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

Fewer things decide it than in most states. Since Virginia ignores filing status, its own line turns only on the pay, how often it arrives and the number of exemptions on your VA-4. Status and the W-4 matter on the federal side of the same stub, and entering a wage above shows both halves together.

Not as one figure on every dollar. Virginia's withholding climbs through a few bands, each with the rate printed in the schedule below, and the standard deduction and the exemptions come off before any band is read. So the share of a paycheck the state actually takes always sits under the rate of its top band, however high the pay.

Why does the Virginia withholding form not ask for my filing status?

Because the state's withholding formula has no use for it. One schedule and one standard deduction serve every employee, so the only personal answer Form VA-4 needs for the arithmetic is the number of exemptions. A married couple settles any difference on the return rather than through the paycheck.

Are the age and blindness exemptions on Form VA-4 included here?

No. The form lets an employee claim extra exemptions for being over a set age or for blindness, and this calculator does not apply them. Anyone who claims them has less Virginia tax withheld than the figure above, by the value of each extra exemption.

Virginia paycheck calculator

Form VA-4 never asks for a filing status, and that one omission shapes the whole Virginia calculation: a single schedule and a single standard deduction serve every employee. The pay is annualised, the deduction comes off, then a fixed sum for each exemption claimed, and the schedule is read on whatever is left.

Take-home pay

$1,605.10

per bi-weekly (26 per year) period

Gross pay: $2,000.00
Federal Income Tax: −$156.15
Social Security: −$124.00
Medicare: −$29.00
VA State Income Tax: −$85.75
Net pay: $1,605.10

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

How Virginia withholding is worked out

The schedule has only a few bands, all of them narrow except the last, so the top rate reaches into the pay of most full-time employees and what separates them is how much of their income sits underneath it. The exemptions are the one thing an employee can move, and the form offers more of them than we model: the extra exemptions for being over a set age or for blindness are not applied here, so anybody claiming them will find less Virginia tax on a real stub than this page shows.

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.

Virginia 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 to $3,000.00	$0.00	2%
$3,000.00 to $5,000.00	$60.00	3%
$5,000.00 to $17,000.00	$120.00	5%
$17,000.00 and up	$720.00	5.75%

Annual standard deduction

Single: $8,750.00

Married filing jointly: $8,750.00

Head of household: $8,750.00

Exemption per allowance

$930.00

Taken off the income before the schedule.

The age and blindness exemptions on Form VA-4 are not applied here, so an employee claiming them has less Virginia tax withheld than this line shows.

Virginia's VA-4 does not collect filing status, so one table serves everyone. Age and blindness exemptions are not modelled.

Virginia sources

Frequently asked questions

What Virginia law asks of a pay stub

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

Virginia pay stub requirements