Paycheck Calculator Texas

Use this paycheck calculator Texas workers can trust for 2026: enter your pay, and it shows your take-home pay after federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare. Texas takes nothing for itself. What can still change your check this year is the new 2026 Form W-4, which lets you lower withholding for the extra half of overtime pay, for tips and for being 65 or older. This Paycheck Calculator Texas page works out how much each of those is worth, per paycheck.

About the Paycheck Calculator Texas

Every Texas paycheck tool on the first page of results gives the same basic answer, because Texas makes the sum short: no state income tax, no city tax. Federal tax, 6.2% Social Security, 1.45% Medicare, done. Ours gives that answer too, line by line.

The difference is the part of 2026 most calculators skip. The 2025 federal tax law added new deductions for overtime, tips and seniors, and the 2026 W-4 has a worksheet for putting them on your paycheck. The Paycheck Calculator Texas fills in that worksheet for you.

• Overtime worked out for you. Enter your hourly rate and your overtime hours, and it finds the “and-a-half” part of your overtime pay, the only part that counts.
• Tips and seniors. Enter yearly tips, tick a box if you are 65 or older.
• Both answers. Your paycheck as it is now, and what changes if you claim the deductions on your W-4.
• The caps and income limits from the form. If your income is over the line, it tells you and leaves the deduction out.
• The working. Every step of the IRS method is shown.

It runs in your browser. Your pay is not sent anywhere or stored.

How to use the Paycheck Calculator Texas

1. Enter your pay. It opens on hourly pay, since that is where overtime lives. Enter your rate, your regular hours and your overtime hours a week. Salaried? Switch to Salary.
2. Copy your W-4. Filing status, dependent credits and the Step 4 boxes, if you filled any in.
3. Add the 2026 deductions. Tips for the year, and the age boxes. Overtime fills itself in for hourly pay.
4. Decide about your W-4. Leave the last box unticked to see your paycheck as it is. Tick it to see the paycheck you would get with the deductions on your W-4.

What comes out of a Texas paycheck

Anything else on your stub is something you chose or your employer offers: a 401(k), health insurance, a union due. The Paycheck Calculator Texas has a section for those.

A worked example

You earn $22 an hour, work 40 hours, and pick up 6 hours of overtime most weeks. You are paid every two weeks and file single.

1. Weekly pay. 40 × $22 = $880, plus 6 × $33 = $198 of overtime, is $1,078 a week.
2. Per paycheck. $1,078 × 52 ÷ 26 = $2,156.00.
3. Federal tax, as things are. A year of pay is $56,056. The IRS method takes off $8,600 for a single filer, leaving $47,456. The 2026 table gives $1,240 plus 12% of the amount over $19,900, or $4,546.72 a year: $174.87 a paycheck.
4. Social Security and Medicare. $133.67 and $31.26.
5. Take-home: $1,816.20 every two weeks.

Now the overtime deduction. The “and-a-half” part of your overtime is $11 an hour, so 6 hours a week is $66 a week, or $3,432 a year. Put that on Step 4(b) of your W-4 and federal tax is figured on $44,024 instead: $4,134.88 a year, $159.03 a paycheck.

That is about $15.84 more in every check, about $412 a year, and a take-home of $1,832.04. Leave it off your W-4 and you get the same money back as a refund when you file.

The 2026 overtime deduction, in plain words

The 2025 federal tax law (Public Law 119-21) created a deduction for qualified overtime. It is not a tax-free paycheck. Here is what it covers.

• Only the extra half. If you are paid time-and-a-half, the deduction covers the “half”, not the whole overtime hour. At $22 an hour that is $11 for each overtime hour.
• Only required overtime. It is overtime the Fair Labor Standards Act requires, usually hours over 40 in a week for non-exempt workers. Extra pay your employer chooses to give on top doesn’t count.
• Capped. Up to $12,500 a year, or $25,000 for a married couple filing jointly.
• Income limit on the W-4. The 2026 W-4 worksheet allows it if your total income is under $150,000 ($300,000 married filing jointly).
• Federal income tax only. Social Security and Medicare still come out of every overtime dollar.

Because Texas has no income tax, this is the only tax that overtime deduction can lower for a Texan. The Paycheck Calculator Texas shows exactly how much.

Tips and the seniors deduction

Tips. Line 1a of the worksheet takes qualified tips up to $25,000 a year, with the same $150,000 income limit. These are tips customers pay voluntarily, in a job on the IRS list of occupations that customarily receive them. A server earning $12 an hour for 35 hours a week, with $15,000 of tips a year, takes home about $753.66 every two weeks with nothing on the W-4. With the tips deduction claimed, it is about $775.74.

Seniors. If you are 65 or older by the end of 2026, lines 3a and 3b take $6,000 for you and $6,000 for a spouse who is also 65 or older, when total income is under $75,000 ($150,000 married filing jointly). On a $50,000 salary, single, paid every two weeks, that lifts take-home from $1,629.05 to about $1,656.74.

The 2026 W-4 also has a line for car loan interest and sections for itemized deductions. The Paycheck Calculator Texas doesn’t fill those in for you, but the “Deductions, per year” box in the W-4 options takes any amount you work out yourself.

Texas take-home pay by salary

Single filer, paid every two weeks, no pre-tax benefits, nothing in W-4 Step 3 or 4.

Hourly pay with overtime: what the W-4 change is worth

Single filer, paid every two weeks. The last two columns are the difference the overtime deduction makes once it is on your W-4.

The jump at $25 an hour is not a typo. That worker’s pay sits across the line between the 12% and 22% brackets, so part of the deduction comes off at 22%.

How often you are paid

Pay frequency changes the size of each check, not the year. On a $60,000 salary, single, the Paycheck Calculator Texas gives:

All four come to $50,390 a year. Every two weeks gives two months a year with three paychecks, which is worth knowing if you budget by the month.

What a 401(k) does to a Texas paycheck

A traditional 401(k) comes out before federal income tax, so it costs you less than it puts away. On the same $60,000 salary, paid every two weeks, putting 5% into a 401(k) sends $115.38 a paycheck to your account. Your take-home falls from $1,938.07 to $1,836.54, only $101.53, because federal withholding drops from $193.08 to $179.23.

Social Security and Medicare don’t change: a 401(k) doesn’t lower them. Health, dental and vision premiums taken through a Section 125 plan do lower all three, so enter those in the pre-tax benefits box. A Roth 401(k) comes out after tax, so it goes in the after-tax box.

Filing status and dependents

The W-4 drives the federal line, and the federal line is the only tax a Texas paycheck carries, so getting the W-4 right matters more here than in most states. Two examples from the Paycheck Calculator Texas, paid every two weeks:

• Married filing jointly, $90,000, one job. Federal withholding is $247.69 a check and take-home is $2,949.04.
• Head of household, $45,000, $2,200 of dependent credits on Step 3. The credit wipes out federal withholding entirely, so take-home is $1,598.36, with only Social Security and Medicare taken.

If you and a spouse both work, or you have two jobs, tick the Step 2 box. Without it, each employer withholds as if that job were your only income, and you can owe at tax time.

Should you put the deductions on your W-4?

It’s your choice, and either way you get the deduction when you file. The question is only when the money arrives.

• Claim it if you are confident your overtime or tips will be about what you entered. You get the money spread across the year.
• Leave it off if your overtime swings a lot, if you are near the $150,000 income line, or if you would rather have a refund. Overclaiming means owing at tax time.
• Update it if your hours change. A W-4 can be changed whenever you like, and your employer has to apply it within about a month.

The Paycheck Calculator Texas shows both numbers side by side, so you can see what the choice is worth before you hand in a new form.

How the Paycheck Calculator Texas works

1. Gross pay. Salary divided by paychecks, or hourly rate times hours, with overtime at 1.5 times the rate, times 52 weeks, divided by paychecks.
2. Pre-tax deductions. A 401(k) lowers federal income tax but not Social Security or Medicare. Section 125 benefits like health insurance lower all three.
3. The Step 4(b) worksheet. Tips (line 1a), the overtime premium (line 1b) and seniors (lines 3a and 3b), each with the form’s cap and income test.
4. Federal withholding. Publication 15-T’s 2026 annual percentage method: a year of wages, less the W-4 adjustment and any Step 4(b) amount, run through the 2026 table, less Step 3 credits, divided by paychecks.
5. FICA. 6.2% Social Security up to $184,500 of pay, 1.45% Medicare, and 0.9% more on pay over $200,000.
6. Texas. Nothing.

The same federal code runs our Washington paycheck calculator, GA paycheck calculator, Maryland paycheck calculator and Indiana paycheck calculator, so all of them agree on the federal lines for the same pay.

Common mistakes

• Counting all overtime pay as the deduction. Only the extra half counts. Six overtime hours at $22 is $198 of pay, but $66 of deduction.
• Expecting no tax on overtime at all. Social Security and Medicare still come out, and the deduction lowers income tax only.
• Forgetting the Step 2 box. Two incomes and an unchecked Step 2 is the most common reason for a tax bill in April.
• Using last year’s W-4 figures. The 2026 form has new worksheet lines. Amounts worked out on the 2025 form miss the new deductions.
• Looking for a Texas line on the stub. There isn’t one. If a deduction is labelled TX, it is usually a voluntary benefit, not a tax.

What the Paycheck Calculator Texas can’t tell you

• Whether your overtime or tips qualify. That is decided on your tax return, using IRS rules on who is non-exempt and which jobs count as tipped.
• Your exact payroll rounding. Employers round each step their own way. A few cents’ difference is normal.
• Mid-year changes. It assumes the same pay every period. Social Security stops once you pass $184,500 in the year, and a raise or a bonus changes withholding from that point.
• Your final tax bill. Withholding is an estimate of tax, not the tax itself. Credits, other income and a spouse’s job settle the real number when you file.

For job pricing rather than paychecks, try the job estimate calculator. If you are working backwards from a receipt, the reverse sales tax calculator takes the tax out of a total.