How much federal tax will I owe?

Your federal tax liability depends on your filing status, taxable income, and deductions. Breakeven projects it from your paychecks and W-4 using the 2026 IRS tax brackets and standard deduction (Revenue Procedure 2025-32). Enter your paychecks on the calculator to see your projected annual liability, the tax already withheld year to date, and the gap between them.

How much should I withhold from my paycheck?

The right amount is whatever withholds exactly your projected annual tax liability, no more and no less. If Breakeven projects a gap, it recommends an additional amount per paycheck to enter in Step 4(c) of your W-4 to close it. That Step 4(c) amount is the simplest W-4 lever to adjust without refiling the full form from scratch.

Why did I owe taxes this year?

The most common cause is under-withholding: your employer's payroll system computed your withholding from a W-4 that did not reflect your full tax picture, such as a second job, a working spouse, or a bonus that pushed you into a higher bracket. Breakeven shows exactly how much you were under-withheld and recommends a W-4 change that would have closed the gap.

Yes. Breakeven is a free in-browser calculator. There are no accounts, no subscriptions, and no data sent to a server. The site is supported by ads shown on the calculator page.

Is Breakeven tax advice?

No. Breakeven does arithmetic based on IRS Publication 15-T (2026) and Revenue Procedure 2025-32. It is a planning tool, not tax advice. Always verify material decisions with the IRS tax withholding estimator or a qualified tax professional before filing a W-4.

What is Step 4(c) on Form W-4?

Step 4(c) is the line on Form W-4 where you enter an extra dollar amount to withhold from each paycheck, on top of the withholding already calculated from your filing status and steps 1 through 3. It is the simplest lever for fine-tuning your withholding without refiling the rest of the form, and it's useful when you have a second job, a working spouse, or a bonus that would otherwise under-withhold.

How often should I update my W-4?

Update your W-4 any time a major fact about your tax picture changes: a new job, a spouse starting or stopping work, a marriage or divorce, a new dependent, a significant raise, or a large bonus. Otherwise, a mid-year check during the spring is usually enough. That gives you time to adjust withholding for the remaining pay periods and avoid a surprise in April.

Does getting a refund mean I did something wrong?

A refund is not a mistake, but it is an interest-free loan to the federal government. If you are getting a large refund every year, you could instead keep that money in each paycheck by reducing your withholding, for example by increasing the dependents credit on Step 3 or removing extra withholding on Step 4(c). Breakeven shows the projected gap so you can choose how close to zero you want to land.

What is the difference between tax withheld and tax owed?

Tax withheld is what your employer deducts from your paycheck and sends to the IRS on your behalf throughout the year. Tax owed is your total federal income tax liability for the year, based on your taxable income, filing status, and deductions. When you file a return in April, the two are compared: withholding greater than liability means a refund, and withholding less than liability means a balance due.

2026 Paycheck Tax Withholding Calculator: How Much Will You Owe?

Private. Nothing you enter leaves this browser tab.

Paychecks (0 of 26)

Pay frequency

Taxable pay

Fed withheld

↑ Start here

Grab your latest paystub. Enter the federal taxable wages on the left, the federal income tax withheld on the right, then tap +.

Current W-4 on file (optional)

Step 3: Dependents credit ($)

Step 4(a): Other income

Step 4(b): Deductions

Step 4(c): Extra withholding per paycheck

Projection

Add a paycheck to see your projection

How to use this calculator

Breakeven projects your 2026federal (and state, where supported) income tax from the paychecks you've already received. The point is to give you a real answer in any month of the year, not just in April after the fact.

The minimum to get a useful projection is one paycheck: the taxable wages on it (your paystub may call this "Federal Taxable Wages" or "Taxable Gross") and the federal income tax withheld from it. Add more paychecks as they arrive; the more you add, the tighter the projection.

Pick your filing status (Single or Married Filing Jointly) and, if you want state tax projected too, pick your state. Eighteen states are currently modeled with their own brackets, flat rates, and surcharges (CA, MA, AZ, IN, IL, MI, PA, CO, NC, and the nine states without an income tax).
Add at least one paycheck. The Pay frequency dropdown (weekly, every two weeks, twice a month, monthly) tells the engine how to project annual income from what you've received so far.
Optionally, fill in your W-4 settings: dependents credit (Step 3), other income (Step 4a), extra deductions (Step 4b), and any extra per-paycheck withholding (Step 4c). The engine uses these to model the withholding side of the equation the same way your employer's payroll system does.
Read the Projection card. If the gap between your projected liability and your projected withholding is more than a hundred dollars or so, the "Update your W-4" card shows you the smallest Step 4(c) change that closes it.
If you want to actually file the W-4 change with your employer, the "Generate W-4" button fills in a real IRS Form W-4 PDF you can save and hand to HR.

What the math is doing

Two numbers, then the gap between them.

Projected annual liabilityis the total federal income tax you'll owe for the year based on your projected annual taxable income. Breakeven extrapolates that annual income from your YTD paychecks (number of paychecks already received times your pay frequency's periods-per-year), subtracts the 2026 standard deduction or your Step 4(b) deductions, and applies the IRS marginal brackets from Revenue Procedure 2025-32.

Projected annual withholding is what your employer will send to the IRS for the year if nothing changes. The engine takes your current per-paycheck withholding rate and projects it across the remaining pay periods.

The gapis liability minus withholding. Positive means you'll owe (because you've under-withheld). Negative means you'll get a refund (because you've over-withheld). The tighter to zero, the more your monthly take-home reflects what you actually owe.

The same math drives the W-4 recommendation. Breakeven divides the gap across your remaining paychecks and proposes a Step 4(c) extra-withholding amount that closes it without re-filing the whole W-4. If the gap is negative (you're over-withheld), the recommendation might instead be to bump Step 3 (dependents credit) or to remove an existing Step 4(c) entry.

When you should re-run this

You got a raise. Mid-year raises shift you into a higher bracket without the W-4 automatically catching up. Re-run the calculator with two or three post-raise paychecks added.
Your spouse started or stopped working. MFJ withholding tables assume one earner is the only earner. A second working spouse almost always under-withholds without a Step 2(c) adjustment.
You took a bonus. Bonuses get withheld at a flat 22% supplemental rate, which is lower than the marginal rate most bonus recipients actually face. See Why is so much tax withheld from my bonus? for the gory detail.
You got married, divorced, or had a kid. Each one shifts the entire projection. The W-4 doesn't recalculate itself.
It's April and you owed money. Run the calculator with your latest paychecks; the recommendation tells you what to set Step 4(c) to in order to not owe again next April.

Privacy

Everything you enter lives in this browser tab and only this browser tab. The site is a static HTML/JavaScript bundle served from a CDN. There is no server-side database, no analytics tracking your entries, and no third-party script reading your inputs. Closing or refreshing the tab clears every paycheck and W-4 value you entered.

The W-4 PDF generator briefly holds your name and Social Security number in memory while it stamps the PDF. Those values are never written to disk, never persisted to IndexedDB, and are discarded when the dialog closes. See the full privacy disclosure for the complete data inventory.

Where this came from

The federal math is sourced from IRS Publication 15-T (2026) — the same document your employer's payroll system uses to compute the federal income tax line on your paystub — and IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32, which publishes the 2026bracket thresholds and standard-deduction amounts. State brackets are sourced from each state's Department of Revenue and cross-referenced against the Tax Foundation. The full citation list is on the methodology page.

Last cross-checked on 2026-04-28. The math is arithmetic from published IRS tables, not tax advice. For material decisions, verify with the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator or a qualified tax professional.