Our tools deal with your pay and your taxes, so you should be able to check our work. This page publishes every rate, bracket, and formula the calculators use — along with what they deliberately leave out.
We apply the 2026 federal brackets progressively: each slice of your taxable income is taxed at its own rate, not your whole income at your top rate. Taxable income is your gross pay minus the standard deduction for your filing status.
Single filer
| Taxable income | Rate |
|---|---|
| $0 – $11,925 | 10% |
| $11,925 – $48,475 | 12% |
| $48,475 – $103,350 | 22% |
| $103,350 – $197,300 | 24% |
| $197,300 – $250,525 | 32% |
| $250,525 – $626,350 | 35% |
| $626,350 and above | 37% |
Married filing jointly
| Taxable income | Rate |
|---|---|
| $0 – $23,850 | 10% |
| $23,850 – $96,950 | 12% |
| $96,950 – $206,700 | 22% |
| $206,700 – $394,600 | 24% |
| $394,600 – $501,050 | 32% |
| $501,050 – $751,600 | 35% |
| $751,600 and above | 37% |
Standard deductions applied
$16,100
Single
$32,200
Married
$24,300
Head of household
What this misses: itemised deductions, tax credits other than the simplified child tax credit in our refund estimator, and the effect of your specific W-4 entries. Head-of-household filers are given the correct standard deduction but are calculated on the single-filer bracket table.
These are the parts of a paycheck that follow fixed rules, so our figures here should match your pay stub closely.
| Social Security (employee share) | 6.20% |
| Social Security annual wage base | $184,500 |
| Medicare (employee share) | 1.45% |
| Additional Medicare tax | 0.90% |
| Additional Medicare threshold | $200,000 |
Social Security stops once year-to-date wages pass the wage base; Medicare has no cap and gains the additional rate on wages above the threshold. Pre-tax health insurance reduces the wages FICA is charged on; traditional 401(k) contributions do not. Our paycheck checker models all of these, which is why it can tell you whether your own stub is right.
This is the part we are least precise about, and we would rather tell you plainly than imply more accuracy than we have.
We model each state as a single flat effective rate applied to taxable wages. Real state systems are more varied: many use progressive brackets, several have their own standard deductions, personal exemptions, or credits, and some cities levy their own income tax on top.
9
states with no wage income tax
42
jurisdictions we apply a rate to
9.90%
highest rate we model (Oregon)
What this means for you: our state figures are reliable for comparing states against each other — the direction and rough size of the gap are right. They are not a substitute for your state's own withholding tables. We do not model local or city income taxes, state disability insurance, or paid family leave contributions at all.
Salary-to-hourly conversions assume a full-time schedule of 40 hours a week across 52 weeks — 2,080 hours a year — unless a tool lets you set your own hours, in which case yours are used. Overtime defaults to 1.5× the base rate beyond 40 hours in a workweek, following the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, with the threshold and multiplier editable because state rules and job classifications differ. Our payroll calendar computes pay dates and the eleven federal holidays by date arithmetic, with no assumption about your employer's weekend or holiday policy.
The federal floor we use is $7.25 an hour. State figures are approximate and change often — many states adjust every January, and cities and counties frequently set higher local rates. Tipped employees, minors, trainees, and small employers may be subject to different rates entirely. Treat our minimum wage pages as a starting point and confirm against your state labor department before relying on a number.
We work from primary government sources rather than second-hand summaries:
Federal brackets, standard deductions, supplemental withholding rate, standard mileage rates
Social Security Administration
Social Security wage base and contribution rates
US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division
FLSA overtime rules, federal and state minimum wage
State revenue and labor departments
State income tax rates and state-specific pay rules
MyFreePayStub is an independent site. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Labor, or any state agency.
Stated once, plainly, so you know when to stop trusting the number and ask a professional:
Rates change every year, and some change mid-year. Our tax constants live in one place in the codebase and this page renders directly from them, so what you read here is necessarily what the calculators are using — it cannot quietly fall out of date while the tools change. Where a figure is known to move often and we cannot verify it for your tax year, we make it an editable field and point you to the official source instead of asserting it.
Found a rate you believe is wrong? Please tell us — corrections are the fastest way this page gets better, and we would rather be corrected than confidently wrong. Our editorial standards explain how we handle reports.