Illinois Paycheck Calculator 2026

How this calculator works

Illinois is simple in one way and unusual in another. Simple, because the rate is flat: one percentage, no brackets. Unusual, because what you subtract before applying it is a personal exemption counted per person, not a standard deduction granted per return — and because that exemption is taken away entirely above a certain income rather than tapered.

The calculator applies four 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. For 2026 that deduction is $16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly, $24,150 head of household.
• 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.
• Illinois income tax at a flat 4.95% on your pay above the personal exemption — $2,925 for one person, $5,850 for a couple filing jointly, and nothing at all above the income threshold described below.

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; the Illinois Department of Revenue for the rate, the exemption and the threshold; and the Illinois Department of Employment Security for who pays unemployment insurance. Every Illinois figure was read on the agency’s own page on August 28, 2026. Our full sourcing is on the methodology page.

One assumption worth stating plainly: because the exemption is granted per person and this calculator does not ask about dependents, it counts you alone, or you and a spouse on a joint return. If you claim dependents your Illinois exemption is larger than the one used here, so your real state tax is lower than we show. The figure errs against you, not in your favor.

What the calculator deliberately does not do: it does not itemize deductions, apply tax credits, model multiple jobs, or account for health insurance premiums and other employer benefit deductions.

Many of the people asking this question are paid by the hour, not by the year. The calculator above takes an hourly rate directly — switch How often you are paid to Per hour, tell it how many hours a week you actually work, and it will show your take-home pay per hour, per week or per year.

The flat rate makes the arithmetic easy to carry in your head. Above the exemption, every extra hour is taxed by Illinois at the same 4.95%, whether it is your first overtime hour of the year or your last. The same $25 an hour nets $19.97 here against $21.14 in Texas, which taxes no income at all.

Why we ask your hours instead of assuming 2,080

Most hourly calculators multiply your rate by 2,080 and call it your salary. That number assumes exactly 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, with no unpaid time off and no slow weeks — which is precisely what hourly work often is not. At 35 hours a week the same rate produces a materially smaller annual figure, and sometimes a lower federal bracket with it. We ask rather than assume.

What $20 an hour comes to in Illinois

At 40 hours a week, $20 an hour is $33,691 a year after tax, or about $2,807.60 a month. Your effective rate is 19.0%, and your real take-home rate is $16.20 an hour. That is the number worth carrying in your head when you are comparing job offers.

What $25 and $30 an hour come to

At $25 an hour you take home about $41,533 a year, a real rate of $19.97. At $30 it is $49,374, a real rate of $23.74. A $5 raise on paper is worth less than $5 in your pocket, and in Illinois a fixed 4.95% of it goes to the state on top of the federal share.

Overtime, tips and shift differentials

For withholding purposes, overtime, reported tips and shift or holiday differentials are ordinary wages: your employer withholds federal income tax, FICA and Illinois tax on them exactly as on your base rate. A big overtime week can push that single paycheck into a higher federal withholding band, which is why it sometimes looks disappointing on the stub. Enter your realistic average hours, including overtime, for the most useful figure.

For what you finally owe, the federal picture changed for 2026 and this calculator does not model it. Deductions created by the One, Big, Beautiful Bill run from 2025 through 2028: up to $25,000 of qualified tips and up to $12,500 of qualified overtime ($25,000 filing jointly), both phasing out above $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income. They are claimed on your return, on Schedule 1-A, not through payroll. Source: IRS, Working Families Tax Cuts, read August 28, 2026.

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 Illinois

The rate is flat, and it has not moved since 2017

The Illinois Department of Revenue lists individual income tax as “4.95 percent of net income”, effective July 1, 2017. Flat means there is nothing to climb: the same percentage applies to your first taxable dollar and your last. Unlike Georgia, which has been stepping its rate down year by year, Illinois has held the same number for nearly a decade.

It is a personal exemption, not a standard deduction

This distinction gets flattened on most calculator pages, and it changes the answer. A standard deduction is one amount per return. A personal exemption is counted per person: one for you, one for a spouse on a joint return, one for each dependent. For 2026 the Department of Revenue puts it at $2,925.

The exemption vanishes above $250,000 — it is not reduced

The wording matters. The Department of Revenue states the exemption allowance is “not allowed if the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income for the taxable year exceeds $500,000 for returns with a federal filing status of married filing jointly, or $250,000 for all other returns”. Not tapered. Not phased. Gone.

What crossing that line actually costs

Exactly $144.79 for a single filer: the whole $2,925 exemption multiplied by 4.95%. One dollar of extra income at the threshold costs you that amount in Illinois tax. It is a small number in absolute terms, but it is a genuine cliff, and almost no calculator models it.

Unemployment insurance is paid by your employer

The Illinois Department of Employment Security is explicit: “Benefits are financed by employer payroll taxes – not by any deductions from your wages.” Nothing for unemployment appears on an Illinois pay stub, even though employer-side rates are often quoted as though workers paid them.

No state disability insurance and no paid family leave premium

Several states deduct a percentage for short-term disability or paid family leave. Illinois has neither program, so there is no such line. Compare that with Washington, where two state programs come out of every check.

Social Security stops, Medicare does not

Social Security is charged at 6.2% only up to $184,500 of wages in 2026. Cross that line and your take-home pay jumps mid-year, because the deduction simply stops. Medicare has no such cap, and adds 0.9% above $200,000.

Your Illinois effective rate is never quite 4.95%

Because the first $2,925 escapes, the share of your whole salary that goes to Illinois sits just below the headline rate. On $75,000 the state takes $3,567.71, which is 4.76% of gross. The exemption is small, so the gap is small — much smaller than in Georgia, where a $15,000 deduction pulls the effective rate a full point below the headline.

What a 401(k) does, and does not do

A pre-tax contribution lowers the income both the federal government and Illinois tax, so it cuts two bills at once. It does not reduce Social Security or Medicare, which are charged on gross wages regardless. Try 10% in the calculator and watch which lines move.

Common mistakes people make

Treating the exemption as a standard deduction

They are not the same thing, and the difference grows with your household. A family of four counts four exemptions in Illinois. A standard deduction would not multiply that way. If you have dependents, your real Illinois tax is lower than this page shows.

Assuming the exemption tapers off gradually

It does not. Illinois says “not allowed” above the threshold, which is a cliff. Planning around a gentle phase-out that does not exist is how people get a surprise on their return.

Comparing an Illinois offer with a no-tax state on gross pay alone

A $75,000 offer in Chicago and a $75,000 offer in Dallas are not the same offer: the difference is $3,568 a year, exactly the Illinois tax, because the federal tax and FICA are identical. Compare take-home, then compare cost of living, which often runs the other way.

Confusing the employer’s unemployment tax with a deduction

Illinois employers pay unemployment contributions on your wages, and those rates are sometimes quoted as though they were payroll deductions. They are not. The state says so plainly.

Using an annual figure when you are paid hourly

Multiplying an hourly rate by 2,080 assumes a full year of full weeks. If your hours vary, set the calculator to Per hour and enter your realistic average instead.

Expecting the calculator to match the paystub to the dollar

It will not, and no calculator can. Your employer withholds from your W-4, including any extra amount you asked for; we estimate your liability on a simplified wage situation. A gap of a few percent is normal. See the disclaimer.

Example calculation

A single filer earning $75,000 a year in Chicago, with one personal exemption and no 401(k) contribution:

The same salary in Georgia leaves $58,598.50, and in Texas $61,592.50. Illinois has the higher headline rate of the two states that tax income here, but a much smaller allowance to subtract first, which is why the gap with Georgia is only $574 a year.

Compare with neighboring states

Illinois’s flat rate only means something next to what surrounds it:

• Texas — no income tax at all. On $75,000 that is $3,568 a year more in your pocket.
• Georgia — a lower flat rate at 4.99%… but a far larger allowance, which is why a Georgia worker keeps slightly more.
• Florida — nothing at state level, and the most common destination in this comparison.
• Indiana — a lower flat state rate, but county income taxes on top of it, immediately across the eastern line.
• Wisconsin — a progressive state income tax to the north.
• Missouri — a progressive state income tax across the western line.

Calculators for the unlinked states are being written. Each one needs its own rates read from that state’s own agency before it goes live — see the state index.

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 Illinois 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

• Illinois — Booklet IL-700-T, Withholding Tax Tables (PDF) — the flat 4.95% rate an Illinois employer withholds at.
• Illinois — Informational Bulletin FY 2026-15, What’s New for Illinois Income Taxes — the $2,925 exemption allowance for 2026.
• Illinois Department of Employment Security — What Every Worker Should Know — the rule that benefits are financed by employer payroll taxes, not by deductions from wages — which is why no unemployment line appears on an Illinois pay stub.
• 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.

• Illinois Department of Revenue.

All links checked September 30, 2026.

Related reading

• Paycheck calculators by state — the full index, including which states have no income tax at all.
• Illinois salary to hourly — what an annual salary is worth per hour in Illinois, after tax and not just before.
• 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.