How Much Tax Is Taken Out of a Paycheck in 2026?

For a single worker with no pre-tax deductions, federal income tax plus Social Security and Medicare take between 12% of gross pay at $30,000 a year and 26% at $200,000 in 2026. State income tax adds nothing in nine states and typically another 2% to 8% everywhere else. On a $75,000 salary paid every two weeks, a $2,885 gross check loses $297 to federal income tax and $221 to Social Security and Medicare, leaving $2,367 before state tax — 82 cents of every dollar. Married couples filing jointly keep more at every income, and anyone contributing to a 401(k), HSA or health plan through payroll keeps more still.

Three federal items come out of every paycheck in the United States. Federal income tax withholding is an estimate of your annual income tax, spread across your pay periods according to the W-4 you filed. Social Security tax is a flat 6.2% of wages up to $184,500 in 2026; above that it stops. Medicare tax is 1.45% of all wages with no ceiling, plus an additional 0.9% on wages above $200,000 for a single filer. Together Social Security and Medicare are called FICA and cost 7.65% of gross for nearly everyone. Your employer pays a matching 7.65% on top, which never appears on your stub.

The federal income tax share is the one that varies. It is not a flat percentage: the first $16,100 of a single filer's wages is covered by the 2026 standard deduction and taxed at zero, the next $12,400 of taxable income is taxed at 10%, income up to $49,850 at 12%, up to $106,450 at 22%, up to $203,300 at 24%, and so on through 37%. The effective rate — the share of your whole salary that goes to federal income tax — therefore rises slowly with income, from under 5% at $30,000 to about 18% at $200,000. The table shows annual tax divided across 26 biweekly checks for a single filer with no deductions.

The right-hand column is the total federal bite before any state tax. Notice two things. First, FICA is the larger deduction until roughly $50,000 of salary, after which federal income tax overtakes it; low and middle earners are taxed mostly by the payroll tax, not the income tax. Second, the total percentage climbs about one point for every $10,000 to $20,000 of salary — there is no cliff, only a slope. At $200,000 the FICA share actually falls, to 7.17%, because Social Security stops at the $184,500 wage base.

Filing status changes the picture considerably. A married couple filing jointly gets a $32,200 standard deduction and brackets twice as wide, so the same household income faces a lower federal percentage. If one spouse earns the whole $75,000, the federal income tax share drops from 10.3% to 6.2% of gross and the total federal take from 17.9% to 13.8%. Two spouses each earning $75,000 land somewhere in between, because the joint brackets are shared.

State income tax is where identical paychecks diverge. Nine states take nothing: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Flat-tax states such as Pennsylvania (3.07%), Illinois (4.95%) and Colorado (4.4%) take a fixed share of taxable wages. Graduated states — California, New York, Oregon, New Jersey among them — take a rising share. Local income taxes stack on top in Maryland (every county), Pennsylvania (most municipalities), Ohio (most cities), Indiana (every county), New York City and a handful of other cities. At $75,000 the state line ranges from zero to about 8% of gross.

What you see on your stub is withholding, not tax. Your employer estimates your annual tax from the W-4 and divides it across pay periods, and the estimate can run high or low. Claiming dependents or a second job on the W-4 changes the number immediately; so does a bonus, which most employers withhold at a flat 22% regardless of your bracket; so does overtime, which is annualized for that one period and often over-withheld. The difference between what was withheld and what you actually owe is the refund or bill in April. For tax years 2025 through 2028 the premium half of qualified overtime is also deductible at filing — up to $12,500 for a single filer and $25,000 for a joint return, phasing out above $150,000 and $300,000 of income — but that deduction does not reduce what is withheld from the check.

Pre-tax deductions reduce the tax taken out, and not all of them equally. A traditional 401(k) contribution comes off your wages before federal and state income tax but still pays the 7.65% FICA. Health, dental and vision premiums and HSA contributions taken through a Section 125 cafeteria plan come off before FICA as well, so $100 of health premium saves a 22%-bracket worker about $29.65 of tax rather than $22. A single filer earning $75,000 who contributes 8% to a 401(k) and pays $150 a check for health insurance sees the total tax share fall from 17.9% to roughly 14.5% of gross.

To see your own number, the paycheck calculator takes an hourly rate or salary, your state, filing status and pre-tax deductions and returns the net amount per check. If you are starting from the gross figure printed on a pay stub, the net pay calculator walks every line down to the deposit. And if you want to change the number, the two levers are the W-4 — the W-4 withholding calculator tells you whether you are over- or under-withholding — and the pre-tax deductions you elect at open enrollment.

Run this analysis on your actual salary.