Pay & earnings

Raise / Promotion Calculator

See your new take-home pay after a raise or promotion.

Last data update: May 26, 2026 · 2026 IRS marginal brackets

Current annual salary

Your current gross pre-tax salary.

Raise type

Raise:

Typical merit raises run 3–5%; promotions 8–15%.

Raise amount (annual)

Flat dollar bump to your annual gross.

Filing status

Affects which bracket your raise lands in.

Marginal federal bracket:

Pick the bracket your top dollar falls into. See breakdown below.

State income tax rate:

0% for TX/FL/WA/etc; ~5% mid; ~10%+ CA/NY/HI.

New annual gross salary

from

Gross increase

+ /

Net annual increase after taxes

You keep roughly of every extra dollar.

Extra take-home / month

Extra take-home / biweekly

Effective marginal rate applied

Federal bracket

State income tax

FICA (SS + Medicare) 7.65%

Combined marginal

Marginal-rate approximation only — doesn't model bracket crossover, deductions, or SS wage cap. For a full breakdown, use the Take-Home Pay Calculator.

How to use this calculator

Enter your current annual salary — the pre-tax number on your offer letter or last W-2. Then pick how the raise is being offered to you: as a percentage (the most common form, e.g. "a 5% merit increase") or as a flat dollar amount (typical for promotions, e.g. "we're bumping you $10,000"). Toggle between the two modes and the calculator switches the input field for you.

Set your filing status and the marginal federal tax bracket your top dollar lands in. The bracket selector offers the five rates most working professionals see (12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%). If you're not sure, pick the bracket matching your current salary range — for 2026, single filers hit the 22% bracket around $47k, 24% around $103k, and 32% around $197k.

Adjust the state income tax rate slider. Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada, Tennessee, Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota, and New Hampshire have 0%. Most mid-tier states sit around 4–6%. California, New York, Hawaii, and Oregon push 9–13% at higher incomes.

The result card shows your new annual gross, the net increase after taxes, and how much extra hits each monthly and biweekly paycheck. The breakdown at the bottom walks through the combined marginal rate so you can see exactly why your raise doesn't fully show up in your bank account.

Calculation method

The math is intentionally simple so you can sanity-check it on a napkin:

Raise amount = current salary × raise % (percentage mode), or the flat dollar amount you entered
New gross salary = current salary + raise amount
Combined marginal rate = federal bracket + state rate + 7.65% FICA (6.2% Social Security + 1.45% Medicare)
Net annual increase = raise amount × (1 − combined marginal rate / 100)
Monthly net increase = net annual increase ÷ 12
Biweekly net increase = net annual increase ÷ 26

This is a marginal-rate approximation, not a full progressive bracket recalculation. It treats every dollar of your raise as taxed at the same combined rate. That's a good model when your entire raise fits inside a single federal bracket — which is true for most merit increases. It's less accurate when a raise straddles brackets (e.g. a $30k bump that pushes you from the top of 22% into the middle of 24%), in which case the true blended rate sits between the two.

A few simplifications worth knowing: we don't model the Social Security wage cap (which freezes the 6.2% portion of FICA at $176,100 for 2026), itemized deductions, retirement contribution changes, or the Additional Medicare Tax (0.9% on earnings above $200k single / $250k MFJ). For a full bracket-by-bracket take-home calculation, use the Take-Home Pay Calculator.

Examples

$75,000 salary + 5% merit raise (22% bracket, 5% state)

Raise amount: $3,750
New gross: $78,750
Combined marginal rate: 22% + 5% + 7.65% = 34.65%
Net annual increase: $2,451
Extra take-home / month: $204
Extra take-home / biweekly: $94

A standard merit bump. You keep roughly 65 cents of every raise dollar.

$90,000 salary + $10,000 flat bump (24% bracket, 0% state)

Raise amount: $10,000
New gross: $100,000
Combined marginal rate: 24% + 0% + 7.65% = 31.65%
Net annual increase: $6,835
Extra take-home / month: $570
Extra take-home / biweekly: $263

No-income-tax state (TX/FL/WA/etc) keeps far more of a dollar raise than a coastal state would.

$120,000 salary + 8% promotion (32% bracket, 9.3% state)

Raise amount: $9,600
New gross: $129,600
Combined marginal rate: 32% + 9.3% + 7.65% = 48.95%
Net annual increase: $4,901
Extra take-home / month: $408
Extra take-home / biweekly: $189

High-income, high-tax-state promotion. Almost half the gross raise vanishes to combined taxes — a real disappointment for many California and New York employees seeing their first big jump.

Frequently Asked Questions

Your raise is taxed at the marginal rate — the rate that applies to your top dollar of income — which is always higher than your effective rate (the blended average across your whole salary). In a 22% federal bracket with 5% state and 7.65% FICA, the marginal rate is 34.65%, so 35 cents of every raise dollar disappears before it reaches your paycheck. The effective rate on your full salary is much lower because the early brackets (10%, 12%) tax your first dollars at low rates.

Yes, and this calculator is the case for it. Every $1,000 you negotiate up adds ~$650 to your take-home in a typical 22% bracket / 5% state state, or ~$510 in a high-tax state. Over five years that compounds: $5,000 more salary now is roughly $25,000 more take-home over five years, plus larger future raise bases (raises are usually a % of current salary). The marginal-tax bite is exactly why negotiating hard at the start matters — raises are taxed harder than the initial offer.

For federal income tax, yes — a promotion that bumps your salary by $X is taxed identically to a merit raise of the same $X. The catch with promotions is that they often push you into a higher bracket than your previous raises, so the marginal rate jumps. A $15k promotion that takes you from $90k to $105k may straddle the 22%/24% boundary (single filer), meaning part of the raise is taxed at 22% and part at 24%. This calculator approximates with a single bracket; for that crossover case, pick the higher of the two for a conservative estimate.

Marginal rate = the tax rate on your next dollar of income. Effective rate = total tax paid ÷ total income. For a single filer earning $80,000 in 2026, the marginal federal rate is 22% but the effective federal rate is closer to 13–14% because most of the income was taxed at the 10% and 12% brackets first. When evaluating a raise, marginal is the right rate to use because the raise sits on top of everything you already earned. When evaluating your overall tax burden, use effective.

FICA = 6.2% Social Security + 1.45% Medicare = 7.65%, applied to wage income. Two caveats: the 6.2% Social Security portion stops at the wage base limit ($176,100 for 2026), so raises that push you past that ceiling are taxed at only 1.45% (Medicare) on the portion above the cap. And if your wages cross $200k (single) or $250k (MFJ), an additional 0.9% Medicare surcharge kicks in on the excess. This calculator assumes you stay below both thresholds for simplicity.

Raise / Promotion Calculator

How to use this calculator

Calculation method

Examples

$75,000 salary + 5% merit raise (22% bracket, 5% state)

$90,000 salary + $10,000 flat bump (24% bracket, 0% state)

$120,000 salary + 8% promotion (32% bracket, 9.3% state)

Frequently Asked Questions

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