How much tax is taken out of my paycheck in North Carolina?

A touch more than the headline rate suggests, deliberately: North Carolina has employers withhold with a small cushion built in, so the state line runs slightly ahead of the tax itself. Federal income tax and the Social Security and Medicare deductions join it on the stub. The calculator above shows the combined figure for your wage, period and filing status.

Why is North Carolina withholding more than the state's tax rate?

By design. Employers are told to add a small cushion on top of the rate the state taxes at, so that the average employee ends the year owing nothing rather than owing a little. Anything not needed comes back on the return.

Which filing status gets the largest deduction in North Carolina?

Head of household, by a wide margin over the other two. Single and joint filers receive the same deduction as each other here, which is unusual: most states hand a joint filer roughly twice what a single filer gets.

Do allowances change what North Carolina takes out?

They do. Each one claimed on the state's own certificate removes a set sum from the income before the rate is applied, on top of the standard deduction that every employee receives.

North Carolina paycheck calculator

North Carolina charges one rate on the pay that remains after a standard deduction, and that deduction is larger for someone filing as head of household than for a single or a joint filer, which is an unusual shape. Allowances claimed on the state's certificate take a further fixed sum off the income.

Take-home pay

$1,629.11

per bi-weekly (26 per year) period

Gross pay: $2,000.00
Federal Income Tax: −$156.15
Social Security: −$124.00
Medicare: −$29.00
NC State Income Tax: −$61.74
Net pay: $1,629.11

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

How North Carolina withholding is worked out

The state does something openly that almost no other state does at all: it instructs employers to withhold at a little more than the rate it actually taxes at. The extra is a fraction of a point, added deliberately as a cushion so an employee is more likely to finish the year having overpaid than underpaid. It is small, and it is the reason a stub from this state will not reconcile exactly against the headline rate however carefully the arithmetic is checked. The cushion is inside the figure shown here, because it is inside what an employer actually withholds.

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.

North Carolina reads one schedule whatever the filing status. Wages are annualised first, so the figures below are annual.

Every filing status
Annual wages	Tax on the lower figure	Rate on the rest
$0.00 and up	$0.00	4.09%

Annual standard deduction

Single: $12,750.00

Married filing jointly: $12,750.00

Head of household: $19,125.00

Exemption per allowance

$2,500.00

Taken off the income before the schedule.

North Carolina withholds at 3.99% plus a 0.1% cushion.

NC-30 (Web 11-25). Married filing jointly gets the same $12,750 deduction as single; only head of household differs.

North Carolina sources

https://www.ncdor.gov/income-tax-withholding-tables-and-instructions-employers/open

Frequently asked questions

What North Carolina law asks of a pay stub

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

North Carolina pay stub requirements