How much tax is taken out of my paycheck in New Jersey?

More lines than in most states. Beside the federal income tax and the Social Security and Medicare deductions, New Jersey withholds its own tax from the table that matches your letter and how often you are paid, and adds three contributions of its own for unemployment, disability and family leave insurance. Enter your wage and letter to see each of them as a line of its own.

Why does a 401(k) contribution lower my New Jersey withholding when a health premium does not?

Because the state draws the line somewhere other than the federal formula does. NJ-WT, the state's withholding guide for employers, leaves elective deferrals into a 401(k), up to the federal limit, outside the wages it withholds on, but counts salary reductions into a cafeteria plan as taxable even when they buy benefits rather than cash. The calculator above asks for no deductions; the generator takes them line by line and applies that rule to each.

Which New Jersey withholding table should I choose on Form NJ-W4?

The letter follows your filing status unless you pick another: A for single filers and married or civil union partners filing separately, B for joint filers, heads of household and qualifying widows or widowers. The wage chart on the form leads some employees to C, D or E instead, and the calculator offers all five letters so a stub can be matched to the one on file.

What are the unemployment, disability and family leave lines on a New Jersey pay stub?

Worker contributions the state charges beside the income tax. One combines unemployment insurance with the workforce development and supplemental workforce funds, and the W-2 reports it as a single figure; the other two pay for temporary disability and family leave insurance. Each stops for the year once wages pass its own ceiling, and the ceilings are not all the same.

New Jersey paycheck calculator

New Jersey does not annualise a paycheck and read one schedule off the result. It prints a separate set of tables for every pay frequency, one set per letter on Form NJ-W4: table A for single filers, table B for joint filers and heads of household, and three more letters an employee can be steered to by the wage chart printed on the form. Each allowance takes a fixed amount of the period's own pay out before the table is read.

Take-home pay

$1,614.77

per bi-weekly (26 per year) period

Gross pay: $2,000.00
Federal Income Tax: −$156.15
Social Security: −$124.00
Medicare: −$29.00
NJ State Income Tax: −$59.18
NJ UI/WF/SWF: −$8.50
NJ Temporary Disability Insurance: −$3.80
NJ Family Leave Insurance: −$4.60
Net pay: $1,614.77

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

How New Jersey withholding is worked out

What the tables are charged on is where New Jersey parts company with the federal line on the same stub. Contributions to a 401(k), up to the federal limit, come out of the pay before the state's withholding is worked out, so saving for retirement lowers the New Jersey figure as well as the federal one. Money routed through a cafeteria plan does not get that treatment: a health premium taken before federal tax is still taxable wages here, and the state line is charged on it. Beside the income tax sit three worker contributions the state takes as lines of their own, for unemployment and workforce funds, for disability insurance and for family leave insurance, the last of them paid for by workers alone.

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.

New Jersey prints a withholding table for every pay frequency and for every letter on its own form, and works the tax out inside the pay period. The annual tables are shown below, under the letter each filing status takes unless the employee chooses another.

Table A: Single
Annual wages	Tax on the lower figure	Rate on the rest
$0.00 to $20,000.00	$0.00	1.5%
$20,000.00 to $35,000.00	$300.00	2%
$35,000.00 to $40,000.00	$600.00	3.9%
$40,000.00 to $75,000.00	$795.00	6.1%
$75,000.00 to $500,000.00	$2,930.00	7%
$500,000.00 to $1,000,000.00	$32,680.00	9.9%
$1,000,000.00 and up	$82,180.00	11.8%

Table B: Married filing jointly and head of household
Annual wages	Tax on the lower figure	Rate on the rest
$0.00 to $20,000.00	$0.00	1.5%
$20,000.00 to $50,000.00	$300.00	2%
$50,000.00 to $70,000.00	$900.00	2.7%
$70,000.00 to $80,000.00	$1,440.00	3.9%
$80,000.00 to $150,000.00	$1,830.00	6.1%
$150,000.00 to $500,000.00	$6,100.00	7%
$500,000.00 to $1,000,000.00	$30,600.00	9.9%
$1,000,000.00 and up	$80,100.00	11.8%

Exemption per allowance

Weekly: $19.20

Biweekly: $38.40

Semi-monthly: $41.60

Monthly: $83.30

Annually: $1,000.00

Taken off the pay of the period before the table for that period is read.

Tables for Percentage Method of Withholding, in force for wages paid on and after October 1, 2020 and still the current edition; the allowance values and the rule for choosing a table are from NJ-WT, September 2025. New Jersey withholds inside the pay period rather than the year: one allowance is worth a figure of the period, and every lettered table is printed once per period. The worked examples the state prints were computed against an older edition of these tables and disagree with the printed ones by a cent or two, so only three of them still come out to the cent. The quarterly, semiannual and daily tables are not modelled: the form has no such frequency. What the tables are charged on is NJ-WT's own list, and it splits the two pre-tax deductions the federal formula treats alike: contributions to a 401(k) up to the federal limit are not subject to withholding here, while amounts an employee takes out of a cafeteria plan are, even where the employee elects benefits rather than cash. So a health premium taken before tax federally is still taxable wages in New Jersey. The exception NJ-WT prints beside it is not modelled, because it turns on how a particular plan is written: a cafeteria plan that requires part of the benefit dollars to be spent on a minimum level of cover falls outside the rule, and the form has no way to ask which kind of plan an employer runs.

Withheld beside the income tax

NJ UI/WF/SWF — 0.425%: New Jersey's unemployment, workforce development and supplemental workforce funds, which the worker pays into beside the employer and the W-2 reports as one figure. Withheld until wages for the year reach $44,800.00.
NJ Temporary Disability Insurance — 0.19%: New Jersey's temporary disability insurance, which workers pay for through deductions taken out of their paychecks. Withheld until wages for the year reach $171,100.00.
NJ Family Leave Insurance — 0.23%: New Jersey's family leave insurance is financed entirely by worker payroll deductions; employers do not contribute to the programme at all. Withheld until wages for the year reach $171,100.00.

New Jersey sources

Frequently asked questions

What New Jersey law asks of a pay stub

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

New Jersey pay stub requirements