Gross to Net Pay Calculator

Gross minus deductions equals net. The order is where it gets interesting.

The formula everyone quotes, gross minus deductions equals net, is true and nearly useless. It makes the deductions sound like one undifferentiated pile. They are not. Payroll applies them in a sequence, and the sequence changes the answer, not just how it looks on the page.

• Step 1, pre-tax deductions come out first. Section 125 health premiums and 401(k) deferrals both leave gross pay before tax is figured, but they do not shelter the same taxes.
• Step 2, FICA is figured on the FICA base. That is gross minus the Section 125 benefits. The 401(k) is still in there.
• Step 3, income tax is figured on the income tax base. That is gross minus Section 125 minus the 401(k). It is a smaller number than the FICA base.
• Step 4, after-tax deductions come out last. Roth contributions, garnishments, union dues. They reduce net pay and nothing else.

Work an example. You are paid biweekly, gross is $3,000, you pay a $150 health premium through a Section 125 plan, and you defer $120 into a traditional 401(k). Your FICA wages are $2,850 ($3,000 minus the $150 premium). Your federal and state taxable wages are $2,730 ($3,000 minus $150 minus $120). Two different bases, same paycheck. A calculator that lumps both pre-tax lines together and subtracts $270 from everything gives you FICA on $2,730, which is $9.18 short of what your employer actually withholds.

What actually comes out of your paycheck

Deduction lines sort into a handful of classes, and every stub sorts them the same way. Payslip44 groups them as tax, pre-tax, and after-tax for that reason.

• FICA. Social Security at 6.2% and Medicare at 1.45%, so 7.65% for most people. Social Security stops once your year-to-date wages hit the annual wage base, which is $184,500 for 2026. Medicare has no cap at all, and wages over $200,000 pick up an extra 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax, withheld without regard to filing status. Those rates come from IRS Topic No. 751, and they are fixed by statute, which is why this calculator computes them rather than asking you to type them in.
• Federal withholding. Driven by your W-4: filing status, multiple jobs, dependents, extra withholding. There is no honest way to derive it from a gross figure alone, so you enter it, either as the dollar amount printed on your stub or as a percentage estimate.
• State and local withholding. Fifty sets of rules, plus city and county taxes in some places, plus several states (Texas, Florida, Nevada, Washington and others) where the answer is zero.
• Pre-tax benefits. Health, dental, vision, FSA, HSA, and retirement deferrals. This is the class people get wrong, so the next section deals with it on its own.
• After-tax items. Roth 401(k), garnishments, union dues, employee loan repayments, charitable giving. Last out, and they change nothing except the deposit.

401(k) or health premium: why two pre-tax dollars are not worth the same

Both lines say "pre-tax" on your stub. They do different work.

A dollar routed into a Section 125 cafeteria plan (your health, dental, vision, or FSA premium) is not subject to income tax withholding and it is not subject to FICA either. It shelters both bases. A dollar deferred into a traditional 401(k) is not treated as current income for federal income tax purposes, but the IRS is explicit that elective deferrals stay in wages subject to Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment tax. It shelters one base.

The practical difference is 7.65 cents on the dollar. Put $200 a month through a Section 125 plan and you dodge income tax on all of it plus $15.30 of FICA. Put the same $200 into a 401(k) and the FICA comes out anyway. None of which says you should skip the 401(k). It is buying you something the health premium is not. It does mean you should keep the two lines apart when you calculate, which is why this tool gives each one its own field instead of a single lumped "pre-tax" box.

From the net figure to an actual pay stub

A number is not a document. Once you know the net figure, someone usually wants to see it on paper: employer and employee details, pay period and pay date, each earning and deduction as its own labeled line item with a year-to-date column, the payment method, and gross, total deductions, and net footed at the bottom.

Payslip44 builds that document, using the same tax, pre-tax, and after-tax categories this calculator uses. You get reusable employer, employee, and line-item templates, W-2 / 1099 / statutory / owner classifications, six layouts, and money math that will not drift by a cent across 26 paychecks. Everything runs on-device, and finished stubs export to PDF, PNG, CSV, or plain text. If the question is what you have already taken home this year rather than what lands this Friday, the YTD earnings calculator works the other direction from a single stub. The rest of the tools are in the tools index, and there is more reading on the blog.

Got your net figure? Download Payslip44 and build the paystub that shows it.