How much tax is taken out of my paycheck in California?

Add up four lines. Federal income tax comes out on your W-4, Social Security and Medicare take their payroll share, California works its own figure out under Method B, and SDI is withheld beside it. The calculator above runs all of them for your wage, period and filing status, so the answer is specific to you rather than a typical figure.

Why is the state tax on my California paycheck not simply my wage times the bracket rate?

Because withholding is a different calculation from the one on your return. Method B annualises a single period's pay, applies the schedule to that annual figure, subtracts the allowance credit and divides the result back down to the period. Your return then settles the real amount against the year you actually had.

What is the SDI line on a California pay stub?

State Disability Insurance, which also funds Paid Family Leave. It comes out of the employee's pay at a rate California sets in law, on nearly the same wages as the income tax, with one difference that matters on a stub: salary reductions into a cafeteria plan are exempt from it, while reductions into a qualified retirement plan are not.

Do the allowances on Form DE 4 change what California takes out?

They do, and they work as a credit against the tax rather than as a cut to the income it is charged on. Each allowance takes a fixed dollar amount off the tax already computed, which is why one allowance is worth the same to a high earner as to a low one.

California paycheck calculator

California works out withholding with Method B, the exact-calculation method its Employment Development Department publishes for employers: the pay for one period is annualised, taxed on the schedule for the filing status, then reduced by a credit for every allowance claimed on Form DE 4. Wages under a low-income threshold are not withheld on at all.

Take-home pay

$1,609.32

per bi-weekly (26 per year) period

Gross pay: $2,000.00
Federal Income Tax: −$156.15
Social Security: −$124.00
Medicare: −$29.00
CA State Income Tax: −$55.53
CA SDI: −$26.00
Net pay: $1,609.32

Carries these figures into a full California pay stub you can preview and download.

How California withholding is worked out

Two things set California apart from most states. It publishes a genuinely different bracket schedule for each filing status, so the married column below is not the single one doubled. And it withholds State Disability Insurance from the same paycheck as a line of its own, at a rate set in law rather than chosen by the employer. One caveat we cannot calculate away, and the state's own method is the reason for it: the married figures assume two or more allowances, and estimated-deduction allowances are not modelled here.

These are withholding figures: what an employer takes out of one paycheck, which is not the same calculation as the one on an annual return.

Wages are annualised before the schedule is read, so the figures below are annual.

Single
Annual wages	Tax on the lower figure	Rate on the rest
$0.00 to $11,079.00	$0.00	1.1%
$11,079.00 to $26,264.00	$121.87	2.2%
$26,264.00 to $41,452.00	$455.94	4.4%
$41,452.00 to $57,542.00	$1,124.21	6.6%
$57,542.00 to $72,724.00	$2,186.15	8.8%
$72,724.00 to $371,479.00	$3,522.17	10.23%
$371,479.00 to $445,771.00	$34,084.81	11.33%
$445,771.00 to $742,953.00	$42,502.09	12.43%
$742,953.00 to $1,000,000.00	$79,441.81	13.53%
$1,000,000.00 and up	$114,220.27	14.63%

Married filing jointly
Annual wages	Tax on the lower figure	Rate on the rest
$0.00 to $22,158.00	$0.00	1.1%
$22,158.00 to $52,528.00	$243.74	2.2%
$52,528.00 to $82,904.00	$911.88	4.4%
$82,904.00 to $115,084.00	$2,248.42	6.6%
$115,084.00 to $145,448.00	$4,372.30	8.8%
$145,448.00 to $742,958.00	$7,044.33	10.23%
$742,958.00 to $891,542.00	$68,169.60	11.33%
$891,542.00 to $1,000,000.00	$85,004.17	12.43%
$1,000,000.00 to $1,485,906.00	$98,485.50	13.53%
$1,485,906.00 and up	$164,228.58	14.63%

Head of household
Annual wages	Tax on the lower figure	Rate on the rest
$0.00 to $22,173.00	$0.00	1.1%
$22,173.00 to $52,530.00	$243.90	2.2%
$52,530.00 to $67,716.00	$911.75	4.4%
$67,716.00 to $83,805.00	$1,579.93	6.6%
$83,805.00 to $98,990.00	$2,641.80	8.8%
$98,990.00 to $505,208.00	$3,978.08	10.23%
$505,208.00 to $606,251.00	$45,534.18	11.33%
$606,251.00 to $1,000,000.00	$56,982.35	12.43%
$1,000,000.00 to $1,010,417.00	$105,925.35	13.53%
$1,010,417.00 and up	$107,334.77	14.63%

Annual standard deduction

Single: $5,706.00

Married filing jointly: $11,412.00

Head of household: $11,412.00

Credit per allowance

$168.30

Taken off the tax, not off the income.

Withholds nothing below

Single: $18,896.00

Married filing jointly: $37,791.00

Head of household: $37,791.00

Method B heads its first column "Single Persons, Dual Income Married or Married with Multiple Employers" and prints the married row of Tables 1 and 3 twice, once for nought or one allowance and once for two or more. Both halves are loaded: two allowances earn the doubled standard deduction and low income exemption, and either a spouse with earnings or an employee drawing wages from more than one employer moves the employee onto the single column outright, rate schedule included. Estimated-deduction allowances are not modelled.

Withheld beside the income tax

CA SDI — 1.3%: California State Disability Insurance, which also funds Paid Family Leave. Withheld from the employee, at a rate set by law rather than by the employer. There is no wage ceiling on it, so it is withheld all year.

California sources

Frequently asked questions

What California law asks of a pay stub

Whether a stub is required, how it may be delivered, and the minimum wage and pay frequency rules.

California pay stub requirements