Estimate your take-home pay from a gross salary using your own effective tax/deductions rate, plus any fixed deductions. See the result per year, month and week.
Gross pay is the headline number on your contract — total compensation before anything is taken out. Net pay (or take-home) is what actually lands in your bank account after income tax, social/national insurance contributions and any other deductions. The gap between them surprises almost everyone the first time they see a payslip, which is exactly what this calculator is for: a fast estimate of the number that matters.
The formula:
Net = gross × (1 − effective tax/deductions rate) − fixed deductions.
For a $60,000 gross salary at a 28% effective rate, you keep $60,000 × 0.72 = $43,200 a year (about $3,600 a month) before any fixed deductions. Subtract those — a pension contribution, health premium, or loan repayment — to get the final take-home.
The accuracy of this estimate lives or dies on the effective rate you enter. Two common mistakes:
The fastest way to find your real number: take the total deductions line from a recent payslip and divide by gross. That single percentage, dropped into the rate field, gives you a far more accurate estimate than any guess.
Most of what's removed from pay is a percentage of income — that's the effective rate. But some deductions are flat amounts regardless of salary: a fixed pension contribution, a health insurance premium, union dues, a student-loan repayment, or a season-ticket loan. These don't belong in the percentage; enter their annual total in the fixed deductions field, and the calculator subtracts them after the percentage tax.
Payroll systems run a country's full tax code: progressive brackets, personal allowances, tax credits, regional taxes, contribution ceilings and dozens of edge cases that differ by where you live and your personal circumstances. No single-rate calculator can reproduce all of that. What it can do — and do instantly — is give you a reliable planning estimate when you feed it your own effective rate. For an exact figure, your payslip or an accountant is the source of truth.
This is especially true across borders: a "28%" effective rate might be right for one country and wildly off for another. If you're comparing job offers in different places, find each country's effective rate separately rather than reusing one number.
Take-home pay is the figure to budget against — rent, savings and spending all come out of net, not gross. It's also the honest number when comparing a salary to freelance or contract work: convert a contract's gross to net the same way before deciding which pays more. To turn a salary into an hourly figure first, use the salary-to-hourly calculator; if you're self-employed in the US, the self-employment tax calculator estimates the contribution side specifically.
Net = gross × (1 − effective rate) − fixed deductions. $60,000 at 28% ≈ $43,200 before fixed deductions.
Total tax and mandatory deductions ÷ gross income — a single blended %, lower than your top bracket. Find it on a payslip.
Flat amounts, not percentages: pension, health premiums, union dues, repayments. Enter the annual total.
Brackets, contributions and allowances differ by country/region. This is a fast estimate from your effective rate — confirm with a payslip or accountant.