Virginia Paycheck Calculator 2026

How this calculator works

Virginia runs a genuine four-bracket progressive schedule — 2%, 3%, 5% and 5.75% — but with a twist most other progressive states on this site do not share: the dollar thresholds that mark each bracket, $3,000, $5,000 and $17,000, are exactly the same whether you file single or married filing jointly. Nebraska, already on this site, doubles its thresholds for a married couple; Virginia does not. What changes with filing status instead is the standard deduction and the number of personal exemptions you claim.

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.
• 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.
• Virginia income tax: your gross pay minus the $8,750 standard deduction ($17,500 filing jointly) and a $930 personal exemption per person, run through the four-bracket schedule above.

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 the state layer, the Virginia Department of Taxation’s Income Tax Withholding Guide for Employers, revision May 2026, read directly from tax.virginia.gov on September 16, 2026. Our full sourcing, including the line-by-line formula this calculator follows, is on the methodology page.

The standard deduction shown here is temporary. A 2025 law raised Virginia's standard deduction from $8,500 to $8,750 for a single filer and from $17,000 to $17,500 filing jointly, but the increase is written into the law with its own sunset: it applies through tax year 2026 and then reverts to $3,000 single and $6,000 joint — the figures that applied before tax year 2019 — starting in 2027, unless the General Assembly extends it again. This page models 2026 only.

What the calculator deliberately does not do: it does not itemize deductions, model Married Filing Separately, handle multiple jobs, or account for health insurance premiums and other employer benefit deductions.

Virginia hourly paycheck: what your rate is worth after tax

Why we ask your hours instead of assuming 2,080

Most 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 salaried schedule rather than most hourly work. 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.

What $20 an hour comes to in Virginia

At 40 hours a week, $20 an hour is $41,600 a year gross. After federal tax, Social Security, Medicare and Virginia’s four-bracket schedule, that leaves about $34,028 a year, or $2,835.64 a month. Your real hourly rate — what an hour of work actually puts in your account — is $16.36. Virginia’s share of it is $1,577.90 for the year.

What $25 and $30 an hour come to

$25 an hour is $52,000 gross and about $41,786 after tax, a real rate of $20.09. $30 an hour is $62,400 gross and about $49,545 after tax, a real rate of $23.82. Because the top 5.75% bracket starts at just $17,000 of taxable income, most full-time hourly workers in Virginia are already in the top bracket for the last dollar they earn.

Overtime, tips and shift differentials

Virginia taxes overtime, tips and shift differentials the same way it taxes the rest of your pay, running each extra dollar through whichever of the four brackets your total taxable income has reached. The common complaint that “overtime is taxed more” is a federal withholding effect, not a Virginia one.

Virginia take-home pay by hourly rate

Single filer, 40 hours a week (2,080 hours a year), 2026 rates.

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 Virginia

The brackets do not widen for a married couple

Virginia's four thresholds — $3,000, $5,000 and $17,000 — are the same in dollars for a single filer and a couple filing jointly. On a $75,000 salary, a joint filer's Virginia tax is $2,941.80 against a single filer's $3,498.40. That $556.60 gap comes entirely from the larger standard deduction ($17,500 versus $8,750) and the extra $930 personal exemption for a spouse, not from any difference in the brackets themselves.

The top rate arrives early

The 5.75% top bracket starts at just $17,000 of taxable income — well below what most full-time Virginia workers earn in a year. On $25,000 the state takes $636.00, an effective rate of 2.54%. On $75,000 it takes $3,498.40, or 4.66%. On $250,000 it is 5.42% — close to the marginal 5.75%, because so much of a higher income falls in the top bracket.

The 2026 standard deduction will not repeat in 2027

A 2025 law raised the standard deduction to $8,750 single and $17,500 joint for tax years 2025 and 2026, but wrote its own expiration into the statute: absent new legislation, the deduction reverts to $3,000 single and $6,000 joint — the pre-2019 figures — starting in 2027. A take-home-pay estimate built on this page's 2026 numbers will not carry over unchanged to next year's paycheck.

Virginia has no local income tax

Unlike Ohio's municipal net-profits tax or the county and city taxes several states levy on top of a state income tax, nothing on a Virginia pay stub represents a local income tax. The Department of Taxation's own 32-page withholding guide for employers, which walks through every category of state withholding an employer must apply, never mentions one.

Your employer cannot deduct unemployment insurance from your pay

Some states take an employee contribution for unemployment coverage; Washington is the example on this site, where paid family leave and long-term care both come off the stub. Virginia does not: unemployment tax is a liability the Virginia Employment Commission assigns to employers, and nothing on its employer-responsibilities page mentions a wage deduction. The only state line on a Virginia pay stub is income tax withholding.

Your 401(k) contribution does reduce your Virginia tax

Virginia's income tax starts from your federal adjusted gross income, and an elective deferral to a 401(k) or 403(b) is already excluded from that figure. On $75,000 with 6% going in, your Virginia tax falls by $258.75 a year. The rule is not universal: a Pennsylvania worker making the same contribution on the same salary sees their state tax fall by $0.00 — nothing at all.

Social Security stops, Medicare does 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. This is why take-home pay rises unevenly through the year for high earners — the paycheck after you cross the Social Security wage base is visibly larger.

Common mistakes people make

Assuming a married couple gets wider brackets

It does not. Unlike the federal schedule, Virginia applies the same $3,000/ $5,000/$17,000 thresholds to every filing status. The gap between a single and a joint filer's Virginia tax comes only from the larger standard deduction and the second personal exemption — assuming wider brackets on top of that understates a joint filer's tax bill.

Using next year's standard deduction

$3,000 single and $6,000 joint are the pre-2019 figures that Virginia's standard deduction reverts to after tax year 2026, not the 2026 numbers this calculator uses. Applying them to a 2026 salary overstates a $75,000 salary's Virginia tax bill by taxing income that is still sheltered this year.

Expecting a Head of Household bracket

Virginia's withholding formula only distinguishes Single and Married on Form VA-4; there is no separate Head of Household column. This calculator gives head of household the same standard deduction and one personal exemption as a single filer, which is what the state's own form assumes absent additional information.

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, a second job changes the federal withholding picture, and your employer withholds from the Form VA-4 you actually filed — if you claimed exemptions for a spouse or dependents, your real Virginia withholding will be lower than this calculator's one-exemption figure. Read why your pay stub will differ for the rest.

Example calculation

A single filer earning $75,000 in Virginia in 2026, with no retirement contribution:

• 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
• Virginia taxable income: $75,000 − $8,750 standard deduction − $930 personal exemption = $65,320
• Virginia tax: $3,000 × 2% + ($2,000 × 3%) + ($12,000 × 5%) + ($48,320 × 5.75%) = $3,498.40
• Total withheld: $16,905.90
• Take-home pay: $58,094.10 a year, or $4,841.18 a month
• Effective tax rate: 22.5%

Frequently asked questions

Compare with other states

The same $75,000 salary, single filer, 2026 rates, state layer only:

• North Carolina — $59,109 take-home, an effective rate of 21.2%. A North Carolina worker keeps $1,014.63 more than a Virginian on the same salary.
• Tennessee — $61,593 take-home, an effective rate of 17.9%. A Tennessee worker keeps $3,498.40 more than a Virginian on the same salary.
• Kentucky — $59,085 take-home, an effective rate of 21.2%. A Kentucky worker keeps $991.00 more than a Virginian on the same salary.
• Maryland — $56,155 take-home, an effective rate of 25.1%. A Maryland worker keeps $1,939.40 less than a Virginian on the same salary.
• West Virginia — $58,847 take-home, an effective rate of 21.5%. A West Virginia worker keeps $753.13 more than a Virginian on the same salary.

Virginia also borders Kentucky, Maryland and West Virginia, and the District of Columbia; we have a calculator for each of the three states. Maryland’s figure includes its local income tax at the Montgomery County rate, and Kentucky’s leaves out local occupational license taxes, so those two rows are not a like-for-like comparison of state tax alone. Two of Virginia’s neighbors, Tennessee and North Carolina, make the contrast plain. Tennessee has no state income tax at all, which is why a Tennessee worker keeps $3,498.40 more of the same salary. North Carolina's flat 3.99% rate looks lower than Virginia's 5.75% top bracket, and a North Carolina worker on this salary does pay less to the state, $2,483.78 against Virginia's $3,498.40 — the flat rate applies to every dollar, but it never climbs as high as Virginia's marginal top rate does.

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 Virginia ones from the state’s own document 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

• Virginia Department of Taxation — Income Tax Withholding Guide for Employers, rev. 05/25 (PDF) — the four-bracket withholding formula (2% to 5.75%), the $8,750/$17,500 standard deduction and the $930 personal exemption.
• 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: vec.virginia.gov, the Virginia Employment Commission, refuses automated requests with an F5/WAF HTTP 403, though its Internet Archive snapshot was read, 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 by state — the full index, including which states have no income tax at all.
• North Carolina paycheck calculator — a bordering state with a single flat rate instead of Virginia's four brackets.
• West Virginia paycheck calculator — the neighbor to the northwest, with five rates from 2.11% to 4.58% after a $2,000 exemption for each person you claim.
• Kentucky paycheck calculator — the neighbor to the west, a flat 3.5% after a $3,360 deduction.
• Maryland paycheck calculator — the neighbor to the north, which adds a local income tax.
• 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.