How much different will your basic take home pay be in 2025?

New federal withholding tax rules are going into effect, which means that even if you pay hasn't changed since last year, the amount that Uncle Sam will take from every single paycheck received by every single person who gets one will be changing.

Usually these changes are to your benefit because withholding taxes are adjusted to account for the negative effects of inflation every year. The last four years have seen quite a lot of these adjustments that, truth be told, seem to never really keep up with the inflation unleashed since 2020.

These adjustments may not be the only changes that affect the bottom line of your paycheck. If you changed the contribution percentage to your 401(k) or 403(b) retirement savings plans, both the amount that goes these plans and the amount of your federal withholding taxes will change. Likewise if you use changed your contributions for a tax-deferred flexible spending account for covering your dependent or health care expenses.

Your 2025 paycheck may also see a change to its top line. If get a raise or if the income you earn changes, that will affect the bottom line of your paycheck. The question is how much.

Our 2025 paycheck tool can help you find out what your paycheck will look like before you even see your first paycheck of the year! If you're reading this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, please click through to our site to access a working version of the tool. Otherwise, you're more than welcome to enter whatever numbers you want to consider for what your paychecks might look like in 2025.

The tool's results convey how much money the IRS withholds for federal taxes from each of your paychecks in 2024. There are however a number of factors that will complicate your withholding tax results based upon how much you cumulatively earn during the year.

For example, once your cumulative income reaches $176,100 or higher, you will no longer have Social Security's payroll tax of your income deducted from your paycheck, which is 6.2% if you're an employee, but which doubles to 12.4% if you're self-employed (the self-employed pay both the employee and employer payroll taxes). The tool above is designed to provide withholding tax estimates for the majority of Americans who are employed by others. People making this amount of money don't really get a break however, because they've already been pushed into a higher tax bracket, paying higher regular income tax rates than those paid by over half of all income-earning American households.

There's also the complication provided by the so-called "Additional Medicare Tax" that your employer is required to begin withholding from your paycheck if, and as soon as, your year-to-date income rises above the $200,000 mark. This surtax of 0.9% of gross income was imposed by the "Affordable Care Act" (a.k.a. "Obamacare") in 2010, which is still in effect. Since the money collected through this surtax does not directly support the Medicare program, unlike the real Medicare payroll taxes paid by you and your employer, it is really best thought of as an additional income tax. That additional income tax is not adjusted for inflation, which means that those who must pay it are subject to 1970s-style income tax bracket creep, even though the tax was sold on the claim that it would be limited to only very high income earners.

In the tool above, when the amount of your annual 401(k) or 403(b) retirement savings contributions exceed the annual limits set by law, we've limited the results our tool provides to be those consistent with their statutory limits, and will do so as if you specifically set the percentage contributions for these contributions with that in mind. Our tool does not consider whether you might take advantage of the "catch-up" provisions in the law that are available to individuals Age 50 or older. Those annual contribution limits will remain at $7,500 in 2025.

Elsewhere on the Web

There are other salary and hourly paycheck calculators like this on the Internet, including the very well done tools available at PaycheckCity.com. PaycheckCity's State Salary Paycheck Calculators allow you to determine the amount of state income tax withholding that will be taken out of your paycheck in addition to what the federal government will take out. Payroll processing giant ADP also has a salary paycheck calculator that will give you good results. We still find the format of PaycheckCity's calculators to be more user friendly, but ADP's version has the benefit of having an all-in-one user interface.

If however you live in one of the states that have no taxes on earned income (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, or Wyoming), our tool above will provide you with a very good estimate of your actual take-home pay after Uncle Sam has gotten his dirty ape paws all over it.

Previously on Political Calculations

We've been in the business of calculating people's paychecks (not including state income tax withholding) since 2005!

• Your 2005 Paycheck
• Your 2006 Paycheck
• Your 2007 Paycheck
• Your 2008 Paycheck
• Your 2009 Paycheck
• Your Paycheck in 2010
• Your Paycheck in 2011
• Your Paycheck in 2012
• Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 1 - the "same as 2012" version.
• Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 2 - the "over the fiscal cliff" version.
• Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 3 - the "post-fiscal cliff deal" version.
• Your Paycheck in 2014
• Your Paycheck in 2015
• Your Paycheck in 2016
• Your Paycheck in 2017
• Your Paycheck in 2018, Before the Tax Cuts Kick In
• Your Paycheck in 2018, After the Tax Cuts Kick In
• The Bottom Line for Your 2018 Paycheck After the Tax Cuts
• Your Paycheck in 2019
• Your Paycheck in 2020
• Your Paycheck in 2021
• Your Paycheck in 2022
• Your Paycheck in 2023
• Your Paycheck in 2024
• Your Paycheck in 2025

Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of Uncle Sam standing in front of a line of workers who have their wallets out. Uncle Sam is taking cash from the workers."