Paycheck Calculator With Overtime
The same chain with overtime hours in it, the 2026 federal numbers, and what happens to a check once the wage base is passed.
Hourly Payroll Calculator
An hourly rate and the hours in a week give one paycheck. Gross pay first, then the pre-tax deduction, then federal income tax on the annualised figure, then Social Security and Medicare — and what is left at weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly or monthly cycles.
One check, from gross to take-home
Results
Gross pay
$1,600.00
biweekly check
Federal income tax
$138.25
on $39,520.00 a year
Social Security + Medicare
$122.40
6.2% + 1.45%
Take-home
$1,259.35
after tax
How the federal figure is worked out
$1,520.00 x 26 = $39,520.00
The five lines between gross and take-home
A paycheck is not gross pay minus one tax. It is gross pay, then a deduction that is taken out before tax is figured, then federal income tax, then two payroll taxes, and the remainder is what arrives. In that order, for one $20.00-an-hour check of $1,600.00:
| Line | Amount | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | $1,600.00 | 80 hours |
| Pre-tax deduction | −$80.00 | 5% of gross |
| Federal income tax | −$138.25 | annualised |
| Social Security | −$99.20 | 6.2% |
| Medicare | −$23.20 | 1.45% |
| Take-home | $1,259.35 | one check |
The deduction is subtracted before the federal figure is worked out, so it lowers income tax as well as take-home. Social Security and Medicare are charged on the gross in this table, which is what happens when the deduction is only an income-tax deduction — the section further down covers the other kind. The two payroll rates come from Publication 15 for 2026: 6.2% up to the annual wage base and 1.45% with no base.
The federal line is the one people misread. It is not 12% of the check, and it is not last year’s refund divided by the number of checks. It is the annualised figure run through the 2026 percentage-method schedule, then divided back down to the length of the pay period — which is why the same $20.00 an hour lands on four different federal amounts depending on how often you are paid.
One yearly figure, four check sizes
The annual total barely moves between the four cycles; the size of one check moves a great deal. $20.00 an hour, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year is $41,600.00 of gross however it is paid. Here is that year at each cycle, with the 5% deduction and a single filer:
The same 2,080 hours a year, paid four ways
| Pay cycle | Checks a year | Gross a check | Federal a check | Take-home a check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly | 52 | $800.00 | $69.12 | $629.68 |
| Biweekly | 26 | $1,600.00 | $138.25 | $1,259.35 |
| Semi-monthly | 24 | $1,733.33 | $149.77 | $1,364.29 |
| Monthly | 12 | $3,466.67 | $299.53 | $2,728.61 |
Fifty-two weekly checks of $$800.00 come to $$41,600.00; twelve monthly checks of $$3,466.67 come to $$41,600.04, and those four cents are the rounding of the monthly figure, not extra pay. The federal line lands on the same year as well: $3,594.24, $3,594.50, $3,594.48, $3,594.36.
The spread across the four cycles is $0.26 a year, and it is rounding, not tax. Withholding is figured on the period and rounded to the cent before it is paid, so a weekly payer rounds 52 times and a monthly payer 12 times, and the four answers cannot land on the same penny. It disappears on the return.
Why the federal line is not the yearly tax divided by 12
The mechanism is a worksheet, and Publication 15-T for 2026 prints it. Line 1a is the taxable wage for the period; line 1b is the number of pay periods in a year — 52, 26, 24 or 12; line 1c multiplies one by the other. The schedule is then applied to that annual figure, and step 2h divides the answer by the same number of periods. For this check, the two lines that matter are:
$20.00 an hour, 40 hours a week, biweekly, single filer
1a — taxable wage this period — $$1,600.00 − $80.00 = $1,520.00
1b — pay periods a year — biweekly = 26
1c — annualised — $1,520.00 × 26 = $39,520.00
2h — divide back — $3,594.40 ÷ 26 = $138.25
The yearly tax on $39,520.00 is $3,594.40 — and the check carries one twenty-sixth of it
Read that backwards and the four check sizes in the table above stop being a surprise. A weekly payer annualises by 52, so the same $760.00 of weekly taxable wage is compared against the schedule once, at $39,520.00, and one fifty-second of the answer is withheld. A monthly payer annualises the same year by 12 and divides by 12. The annualised number is the same; the divisor is not, and the schedule is progressive, so the two do not simply scale.
The other method: cumulative wages
Publication 15-T also allows a second way, and it is the reason two employers can withhold different amounts from identical pay. Under the cumulative method an employee asks in writing, and the employer adds the wages paid so far this year to the current period, divides by the number of periods so far, works the withholding on that average, multiplies it back out by the number of periods, and subtracts what has already been withheld. The wording is in section 6 of Publication 15-T for 2026, under “Cumulative wages”.
Weekly pay, 20 weeks at $800.00, then a week at $1,200.00
Paid so far — 20 × $800.00 + $1,200.00 = $17,200.00
Periods so far — 21
Average — $17,200.00 ÷ 21 = $819.05
Annualised average — $819.05 × 52 = $42,590.48
The schedule is applied to $42,590.48, not to the $62,400.00 that a 52-week reading of the $1,200.00 week gives
That gap is the whole point. Annualised on its own, one $1,200.00 week is read as $62,400.00 a year and carries $130.58 of federal withholding. Cumulative, the same week is read as part of a year averaging $819.05 a week, and the heavy week is smoothed into the twenty before it. A cumulative employer does not hand back a windfall in a good week or take an outsized bite out of it; an annualised employer does both.
Neither is wrong. Annualised is the default in the automated tables and what this page uses. Cumulative is an option the employee has to ask for, in writing, and an employer can decline. If your checks look smoother than the arithmetic here says they should after a heavy week, that is the likely reason.
A pre-tax deduction is not always a pre-tax deduction
Everything above charges Social Security and Medicare on the full gross. That is right for some deductions and wrong for others, and the pay stub tells you which one you have: if the taxable-wages line and the Social Security-wages line are the same number, the deduction came out after payroll tax; if they differ, it came out before.
Publication 15-B for 2026 describes the kind that comes out before both. A cafeteria plan, it says, “provides participants an opportunity to receive qualified benefits on a pre-tax basis”, and the benefits it can carry include accident and health coverage, dependent care assistance, group-term life insurance and HSAs. Its general rule for excluded fringe benefits is that “in most cases, the excluded benefits aren’t subject to federal income tax withholding, social security tax, Medicare tax” and the rest.
A $80.00 deduction on a $1,600.00 check
Income tax only — $80.00 comes off the taxable wage, the 6.2% and 1.45% still apply to it
Also before payroll tax — 6.2% of $80.00 = $4.96, 1.45% = $1.16
The same $80.00 is worth $6.12 a check more when it is a cafeteria-plan benefit
So the deduction input on this page is doing one of two jobs and the tool cannot tell which. A health premium under a section 125 plan lowers the federal line and both payroll taxes. A deduction that is only an income-tax deduction lowers the federal line alone, and the $6.12 above stays in the check either way. If you are not sure, the lower-tax answer is the section 125 one; the safer estimate for a check you have not seen yet is the one this page prints.
When the hours are the variable
An hourly paycheck moves with the hours in a way a salary does not, and the movement is not proportional after tax. Same rate, same cycle, same filer, three weeks:
$20.00 an hour, biweekly, 5% pre-tax, single filer
| Hours a week | Gross a check | Federal a check | Take-home a check |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | $1,280.00 | $101.77 | $1,016.31 |
| 40 | $1,600.00 | $138.25 | $1,259.35 |
| 45 | $1,800.00 | $161.05 | $1,411.25 |
Every hour here is straight time. Five hours at 1.5× on top of 40 is not five more hours of gross; the overtime calculator splits them and the time and a half calculator prices them.
From 32 hours to 45, gross rises by $520.00 and take-home by $394.94, because the federal line takes a larger share of the extra dollars than of the first ones. That is the progressive schedule doing what it is built to do, and it is the reason a raise of a dollar an hour does not arrive as a dollar an hour after tax.
What the nine results do not say
The nine organic results for this phrase were opened and the words counted on 2026-10-28. Two of them are adp.com pages, and both answered with a 403 block page of about 450 bytes — they are marked unreadable rather than zero, because a block page is not evidence of anything.
| Site | supplemental | annualized / cumulative | wage base | Section 125 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| adp.com (2 pages) | unreadable | unreadable | unreadable | unreadable |
| timecardcalculator.net | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| paycheckcity.com | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| calculatorsoup.com | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| calculatehours.com | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| gusto.com | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| joinhomebase.com | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ordio.com | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Counted on the page as delivered, with scripts and styles stripped. Two of the four words are already covered elsewhere on this site — the flat 22% on supplemental pay and the $184,500 wage base are on the paycheck calculator with overtime page, and this page does not repeat them. The other two are the two sections above.
What this page does not do
- No state or local tax. The federal line is federal only. State income tax, local tax and disability programmes are not in the number, and they are the usual reason a real check is smaller than this one.
- No year-to-date tracking. Social Security is charged at 6.2% on every check here, as if the wage base were never reached. Past $184,500 of year-to-date pay the 6.2% stops, and the additional 0.9% Medicare starts past $200,000; the overtime paycheck page covers both.
- No overtime split. Hours are straight time. Which hours are overtime, and at what multiplier, is the overtime calculator’s question.
- No W-4 detail. Filing status is the only W-4 input. Step 2’s multiple-jobs box, Step 3 credits and Step 4’s extra withholding all move the federal line and none of them are modelled.
- No employer contributions. The employer’s matching Social Security and Medicare, and any retirement match, are not part of the check and not part of the cost shown.
- No clock-in and clock-out. The hours are a steady week. A time card with a lunch break and a late start is the time card calculator.
Questions people actually ask
How much is taken out of an hourly paycheck?
On a $1,600.00 biweekly check at $20.00 an hour with a 5% pre-tax deduction and a single filer, $138.25 goes to federal income tax and $122.40 to Social Security and Medicare, leaving $1,259.35. That is federal only: state tax is not in it.
Why is federal withholding different from my tax bracket?
Because it is not figured on the check. The period wage is multiplied by the number of pay periods in a year, the 2026 schedule is applied to that annual figure, and the answer is divided back by the same number. A single filer in the 12% band still has a zero-rate band and a 10% band inside the year, so the average rate on the check is lower than the band.
Does it matter whether I am paid weekly or monthly?
The year is the same and one check is not. $41,600.00 paid weekly is $800.00 a check before withholding; paid monthly it is $3,466.67. The federal figure per check scales roughly with the check, but not exactly, because the schedule is progressive and rounding happens once per check instead of once a year.
Is a 401(k) or health premium really pre-tax?
Pre-tax usually means before income tax. Whether it is also before Social Security and Medicare depends on the plan: benefits under a cafeteria plan are excluded from those taxes as well, per Publication 15-B, while a deduction that is only an income-tax deduction leaves the 6.2% and 1.45% untouched. Compare the two wage lines on your stub.
Why does the last check of the year look bigger?
Because Social Security stops. The 6.2% applies only up to $184,500 of wages for 2026, and once your year-to-date pay passes it the tax disappears from every later check. At $20.00 an hour and 2,080 hours you would need $88.70 an hour to reach it, so for most hourly pay it never happens.
Related pages
How to Calculate Gross Pay From a Time Card
The step before this page: five punch times in, one gross figure out, with the break deduction and the 40-hour test.
Biweekly Pay: 26 Checks and the Months With Three
Why a biweekly cycle produces two months a year with a third check, and how 14-day periods line up with a calendar year.
General information only — not tax, legal or payroll advice. Federal figures use the 2026 percentage-method schedule in Publication 15-T, Social Security at 6.2% and Medicare at 1.45% from Publication 15 for 2026, and no state or local tax. A year is 52 weeks of the hours entered, every hour is straight time, and no year-to-date wages are tracked.