions and Section 125 health premiums both work this way). A Roth 401(k) contribution is different — it's deducted from your paycheck but not from taxable wages, so don't enter it in the pretax field; this calculator doesn't separately model post-tax deductions like that.

No — treat this as an estimate of your actual tax liability spread evenly across the year, not a withholding prediction. The two commonly diverge: withholding is calculated per-paycheck from IRS tables and your W-4, so it can run ahead of or behind your real year-end liability, which is why some people get a refund (over-withheld) or owe money (under-withheld) at tax time even though their income didn't change. For a withholding-specific estimate, use the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator, which asks for your actual W-4 elections.

Yes — check "Include the new 2026 federal deductions (tips, overtime, car loan interest, age 65+)" above to enter them. These are new federal deductions from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, available for tax years 2025-2028, and they reduce your federal taxable income but are not exemptions from Social Security or Medicare tax, which is why this calculator still applies FICA to the full amount. They lower your estimated annual tax bill here, but won't show up in an actual paycheck until you submit a new Form W-4 with the expected deduction entered in Step 4(b) — otherwise you'll see the benefit as a larger refund instead.

This calculator applies $0 state income tax on wages for Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming, per the Tax Foundation data cited below. Washington is a partial exception: it taxes capital gains above $1 million a year at 7-9.9%, but that's a separate excise tax on investment gains, not wage income, which is all this calculator models.