Tennessee Paycheck Calculator 2026

How this calculator works

Tennessee is the simplest paycheck in the country to work out, because there is no state layer to work out. Whatever the federal government and FICA leave you is what reaches your account. Three deductions, and that is the whole list:

• Federal income tax, on your pay after the standard deduction, at the 2026 brackets.
• Social Security, 6.2% of gross pay up to the annual wage base.
• Medicare, 1.45% of gross pay with no cap, plus 0.9% on pay above $200,000.

There is no fourth line. Tennessee has no state withholding, no local income tax, and no payroll program deducted from wages. Unemployment insurance is financed by the employer, which is why it never appears on your payslip.

That last point is worth stating plainly, because “no income tax” does not always mean “nothing comes out”. Washington has no income tax either and still deducts Paid Family and Medical Leave and WA Cares from every check — about $832 a year more than Tennessee on $60,000. Tennessee really does take nothing.

The tax Tennessee got rid of, and what it actually taxed

Tennessee did once have an individual income tax: the Hall income tax, named after the senator who introduced it in 1929. Two things about it are almost always reported wrongly.

It never touched wages. The Hall tax applied to income from interest on bonds and dividends from stocks — investment income. A Tennessee worker paid no state tax on a salary in 2015, and pays none in 2026. What changed was a tax on savings, not on work.

It was removed on a published schedule, not all at once. Public Chapter 181 of 2017 amended section 67-2-102 of the Tennessee Code to set the rate year by year:

The same act moved the repeal date itself forward from 2022 to 2021. Tennessee's Department of Revenue now lists the Hall income tax under Archived Taxes, beside the gift tax and the inheritance tax.

Tennessee take-home pay by salary

Single filer, standard deduction, 2026 rates, no 401(k) contribution. Every figure comes from the same arithmetic the calculator above runs.

Tennessee hourly paycheck: what your rate is worth after tax

At 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. The gross hourly rate is the same everywhere; what survives tax is not.

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 Tennessee

• No state income tax on wages, and no local one either. Unlike Ohio or Michigan, where cities add their own tax on top, there is no municipal layer here.
• No state filing status. Marriage changes your federal tax and nothing else. The selector above is federal-only for this state.
• A 401(k) still helps, but only federally. Deferring pay cuts your federal tax; there is no state tax for it to cut.
• Unemployment insurance is the employer's. Tennessee's Department of Labor files it under employers, not employees, so it never reaches your payslip.

Common mistakes people make

• Assuming the Hall tax used to come out of wages. It did not. It taxed interest and dividends. Someone looking back at a 2019 payslip will find no state line on it either.
• Assuming no income tax means nothing is withheld. True in Tennessee, not true in Washington. Check the state, not the label.
• Comparing a Tennessee offer to one in Georgia on gross pay alone. On $60,000 the gap is $2,246 a year, which is real money and does not show up in the salary line.

Example calculation

A single filer on $60,000 in Tennessee, 2026, no 401(k):

• Gross pay: $60,000.00
• Federal income tax: −$5,020.00
• Social Security (6.2%): −$3,720.00
• Medicare (1.45%): −$870.00
• Tennessee state tax: $0.00
• Take-home pay: $50,390.00 a year, or $4,199.17 a month

Compare with neighboring states

The same $60,000, single filer, 2026. Georgia is Tennessee's neighbor to the south; the others are the states this site publishes that a mover most often compares.

Tennessee, Texas, Florida and Nevada come out identical to the cent, because none of them withholds anything at state level. Against Illinois the gap is $2,825 a year on the same gross pay.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

The federal figures on this page — the brackets, the standard deduction and FICA — are read from the official documents below. The Tennessee figures are read from the state’s own law and withholding guides, which we quote and date on our methodology page: Tennessee does publish its own document, but tn.gov answers an automated request with HTTP 403, so we have no link from this machine that we have verified ourselves. If one of our numbers disagrees with one of theirs, they are right and we have a defect to fix — tell us.

The federal documents these figures are read from

• 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.

All links checked September 30, 2026. One source is named on this page but not linked: tn.gov answers an automated request with HTTP 403, so we have no link we have checked ourselves and we will not publish one we have not. The figures and the dates we read them are on our methodology page.

Related reading

• Paycheck calculators for every state we publish
• Texas paycheck calculator — the other state where the figures come out the same
• Washington paycheck calculator — no income tax, but two programs still come out
• How we calculate these figures, and where the rates come from