Net Spendable Income Calculator
Your salary is not your spending money: federal income tax, FICA, state tax, and pre-tax deductions all take their cut before a dollar reaches your checking account. This net spendable income calculator runs your gross pay through the 2026 federal brackets, Social Security and Medicare, and your deductions to show what you actually keep per year, per month, and per paycheck. This is a generic, federal-scope estimate: it runs the 2026 federal brackets and FICA for any worker and takes state tax as a single effective rate you enter, rather than modeling one state’s own brackets, so it is not a state-specific paycheck calculator.
Quick Answer
On an $85,000 salary (single), with $6,000 in 401(k) contributions and $3,600 in health premiums, taxable income after the $16,100 standard deduction is $59,300. Federal tax is $7,758, FICA is $5,768.10, and 5% state tax is $3,770. Net spendable income: $58,103.90 a year, or $2,234.77 biweekly. About 31.6% of gross pay never reaches your pocket.
- FICA is the stealth deduction. At 7.65%, it exceeds the federal income tax for many middle earners, and it applies from the first dollar.
- Pre-tax deductions cut two taxes. 401(k) and health premiums reduce both income tax and FICA wages.
- Marginal is not effective. A 22% bracket does not mean 22% of your pay: only dollars inside that band are taxed at 22%.
- The Social Security tax stops; Medicare does not. Past $184,500 in 2026, the 6.2% drops off but the 1.45% continues on every dollar.
Where your paycheck actually goes
The waterfall runs in a fixed order. Pre-tax deductions come off first: 401(k) contributions and employer-plan health premiums reduce the wages subject to income tax, and they also reduce FICA wages. Then federal income tax applies to what is left after the 2026 standard deduction ($16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly) using the marginal brackets. Then FICA: 6.2% Social Security on wages up to the $184,500 wage base plus 1.45% Medicare on all wages. Then state tax, estimated here as a flat rate on the same base.
$85,000 salary.
Minus $9,600: AGI $75,400.
$7,758 on $59,300 taxable.
$5,768.10 + $3,770.
$58,103.90 a year.
The IRS withholding pages explain how employers turn these annual figures into per-paycheck withholding, and the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator fine-tunes it for W-4 settings the calculator does not model.
Marginal versus effective: the bracket myth
Being “in the 22% bracket” does not mean you pay 22% of your income in federal tax. The $59,300 of taxable income fills the brackets from the bottom: 10% on the first $12,400 ($1,240), 12% on the next $38,000 ($4,560), and 22% only on the last $8,900 ($1,958), for $7,758 total. The effective federal rate is 9.1% of gross pay, less than half the marginal rate. This layering is the most misunderstood part of take-home pay, and it is why raises are never “not worth it”: only the dollars inside the higher band are taxed at the higher rate.
Three ways to raise take-home without a raise
Gross pay is only one lever. First, check your W-4: too much withholding is an interest-free loan to the IRS, and too little means a bill in April. The IRS Tax Withholding Estimator tells you whether your allowances match your real liability. Second, shift spending into pre-tax buckets you already use: raising 401(k) contributions lowers both income tax and FICA wages, and an HSA or FSA does the same for money you will spend on health care anyway. Third, mind the state line: moving pre-tax dollars around cannot change your state rate, but the IRS credits and deductions index lists credits, like the saver credit for lower-income retirement contributions, that cut tax directly instead of just shrinking taxable income. None of these change what you earn; they change how much of it you keep.
What most take-home calculators get wrong
Most paycheck calculators apply a single flat “tax rate” you type in, which bakes your own guess into the answer, or they ignore pre-tax deductions entirely, overstating both income tax and FICA. This calculator runs the actual 2026 federal brackets against taxable income after the real standard deduction, applies the genuine FICA structure including the $184,500 wage base and the additional Medicare threshold, and treats 401(k) and health premiums as the pre-tax items they are. It also shows the effective rate next to the marginal rate, because the gap between them is where most people’s intuition about taxes goes wrong. Once you know the real monthly number, our debt-to-income ratio calculator shows how lenders see it, our mortgage payment calculator tests whether it covers the home you are eyeing, and our basic loan calculator sizes a loan payment that fits the monthly figure.
Frequently Asked Questions
About $58,103.90 a year, or $2,234.77 biweekly, for a single filer with $6,000 in 401(k) contributions, $3,600 in health premiums, and 5% state tax. Federal income tax takes $7,758, FICA takes $5,768.10, and state tax takes $3,770.
7.65% for most employees: 6.2% Social Security on wages up to $184,500, plus 1.45% Medicare on all wages. High earners pay an additional 0.9% Medicare tax above $200,000 single or $250,000 married filing jointly. Your employer matches the 7.65%.
Yes. Traditional 401(k) elective deferrals are excluded from Social Security and Medicare wages, so they reduce FICA as well as income tax. Roth 401(k) contributions do not reduce either.
$16,100 for single filers and married filing separately, $32,200 for married filing jointly, and $24,150 for heads of household, per the IRS inflation adjustments. Additional amounts apply at 65+ or for blindness.
W-4 settings, local income taxes, commuter benefits, HSA or FSA contributions, union dues, and wage garnishments all move the real number. This calculator is a planning estimate; your pay stub is the ground truth.
The marginal rate is the tax on your next dollar of income; the effective rate is total tax divided by total income. On the $85,000 example the marginal federal rate is 22% but the effective rate is 9.1%, because most dollars are taxed in lower brackets.
The 6.2% Social Security portion stops at the $184,500 wage base in 2026, so the maximum any employee pays is $11,439. The 1.45% Medicare portion has no cap and continues on every dollar.
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References
- Internal Revenue Service. IRS releases tax inflation adjustments for tax year 2026. Accessed October 18, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 751, Social Security and Medicare Withholding Rates. Accessed October 18, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Tax Withholding. Accessed October 18, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Tax Withholding Estimator. Accessed October 18, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15, Employer’s Tax Guide (Circular E). Accessed October 18, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15-T, Federal Income Tax Withholding Methods. Accessed October 18, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Accessed October 18, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Credits and Deductions for Individuals. Accessed October 18, 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau. Income and Poverty in the United States. Accessed October 18, 2026.
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households. Accessed October 18, 2026.