FICA Tax Calculator
Enter gross pay and YTD wages to get Social Security (6.2%, capped at $184,500 in 2026), Medicare (1.45%), the 0.9% surtax, and the employer match.
FICA Tax Calculator
Who is paying
Employee view shows what comes out of the check. Employer view shows what the business owes on top of wages.
Wages
Everything the check pays before deductions. Tips, commissions, and bonuses are FICA wages, so include them.
Social Security wages already earned since January 1, not counting this check. This is what decides whether you hit the cap. Pull it from your stub, or work it out with the YTD earnings calculator.
If you also hold a job, those W-2 wages use up the $184,500 wage base before your self-employment earnings get to it. Leave it at 0 if you have no W-2 income.
Section 125 cafeteria-plan premiums (health, dental, vision) and payroll HSA contributions only. 401(k) deferrals are not FICA-exempt, so leave them out.
Filing status changes what you owe on Form 8959, not what your employer withholds. Withholding always starts at $200,000.
The year-end projection runs your pay forward at the current rate, tripping the $184,500 cap and the $200,000 surtax threshold at the right paycheck. It assumes level pay, so a raise, a bonus, or unpaid time off will move it.
How this prints on a stub
| Taxes | Amount | YTD |
|---|---|---|
| Social Security | $155.00 | $155.00 |
| Medicare | $36.25 | $36.25 |
| Additional Medicare | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Employer contributions | Amount | YTD |
| Employer FICA | $191.25 | $191.25 |
On a real paystub, Social Security and Medicare are two line items in the Tax deduction category, each carrying an amount and a YTD figure. Employer FICA is printed as an employer contribution, so it shows on the stub without reducing net pay.
How FICA tax is calculated in 2026
FICA is not one tax. It is two, sometimes three, and they do not behave the same way. Payroll withholds each one separately and prints them on separate lines. That is why the tidy "7.65%" answer falls apart as soon as your wages get big.
- Social Security, 6.2%: applies to wages up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500. Above that, it stops. Maximum employee Social Security tax for the year is $11,439.00.
- Medicare, 1.45%: no cap, ever. Every dollar of FICA wages is taxed, whether you make $30,000 or $3 million.
- Additional Medicare Tax, 0.9%: an employee-only surtax on wages over $200,000. Employers withhold it, but they do not match it.
- The employer match: 6.2% and 1.45% again, paid by the business on top of your wages. Add both sides together and you get the 15.3% figure people quote.
Take the ordinary case. You are paid $2,500 biweekly and your YTD wages are nowhere near the cap. Social Security is $2,500 x 0.062 = $155.00. Medicare is $2,500 x 0.0145 = $36.25. Nothing goes past $200,000, so no surtax. That is $191.25 withheld, or 7.65% of the check. Your employer pays another $191.25, so that paycheck really costs the business $2,691.25. Rates and the wage base come from IRS Topic No. 751.
Here is the detail most other calculators fumble: FICA is charged on FICA wages, not on gross. Section 125 cafeteria-plan premiums (health, dental, vision) and payroll HSA contributions come out before anyone figures FICA. Traditional 401(k) deferrals do not. They cut your income tax and leave your FICA bill exactly where it was.
What happens when you hit the Social Security wage base
The wage base is a running total, not a per-check test, and the paycheck that crosses it gets cut in two. Say your YTD wages are $181,000 and your next check is $8,000. You have $3,500 of room left under the $184,500 base, so only $3,500 of that check sees Social Security. Withholding is $3,500 x 0.062 = $217.00, not the $496.00 you would get from a full 6.2% on $8,000. The other $4,500 rides free.
After that, every check for the rest of the calendar year has $0 of Social Security taken out. Medicare keeps coming, at 1.45%, because Medicare never stops. It is why high earners watch their take-home jump in the autumn and sink again in January, when the ledger resets and a new wage base kicks in. That is also why the calculator above asks for your YTD wages. If you do not have the figure handy, the YTD earnings calculator pulls it off a single stub.
Two employers make a mess of this. Each tracks its own wage base, neither knows about the other, and between them they can withhold past $11,439.00. The excess is not gone: claim it as a credit on Schedule 3 of your return. The employer share never comes back to anyone.
The Additional Medicare Tax: withholding versus what you owe
Here is the trap. Your employer has to start withholding the 0.9% surtax once your YTD wages pass $200,000, and it does that no matter how you file. What you actually owe, worked out on Form 8959 at filing time, runs against a threshold that does depend on filing status: $250,000 married filing jointly, $125,000 married filing separately, $200,000 for everyone else. The two rules were never made to line up, and the gap opens in both directions.
- The joint-filer shortfall: two spouses each earning $180,000 have nothing withheld, since neither one crosses $200,000. Together they are at $360,000, which is $110,000 past the $250,000 joint threshold. They owe $990.00 in April with $0 sitting against it.
- The separate-filer surprise: file married filing separately and you owe the surtax on everything above $125,000, but no employer withholds a cent of it until you hit $200,000.
- The over-withheld single filer: switch jobs mid-year, have both employers push you past $200,000 on their own books, and more comes out than you owe. Form 8959 squares it up and the excess lands on your return as a credit.
The calculator flags the split whenever your projected wages put the withheld amount and the Form 8959 figure at odds. Thresholds and the withholding rule come from IRS Topic No. 560. Nobody indexes them for inflation, so they have sat at the same dollar figures since 2013, catching a few more people every year.
FICA on a pay stub, and self-employment tax
On a real stub, none of this shows up as one "FICA" line. Social Security and Medicare are two separate items in the tax deduction block, each with an amount for the period and a YTD column next to it. High earners pick up a third line for Additional Medicare. Employer FICA, when a stub bothers to show it, sits under employer contributions, printed for the record and never subtracted from net pay. The preview above copies that layout.
Self-employed workers pay both halves, called SECA. The rate is 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare), but it lands on 92.35% of net earnings instead of the whole thing, which roughly cancels out the employer share you never got to deduct. The same $184,500 wage base caps the 12.4% part, and any W-2 wages you earned eat into that base first. Half the tax is deductible above the line. Under $400 of net earnings, you owe no SE tax at all.
The figures still have to land on a document. Payslip44 builds the stub: Social Security, Medicare, and Additional Medicare as tax lines with their own YTD amounts, employer FICA as an employer contribution, and money math that will not drift by a cent on a cap-straddling paycheck. It runs on-device, and stubs export to PDF, PNG, CSV, or plain text. Other calculators live on the tools page.
Got your FICA lines? Download Payslip44 and put them on a real stub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about fica tax calculator
How much FICA is taken out of my paycheck?
For most people it is 7.65% of FICA-taxable wages: 6.2% for Social Security plus 1.45% for Medicare. On a $2,500 biweekly check that is $155.00 of Social Security and $36.25 of Medicare, so $191.25 comes out. Your employer pays the same 7.65% on top, out of its own pocket, and never takes it from you.
What is the 2026 Social Security wage base?
It is $184,500, up from $176,100 in 2025. Once your year-to-date wages pass that figure, the 6.2% stops for the rest of the calendar year, which caps employee Social Security tax at $11,439.00. Medicare has no wage cap, so the 1.45% keeps coming out of every check. If you are not sure where your YTD stands, the YTD earnings calculator works it out from one stub.
Does my employer pay FICA too?
Yes. Your employer matches your 6.2% Social Security and your 1.45% Medicare dollar for dollar, which is where the 15.3% combined figure comes from. The one exception is the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax: employers withhold it but do not match it. Doubling the surtax is a common bug in other FICA calculators.
What is the Additional Medicare Tax and when does it start?
An extra 0.9% on wages above $200,000, paid by the employee alone. Your employer has to start withholding it the moment your YTD wages cross $200,000, and your filing status has nothing to do with it. What you actually owe gets worked out later on Form 8959, against your filing-status threshold: $250,000 married filing jointly, $125,000 married filing separately, $200,000 for everyone else. The two figures disagree more often than not.
Why did my Social Security tax stop mid-year?
You hit the $184,500 wage base. Social Security withholding stops for the rest of the year once your YTD wages reach it, so your take-home rises on the next check. Medicare keeps coming out. Withholding restarts in January, when the YTD ledger resets to zero and a new wage base applies.
Do 401(k) contributions reduce FICA tax?
No, and this trips people up constantly. Traditional 401(k) deferrals cut your federal income tax, but Social Security and Medicare still hit them, so your FICA wages do not move. Section 125 cafeteria-plan premiums (health, dental, vision) and payroll HSA contributions are the ones that do come off first. Only those belong in the pre-tax field above.
How much FICA do the self-employed pay?
Self-employed filers pay SECA at 15.3%: 12.4% Social Security (capped at the same $184,500 wage base) plus 2.9% Medicare, both halves, since there is no employer to split it with. The rate applies to 92.35% of net self-employment earnings, not the full amount. Half of the tax is deductible above the line, and no SE tax is owed at all if net earnings are under $400.
Can I get a refund if too much Social Security was withheld?
If two or more employers withheld past the cap because neither knew about the other, claim the excess as a credit on Schedule 3 of your return. If a single employer over-withheld, ask them to correct it first; if they will not, file Form 843. The employer share is never refunded to you, only the employee share.