Take-home pay and salary-tax calculator
Find out your net salary after income tax and social contributions. Enter your annual gross salary, pick your country — UK, US or Germany — and see your take-home pay per year, month and week, plus a full breakdown and your effective tax rate. It is built for anyone comparing a job offer, planning a budget, or sanity-checking a payslip across borders.
The deduction stack, top to bottom
The calculator applies a progressive, marginal-band model. First it works out your
tax-free allowance (UK £12,570 with the £1-per-£2 taper above £100,000; US $14,600
standard deduction; German €11,604 Grundfreibetrag). Income tax is charged on
gross − allowance using each country’s bands, where only the income falling inside
a band is taxed at that band’s rate. Social contributions are charged on gross:
UK employee National Insurance (8% between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2%), US FICA
(7.65% to the wage base, 1.45% above) and combined German social insurance (~20.6%
to the ceiling). Net is gross minus both, and the effective rate is
(income tax + social) ÷ gross.
Country comparison table
| Country | Tax-free allowance | First income-tax band | Employee social |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK (2024/25) | £12,570 (tapered >£100k) | 20% basic rate | NI 8% then 2% |
| US (single, 2024) | $14,600 standard deduction | 10% on first bracket | FICA 7.65% / 1.45% |
| Germany (single, ~2024) | €11,604 Grundfreibetrag | 14% rising to 42% | ~20.6% to ceiling |
Worked example: UK at £45,000
- Tax-free allowance: £12,570
- Taxable income: £45,000 − £12,570 = £32,430 (all falls in the 20% basic band)
- Income tax: 20% × £32,430 = £6,486
- National Insurance: 8% × (£45,000 − £12,570) = 8% × £32,430 = £2,594
- Take-home: £45,000 − £6,486 − £2,594 = £35,920/year, or about £2,993/month
- Effective rate: (£6,486 + £2,594) ÷ £45,000 = 20.2%
Note that your marginal rate is 20% (income tax) + 8% (NI) = 28% on the next pound you earn in this band — meaningfully higher than the 20.2% effective rate.
The UK personal allowance taper
For UK earners above £100,000, the £12,570 personal allowance reduces by £1 for every £2 of income above £100,000. It reaches zero at £125,140. This creates an effective 60% marginal rate on income between £100,000 and £125,140 (40% income tax + 2% NI + the allowance withdrawal effect). The calculator applies the taper automatically.
What this calculator does not include
For a planning estimate this is accurate, but for your actual tax position you need to account for:
- UK: Scottish income tax rates (different bands for Scottish taxpayers), student loan repayments (Plan 1/2/4/Graduate), workplace pension contributions (which reduce NI-able pay if via salary sacrifice), and Marriage Allowance.
- US: State and local income taxes (which vary by state), additional Medicare tax above the wage base, 401(k) deferrals which reduce federal taxable income, and filing status differences (married filing jointly has different brackets).
- Germany: Church tax (Kirchensteuer, an additional 8–9% of income tax for members of a taxed church), solidarity surcharge (Solidaritätszuschlag, mostly eliminated for lower and middle incomes), individual Steuerfreibeträge, and the precise progressive formula used by the German tax authority rather than simplified band tables.
Everything is calculated locally in your browser — your salary is never uploaded. Estimates for guidance only, not tax advice.
Pensions and salary sacrifice: the deduction that pays you back
The single biggest lever most employees have over their take-home figure is pre-tax pension contribution. In the UK, contributions made via salary sacrifice reduce both income tax and National Insurance, so £100 diverted to a pension can cost well under £70 of take-home pay for a basic-rate taxpayer — and even less at higher rates. Similar mechanics apply elsewhere (401(k) deferrals in the US reduce federal taxable wages). When comparing job offers, compare pension-adjusted take-home: an offer with a stronger employer match can beat a nominally higher salary. The current UK bands and allowances are published at GOV.UK income tax rates and the National Insurance schedule at GOV.UK National Insurance rates; this calculator’s country presets are reference simplifications of those schedules, so confirm against the official pages for a filing-grade number.
Marginal traps to know before negotiating a raise
Progressive systems contain narrow bands where an extra pound of salary loses more than the headline rate suggests: the UK personal-allowance taper creates an effective ~60% band just above £100,000, child-benefit clawback creates another above £60,000, and several countries have similar cliff edges around benefit withdrawals. If a raise lands you just inside one of these bands, salary-sacrificing the excess into a pension often returns more value than taking the cash — a five-minute check with this calculator before and after the change shows the real difference.