What actually lands in your account each payday.

How the calculation works

Take-home pay is not your salary divided by the number of paydays minus a flat percentage. Three separate steps run in order, and each uses a different base:

1. Subtract the standard deduction to get taxable income. Income tax is charged on what is left, not on gross pay. For a single US filer the deduction applied here is $16,100.
2. Run taxable income through the brackets. Each band taxes only the income that falls inside it. Someone in the 22% bracket does not pay 22% on everything — they pay 10% on the first slice, 12% on the next, and 22% only on the part above that threshold. This is why your effective rate is always well below your top bracket.
3. Add payroll tax, calculated on gross pay. This is the step most estimates get wrong. Social Security, National Insurance, EPF and CPP are charged on gross salary, not on taxable income, so the standard deduction gives you no relief from them at all.

Only then is the annual net divided by the number of pay periods.

A worked example: $75,000, single, paid biweekly

These are the figures this calculator returns for its default settings, so you can check the tool against its own arithmetic:

• Gross $75,000 minus the $16,100 standard deduction leaves $58,900 taxable.
• Through the brackets, federal income tax comes to $7,670 — an average of 10.2% of gross, even though the last dollar is taxed at 22%.
• Social Security (6.2%) plus Medicare (1.45%) on the full $75,000 adds $5,738.
• Net annual pay is $61,593, an effective deduction rate of 17.9%.
• Across 26 biweekly paychecks: $2,885 gross, $295 income tax, $221 payroll tax, $2,369 net.

Changing frequency changes the size of each cheque but not the annual total: the same salary is $1,184 net weekly, $2,369 biweekly, or $5,133 monthly.

The payroll figures this tool applies

Published rather than buried, so you can see exactly what is being modelled and where it stops:

• United States — Social Security at 6.2% up to the 2026 contribution and benefit base of $184,500, plus Medicare at 1.45% with no cap. The Additional Medicare Tax on high earners is not modelled. Earn above $184,500 and Social Security stops entirely for the rest of the year, which is why high earners see their take-home rise part-way through it.
• United Kingdom — National Insurance at 8% on earnings between the £12,570 primary threshold and the £50,270 upper earnings limit, then 2% above it.
• Canada — CPP at 5.95% up to $68,500 of pensionable earnings, plus EI at 1.64% up to $63,200.
• India — a simplified 12% EPF employee contribution on gross, which is a deliberate approximation: real EPF is calculated on basic plus dearness allowance rather than on total salary, so treat this as an upper bound.
• Germany, France, Australia, Singapore and the UAE — income tax only. Their social contribution systems are structured differently enough that one simplified number would mislead more than it helps, so nothing is shown rather than something wrong.

Common questions

Why doesn't this match my actual paycheck exactly?

This models national/federal income tax plus the single largest payroll deduction for supported countries (US Social Security + Medicare, UK National Insurance, India EPF, Canada CPP + EI). It doesn't include state or provincial tax, health insurance premiums, retirement plan contributions, or other benefits deductions your actual paystub may include — treat this as a solid baseline estimate, not a payroll-office figure.

What's the difference between the pay frequencies?

Weekly = 52 paychecks/year, biweekly = 26 (every two weeks), semi-monthly = 24 (twice a month, typically the 1st and 15th), monthly = 12. Biweekly and semi-monthly are often confused: biweekly occasionally produces a 3-paycheck month (since 26 × 2 weeks doesn't divide evenly into 12 months), while semi-monthly never does, since it's defined as exactly twice per calendar month.

What payroll taxes are included for each country?

US: Social Security (6.2% up to the annual wage base) plus Medicare (1.45%, uncapped). UK: National Insurance (8% between the primary threshold and upper earnings limit, 2% above it). India: a simplified 12% EPF employee contribution. Canada: CPP plus EI, each capped at their annual maximum insurable/pensionable earnings. Germany, France, Australia, Singapore, and the UAE show income tax only in this tool — their payroll/social contribution systems are structured differently enough that a single simplified number would be misleading.