Tennessee Paycheck Calculator

How to use the Tennessee paycheck calculator

1. Choose salary or hourly, then enter your pay before tax.
2. Pick how often you’re paid and the filing status from your Form W-4.
3. Add any traditional 401(k) and pre-tax health premiums that come out of each paycheck. Open “More W-4 options” if you claimed dependents, checked the Step 2 box, or asked for extra withholding.
4. Press Calculate to see your estimated take-home pay, where every dollar goes, and the IRS working behind the federal tax figure.

How your Tennessee paycheck is calculated

Traditional 401(k) contributions lower the wages used for federal income tax, but not for Social Security and Medicare. Pre-tax health premiums through a Section 125 plan lower both.

Worked example

$52,000 salary, paid monthly, head of household with one child

A single parent filing as head of household, earning $52,000 a year, paid 12 times a year, claiming one child under 17.

1. Gross pay per paycheck: $4,333.33.
2. Federal income tax: the adjusted annual wage is $43,400.00. The IRS table for head of household filers gives $1,770.00 + 12% of the amount over $33,250.00 = $2,988.00 a year, minus $2,200.00 in child credits, or $65.67 per paycheck.
3. Social Security (6.2%): $268.67. Medicare (1.45%): $62.83.
4. State income tax: $0.00.

Estimated take-home pay: $3,936.17 per paycheck, or about $47,234.00 a year.

Tennessee paycheck facts

No tax on wages, and no Hall tax anymore

Tennessee has never taxed wages. It used to tax some interest and dividends through the Hall income tax, but that tax was fully repealed from January 1, 2021. Today Tennessee has no personal income tax at all.

Where Tennessee collects instead

Tennessee relies heavily on sales tax. The state rate is 7%, and with local taxes the combined rate in many areas is among the highest in the country. That doesn’t affect your paycheck, but it affects what your paycheck buys.

Minimum wage

Tennessee has no state minimum wage law, so the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour applies to most jobs.

What changed on the 2026 Form W-4

The 2026 W-4 raised the Step 3 credit for each child under 17 to $2,200, up from $2,000. Step 4(b) also has a longer deductions worksheet. You can now include estimated deductions for qualified overtime pay and qualified tips, which were added by the 2025 tax law known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. A larger Step 4(b) amount means less federal tax withheld from each paycheck.

These deductions only lower federal income tax. Social Security and Medicare still apply to overtime and tips. Our overtime calculator estimates how much of your overtime pay could qualify.

When you’d actually use a paycheck calculator

• Weighing a job offer in Tennessee. Turn the salary on the offer letter into the amount that actually lands in your bank account every payday.
• Budgeting rent before you sign the lease. Landlords quote rent against gross pay. Your budget runs on take-home pay, and the difference is bigger than most people expect.
• Deciding how much to put in your 401(k). Try a few contribution amounts and watch how little each extra dollar of savings costs your paycheck.

What this calculator doesn’t include

To keep it simple, the calculator leaves out a few things that can change a real paycheck:

• Roth 401(k) contributions, union dues, wage garnishments and other after-tax deductions.
• Bonuses and other supplemental pay, which employers often withhold at a flat 22%.
• Pay that changes during the year. Social Security and the extra Medicare tax depend on your pay so far this year, so the per-paycheck figures here are yearly averages.
• Forms W-4 from 2019 or earlier, which use allowances instead of the current steps.
• Local taxes. Tennessee has no city or county income taxes, so there’s nothing to add here.

How we calculate

Federal income tax uses the 2026 percentage method tables for automated payroll systems in IRS Publication 15-T, Worksheet 1A, for Forms W-4 from 2020 or later. Social Security uses the 2026 wage base of $184,500 announced by the Social Security Administration. Tennessee has no state income tax or employee payroll taxes to add. We calculate at full precision and round to the cent for display. Your employer may round differently or use the IRS wage bracket tables, so expect your real paycheck to differ by a few cents or more. We review these figures each January when the IRS publishes new tables. Found a difference? Tell us.

Other states: Texas, Florida, Nevada, Washington