Hourly Paycheck Calculator: Take-Home Pay by the Hour in 2026

Hourly rate to a paycheck, in three moves

Hourly pay becomes a paycheck in three steps. First, weekly gross: rate times regular hours, plus rate times 1.5 times overtime hours. Second, annual gross: weekly gross times 52, which is the figure tax law cares about, since brackets, the standard deduction, and the Social Security wage base are all yearly amounts. Third, annual take-home divided by the number of checks in a year: 52 weekly, 26 biweekly, 24 semimonthly, or 12 monthly. The per-check number moves with the frequency; the yearly number does not, which is why comparing offers works best on an annual basis.

A $22 an hour example in Texas

At $22 an hour for 40 hours a week, annual gross is $45,760. A single filer in Texas contributing 4% to a 401(k) owes about $3,092 in federal income tax and $3,501 in Social Security and Medicare, with no state income tax. Take-home lands near $37,337 for the year, about $1,436 per biweekly check, an effective rate of 14.4%. Change the state to one with a bracketed income tax and the same hours deliver a noticeably smaller deposit.

Why the first paycheck surprises people

Hourly workers often do the math as rate times hours and expect that number in the bank. The gap is FICA, which applies from the first dollar with no deduction, plus federal and state withholding and any pre-tax contributions. On a modest income the standard deduction shields much of the federal side, so FICA is usually the biggest single line. Reading the stub line by line, as our pay stub guide walks through, turns the surprise into arithmetic.

Overtime is taxed like any other hour

There is no overtime tax. Extra hours are added to the year's income and taxed at your marginal rate, the rate on your next dollar, which is higher than your average rate but never close to all of it. In the Texas example, adding 5 overtime hours a week raises annual gross by $8,580; taxes take about 19% of that extra pay and you keep the rest. Withholding on a big overtime check can look heavy because payroll annualizes it, but the true tax is settled on your return. The overtime pay calculator shows the gross side of that math in detail.

When the hourly view matters

Use it when comparing an hourly offer against a salaried one (the paycheck calculator handles the salaried side), when weighing a move between states, and when deciding whether extra shifts are worth the hours. Everything here is statewide: local income taxes, health premiums, and State Disability Insurance are the usual reasons a real check runs a little lighter than the estimate.