California Paycheck Calculator 2026

How this calculator works

California’s Employment Development Department (EDD) publishes two ways to work out income tax withholding: a table of pay ranges (Method A) and an exact calculation (Method B). Its guide says Method B “will give an exact amount of tax to withhold,” and this calculator follows it. Your pay is converted to a yearly amount. A standard deduction of $5,706 comes off for a single filer, or $11,412 for a married filer with two or more allowances or a head of household. What is left goes through the annual tax rate table, which starts at 1.1% and climbs in ten brackets to 14.63%. Then a credit of $168.30 for each withholding allowance on Form DE 4 comes off the tax, and the result cannot fall below zero.

This page covers the paycheck, not the tax return. The rates in the withholding table are the ones the EDD tells employers to use, and your California tax for the year is figured on your return, so what you owe or get back when you file can differ. Bonuses, dependents and the other items on the DE 4 are listed at the end of this section.

The calculator applies these deductions in this order:

• Federal income tax. Your gross pay minus the federal standard deduction for your filing status, run through the 2026 federal brackets.
• Social Security at 6.2% of gross wages, up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500.
• Medicare at 1.45% of all wages, with no cap, plus the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages above $200,000.
• California income tax: your wages after any 401(k) contribution, minus the standard deduction, run through the annual rate table, minus $168.30 for each allowance.
• California State Disability Insurance at 1.3% of all your wages, with no cap. It also pays for Paid Family Leave benefits.

We looked for any other California deduction that an employer must take from your check and found none in the EDD guide. Its table of the state’s payroll taxes shows unemployment insurance and the Employment Training Tax paid by the employer, and State Disability Insurance and personal income tax withheld from the employee.

Rates come from the agencies that set them: the IRS for the federal brackets, the standard deduction and FICA, cross-checked against the Social Security Administration for the wage base; and, for California, the Employment Development Department’s California Employer’s Guide (DE 44) and Form DE 4. Our full sourcing is on the methodology page.

How current the source is. The guide is DE 44 Rev. 52, dated April 2026, and its withholding schedules are headed “California Withholding Schedules for 2026.” The DE 4 is the revision dated January 2026. We read both on the agency’s own site on October 21, 2026, and the Sources section links to them. The 2026 State Disability Insurance rate is also on the department’s payroll tax page. The federal figures are the 2026 IRS amounts.

How we checked the formula. We read the annual tax rate tables, the standard deduction table and the allowance table directly from the guide’s text, separately from the calculator’s code, and the calculator’s figures match them line by line. We also worked six of the guide’s own examples. One withholds nothing, and the other five reproduce to within three cents a pay period, including $4.13 for a married employee paid $2,400 twice a month with four allowances, and $7.17 for one earning $57,000 a year, paid monthly. The calculator stays within $0.17 of the printed wage-bracket tables on 8,943 cells, with two exceptions, the married biweekly and daily tables, that the section on the printed tables below explains.

Withholding is an estimate, not your final bill. The figure here is what an employer takes from each check using the agency’s method, before the rounding in the tables. Your actual California income tax is figured on your return.

What the calculator deliberately leaves out: bonuses and other supplemental pay, allowances for dependents, blindness and estimated deductions, a spouse who works, extra withholding, rounding by your employer, work in another state, optional employer deductions, and health insurance premiums and other employer benefit deductions.

California withholding rates and the pay they apply to

The EDD prints one annual rate table for each filing status, and it applies to what is left of your pay after the standard deduction, not to your pay itself. For a single filer on $75,000, that is $75,000 − $5,706 = $69,294. That falls in the bracket that starts at $57,542, where the tax is $2,186.15 plus 8.8% of the amount above $57,542: $11,752 × 8.8% = $1,034.18, for $3,220.33. One allowance then takes off $168.30, which leaves $3,052.03. The first column of each table shows taxable pay; the second shows the gross pay at which the bracket starts, before the allowance credit.

The single schedule

The married schedule

A married filer with two allowances has a $11,412 deduction and a table whose first five bracket limits are exactly twice the single ones. The 10.23% bracket then runs from $145,448 to $742,958 of taxable pay.

The head of household schedule

An unmarried head of household has the same $11,412 deduction as a married filer but a table of its own: its first two bracket limits are within $15 of the married ones, and its 4.4%, 6.6%, 8.8%, 10.23% and 11.33% brackets are narrower than the married ones.

Why the printed rates look odd

The table’s rates are 1.1%, 2.2%, 4.4%, 6.6%, 8.8%, 10.23%, 11.33%, 12.43%, 13.53% and 14.63%. They are withholding rates, not the rates on the tax return, and the guide does not explain them. Each one is 1.1 times a number with at most one decimal place (1.1 is 1.1 × 1, and 10.23 is 1.1 × 9.3). We noticed that pattern but have not checked it against the return’s rate schedule, so we do not claim a reason. We apply the rates as printed, together with the constant printed for each bracket.

The deduction and the allowance: what changes with your DE 4

Form DE 4 is how you tell your employer your filing status and how many allowances to use, and each allowance is worth $168.30 of tax a year. The form says an employer that has no completed DE 4 from you must use Single with zero withholding allowances. This is how the calculator maps its three choices to the form.

An allowance is a credit, not a deduction

Each allowance takes $168.30 off the tax after it is figured, so it is worth the same to a worker in the 2.2% bracket as to one in the 10.23% bracket. On $75,000, a single filer with zero allowances has $3,220.33 withheld, and with one allowance has $3,052.03. The worksheet on the DE 4 adds allowances for a spouse, for blindness and for each dependent, and this calculator does not ask about any of them beyond the allowances in the table above.

Nothing is withheld on low pay

The guide has a low income exemption table: a single filer with one allowance paid $18,896 a year or less has nothing withheld, and a married filer or head of household with two allowances has nothing withheld up to $37,791. The calculator reaches the same answer without a special rule: at those amounts the tax on the table, less the allowance credit, comes to roughly zero (under two cents). At $30,000, a single filer has $244.30 withheld.

Married with a working spouse

The guide has a special note for married employees with employed spouses. To avoid under-withholding, it recommends that you use Single filing status to compute the withholding for the employee and the spouse, or have an additional flat amount withheld. The DE 4 has a box for this, “Single or Married (with two or more incomes).” This calculator’s married choice is the one-income case.

Bonuses and other supplemental pay

This calculator does not model bonuses, but the guide’s rule is short, so here it is. A bonus paid with your regular wages is added to them, and tax is withheld on the total. Tax on a bonus paid separately can be withheld in one of two ways.

Option one: combine the wages

The employer figures the tax on your regular wages plus the bonus using the withholding schedules, then subtracts the tax already withheld from the regular wages. The difference is withheld from the bonus.

Option two: a flat percentage

The employer withholds a flat percentage without allowing for any of your allowances: 10.23% on bonuses and stock options, and 6.6% on other supplemental wages such as overtime, commissions, sales awards, severance and vacation pay. On a $5,000 bonus that is $511.50 at the first rate and $330.00 at the second. The guide says that stock options are only covered where they are wages subject to withholding.

State Disability Insurance: 1.3% of every dollar

What the deduction is

State Disability Insurance (SDI) is funded by a payroll deduction from employees’ wages. The guide says employers withhold 1.3% for SDI on all subject wages paid to each employee in a calendar year, and that the 2026 rate “provides for both State Disability Insurance (SDI) and Paid Family Leave (PFL) benefits.” The calculator shows it as one line.

It has no wage cap

The guide says there has been no taxable wage limit since January 1, 2024, and that Senate Bill 951 removed the taxable wage limit and the maximum withholdings. So the deduction is $975.00 on $75,000, $3,250.00 on $250,000 and $6,500.00 on $500,000. Social Security stops at $184,500 of wages in 2026; State Disability Insurance does not stop.

It does not shrink with your 401(k)

The guide says that employee salary reduction contributions to a qualified retirement or pension plan are generally included as subject wages but are not reportable as income tax wages. That is why a 401(k) lowers the California income tax withholding in this calculator and leaves the $975.00 of SDI on $75,000 unchanged.

Unemployment insurance is not taken from your pay

The guide says the unemployment insurance program is funded through payroll taxes paid by the employer, and that the Employment Training Tax, 0.1% on the first $7,000 of each employee’s wages, is an employer-paid tax. This calculator has no unemployment line for that reason.

Local taxes

The guide’s summary of California payroll taxes lists the state’s own taxes and no city or county income tax on wages. We found none in the guide we read, which is not proof that none exists, and this calculator adds none.

The printed wage-bracket tables: what we found when we rebuilt them

Two ways to find the tax

The guide gives employers Method A, tables that list the tax for each pay range and for 0 to 10 allowances, for weekly, biweekly, twice-a-month, monthly and daily pay, with one table for each filing status; and Method B, the exact calculation. Method A is limited to wages under $1,000,000, and when pay is above a level it prints for each period ($1,600 a week for a single filer, for instance), it tells employers to use Method B.

What we found for most tables

We rebuilt 8,943 cells of thirteen of the guide’s fifteen printed tables from the annual table, using the middle of each pay range as the wage. 8,910 of them, 99%, match to the nearest ten cents, and every one of them is within $0.17. The guide does not say how it rounds, so we report the spread and do not guess at the cause.

What we found for two of them

The married biweekly table and the married daily table behave differently. In our reading, they match the formula only if the $5,706 deduction is used for every number of allowances, while the guide’s own standard deduction table prints $11,412 from two allowances up. We reproduced 2,145 of their 2,145 cells with the $5,706 deduction, and the gap to the exact method runs up to $21.13 on a biweekly check and $2.21 on a daily one. We do not know why, and we do not claim an error: the agency may have a reason we did not find.

What it means for your check

A married employee with two allowances paid $2,884.62 every two weeks, which is $75,000 a year, has $40.84 withheld under the exact method and $50.10 under the printed table, a difference of $9.26 a check. For a single filer or a head of household, or a married filer paid weekly, twice a month or monthly, the tables and the calculator agree to within $0.17 a pay period. If your stub shows a larger gap, the cause is most likely an input the calculator does not have: allowances, a bonus, a pre-tax deduction or extra withholding.

California hourly paycheck: what your rate is worth after tax

Why we ask for your hours instead of assuming 2,080

Many hourly calculators multiply your rate by 2,080 and call it a year. That is 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, which describes a full-time schedule, not every hourly job. If you work 32 hours a week, or 45 with overtime, the assumed figure is wrong before any tax is applied. The calculator above asks for your hours and uses them. In California your hours also matter because of the low income exemption: a single filer paid $18,896 a year or less has no California income tax withheld, though the State Disability Insurance deduction still comes out of every dollar.

What is $20 an hour after taxes in California?

At 40 hours a week, $20 an hour is $41,600 a year gross. After federal tax, Social Security, Medicare, California income tax withholding and State Disability Insurance, that leaves about $34,353 a year, or $2,862.79 a month. Your real hourly rate — what an hour of work actually puts in your bank account — is $16.52. California’s share is $711.36 of income tax withholding for the year, plus $540.80 of State Disability Insurance.

What are $25 and $30 an hour after taxes in California?

$25 an hour is $52,000 gross and about $42,011 after tax, a real rate of $20.20. $30 an hour is $62,400 gross and about $49,545 after tax, a real rate of $23.82. California income tax withholding is $1,275.48 a year at $25 an hour, and $1,961.88 at $30.

Overtime and bonuses

The calculator multiplies your rate by the hours you enter and adds no overtime premium, and it does not model bonuses. The guide says overtime pay is a supplemental wage, and when it is paid separately an employer can withhold 6.6% of it for California income tax instead of using your allowances. Ask your employer how it handles overtime and bonuses. If you work variable hours, enter the average number of hours you expect to work each week.

California take-home pay by hourly rate

Single filer, one allowance, 40 hours a week (2,080 hours a year).

What this calculator does not cover

This tool models federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and the payroll programs your state actually runs — nothing more. It deliberately leaves out:

• Itemized deductions and federal tax credits — the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, education credits. The engine always applies the standard deduction; there is no itemizing path.
• A second job, self-employment income or 1099 pay. Every dollar you enter is treated as one employer’s W-2 wages, taxed at the employee share of Social Security and Medicare — not the self-employment tax a 1099 worker actually owes.
• Pre-tax benefits other than the 401(k) field — health insurance premiums, an HSA or FSA, commuter benefits. The only amount taken out before tax is the percentage you enter for a 401(k).
• Local taxes — city income tax, county tax, or a school-district tax. Where a state levies one, our methodology page says so by name; this calculator does not add that line, with two exceptions: the Indiana and Maryland calculators add the local income tax for the county you choose.
• Overtime premiums. An hourly rate is multiplied by the hours you enter; it does not add a time-and-a-half rate for hours worked past 40 in a week.
• Wage garnishments or court-ordered deductions — child support, a wage levy. Your result assumes none exist.
• The Additional Medicare Tax, at the single-filer threshold. The 0.9% surtax above $200,000 is applied at that one figure for every filing status, the way an employer actually withholds it — not the higher threshold a married couple filing jointly may end up owing at tax return time.
• Married filing separately, or a qualifying surviving spouse. The calculator only offers single, married filing jointly, and head of household.

None of these are in the estimate. Some of them change what you owe or get back when you file, and a calculator cannot ask for everything they depend on. See why your pay stub will differ for the details.

Key facts that affect your take-home pay in California

A single filer paid $18,896 a year or less has nothing withheld

A single filer with one allowance has nothing withheld on yearly pay of $18,896 or less (the calculator shows $0.01 at exactly that amount, from rounding in the printed table), and a married filer or head of household with two allowances has nothing withheld up to $37,791. At $30,000, a single filer has $244.30 withheld; at $50,000, $1,143.48 a year.

The 8.8% bracket runs from $63,248 to $78,430 of pay

For a single filer, the 8.8% bracket runs from $63,248 to $78,430 of yearly pay. Across that range the tax is the $2,186.15 printed for the bracket plus 8.8% of the amount above $57,542 of taxable pay, less the allowance credit. On $75,000, a single filer falls inside it, with $3,052.03 withheld.

From $78,430 of pay, the rate is 10.23%

The 10.23% bracket is the widest in the table. For a single filer it runs from $78,430 to $377,185 of yearly pay. A single filer paid $100,000 has $5,560.48 withheld, one paid $150,000 has $10,675.48, and one paid $250,000 has $20,905.48.

Above $1,005,706 of pay, the rate is 14.63%

The top bracket starts at $1,000,000 of taxable pay for a single filer, which is $1,005,706 of yearly pay. On $500,000, California withholds $48,365.20; on $1,000,000, $113,279.95; on $1,500,000, $186,367.18. The guide prints 14.63% for all taxable pay above $1,000,000.

The married schedule is wider, and the deduction is larger

A single filer’s taxable pay is pay minus $5,706. A married filer with two allowances gets $11,412 off and a table whose first five bracket limits are twice as high, and two $168.30 credits come off the tax. That is why California withholds $1,061.92 from that filer on $75,000 and $3,052.03 from a single one, a gap of $1,990.11. On $150,000 the figures are $6,104.05 for the married filer and $10,675.48 for the single one.

Head of household: two allowances on a table of its own

A head of household has the married deduction of $11,412, two allowances and the head of household table. On $75,000, taxable pay is $63,588 and California withholds $1,061.70. The federal tax is lower for a head of household too ($5,748.00 on $75,000), so take-home pay is $61,478.

Each allowance is worth $168.30 a year

Because an allowance is a credit, it lowers yearly withholding by $168.30 at any pay level where tax is owed, whatever the bracket. This calculator does not ask about dependents, blindness or estimated deductions, so a worker who claims more allowances on the DE 4 will see less California tax withheld than the figure shown.

Extra withholding is on the form

Line 2 of the DE 4 is an additional amount you want withheld each pay period, if your employer agrees. The form says that if the employer will not, you can increase withholding as much as possible by using the Single status with zero allowances. This calculator models none of it.

Your 401(k) lowers your California taxable wages in this calculator

The guide treats salary reduction contributions to a qualified retirement plan as not reportable as income tax wages. On $75,000 with 6% going in, California withholding falls by $396.00 a year, and State Disability Insurance stays at $975.00. Enter 0 if your contribution is a Roth.

Social Security stops, Medicare and SDI do not

Social Security is withheld at 6.2% until your wages reach $184,500 in 2026, then stops for the rest of the year. Medicare has no ceiling at all: 1.45% on every dollar, plus an extra 0.9% on wages above $200,000. State Disability Insurance has no ceiling either. On $250,000, Social Security and Medicare take $15,514.00 in total, and State Disability Insurance takes $3,250.00.

Common mistakes

Forgetting the deduction

Applying the table to all of $75,000 means treating $75,000 as taxable pay, which overstates California withholding by $534.67: $3,586.70 instead of $3,052.03.

Assuming State Disability Insurance has a ceiling

Social Security has a wage base and State Disability Insurance does not. Applying Social Security’s $184,500 cap to the 1.3% deduction would give $2,398.50 on $250,000 instead of $3,250.00, which understates it by $851.50.

Treating a two-income couple as married

The Employment Development Department’s guide recommends Single for a married employee with an employed spouse. On $75,000, the married choice withholds $1,061.92 against $3,052.03 for a single filer, which is $1,990.11 less over a year, and a couple who both work can end up under-withheld when they file.

Assuming the table’s rate is your rate

The table’s printed rates, such as 8.8% or 10.23%, are the rates the department tells employers to withhold at, not the rates on your return. A tax return works from your actual income and deductions, so what you owe in April can be smaller or larger than what was withheld.

Leaving out State Disability Insurance

It is taken from your pay in addition to income tax, and it does not reduce your California taxable pay. A take-home figure that leaves it out is too high by $975.00 on $75,000.

Expecting the calculator to match the pay stub to the dollar

It will not, and no calculator can. Health insurance premiums and other pre-tax benefit deductions come out before tax and are not modeled here, and the allowances you claimed on your Form DE 4 may differ from the ones we assume. Read why your pay stub will differ for the rest.

Example calculation

Amounts are shown to the cent, so adding the rounded lines can differ from the total by a cent.

A single filer earning $75,000 in California in 2026, with one allowance and no retirement contribution, under the exact calculation method:

• Federal taxable income: $75,000 − federal standard deduction of $16,100 = $58,900
• Federal income tax: $7,670.00
• Social Security: $75,000 × 6.2% = $4,650.00
• Medicare: $75,000 × 1.45% = $1,087.50
• California taxable pay: $75,000 − $5,706 standard deduction = $69,294
• Tax at the start of the bracket that begins at $57,542: $2,186.15
• Tax on the $11,752 above $57,542: $11,752 × 8.8% = $1,034.18
• Tax before the credit: $2,186.15 + $1,034.18 = $3,220.33
• One allowance: $3,220.33 − $168.30 = $3,052.03, which is $254.34 on a monthly paycheck or $117.39 on a biweekly one
• State Disability Insurance: $75,000 × 1.3% = $975.00
• Total withheld: $17,434.53
• Take-home pay: $57,565.47 a year, or $4,797.12 a month
• Effective tax rate: 23.2%

Frequently asked questions

Compare with other states

The same $75,000 salary, single filer, 2026 rates. We list the three states that border California by land: Oregon, Nevada and Arizona. Each row leaves out its own local taxes and optional employer deductions, and the California row includes State Disability Insurance at 1.3%.

The table rounds take-home pay to the dollar; the differences in this paragraph use the exact amounts. Compared with a California worker on the same salary, a Nevada worker keeps about $4,027 more, an Arizona worker keeps about $2,527 more and an Oregon worker keeps about $1,571 less. These are withholding figures for one allowance, not the tax each state will charge on a return. A worker who lives in one of those states and commutes into California, or the reverse, is a different case that this calculator does not model: it assumes a California resident working in California.

Sources

Every figure on this page is read from an official document and dated, not taken from another calculator — the federal ones from the IRS and the Social Security Administration, the California ones from the state’s own documents below. Each one carries the date we last checked that it still answers. If one of our numbers disagrees with one of theirs, they are right and we have a defect to fix — tell us.

The documents these figures are read from

• California Employment Development Department — DE 44, California Employer’s Guide, 2026 (PDF) — Method B, the exact calculation method for state income tax withholding (a standard deduction of $5,706 or $11,412, the annual tax rate tables from 1.1%, and a $168.30 credit for each allowance), the 2026 State Disability Insurance rate of 1.3% with no wage limit, and the flat rates for bonuses and other supplemental wages.
• California Employment Development Department — DE 4, Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate (PDF) — the three filing-status boxes (“Single or Married (with two or more incomes),” “Married (one income)” and “Head of Household”), the allowances for yourself, your spouse and your dependents, the $168.30 for each allowance, and the rule that an employer without a completed form must use Single with zero allowances.
• California Employment Development Department — Payroll tax rates and withholding schedules — the 2026 State Disability Insurance withholding rate of 1.3 percent on all wages, and the two withholding methods, the wage bracket table method and the exact calculation method.
• IRS — 2026 inflation adjustments (Rev. Proc. 2025-32) — the federal brackets and the $16,100 standard deduction.
• IRS — Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates — the 6.2% and 1.45% rates and the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax.
• SSA — Contribution and benefit base — the $184,500 Social Security wage base.

The agencies that set them

These are the offices that set the figures. We link them so you can start from the source yourself, but an agency’s own summary page is not always current, and we do not claim that these pages carry the 2026 number — several of them do not. Where a rate was read somewhere else, in a statute, a withholding guide or an estimated-tax form, the exact document and the date we read it are on our methodology page.

• California Employment Development Department — Payroll taxes for employers.

All links checked October 21, 2026.

Related reading

• Paycheck calculators by state — the full index, including which states have no income tax at all.
• Oregon paycheck calculator — the neighbor to the north, with a federal tax subtraction and three payroll deductions.
• Nevada paycheck calculator — the neighbor to the east, with no state income tax.
• Arizona paycheck calculator — the neighbor to the southeast, with a flat rate you choose on Form A-4.
• $75,000 take-home pay in every state we publish — where California ranks on one salary.
• Methodology — the exact formula, every 2026 figure with its official source, and what these calculators deliberately do not model.
• Why your pay stub will differ — pre-tax deductions, credits and W-4 settings, and how much difference is normal.