This FICA tax calculator splits your payroll tax into its two real parts — 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare — and applies the 2026 rules most online calculators skip: the $184,500 Social Security wage base cap and the extra 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages over $200,000. Enter your annual wages and filing status below to see exactly where each FICA dollar goes, plus what your employer matches.
FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) is the payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare. It is not income tax — it is a flat-rate contribution with no brackets and no standard deduction. The employee share is 7.65%, made of two pieces: 6.2% for Social Security (OASDI) and 1.45% for Medicare (Hospital Insurance). Your employer pays a matching 7.65%, so a combined 15.3% flows into the trust funds for every dollar of covered wages.
| Component | Employee rate | Cap | On a $60,000 salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social Security (OASDI) | 6.2% | $184,500 wage base | $3,720.00 |
| Medicare (HI) | 1.45% | No cap | $870.00 |
| Additional Medicare | +0.9% | Only over $200,000 | $0.00 |
| Total FICA | 7.65% | — | $4,590.00 |
On $60,000, FICA is $4,590 — and your employer quietly pays another $4,590 you never see on your stub. That is why a worker who feels like they "cost" $60,000 actually costs the employer about $64,590 before any other benefits.
Here is the part most paycheck tools get wrong. The 6.2% Social Security tax only applies to the first $184,500 of wages in 2026 (the SSA's Contribution and Benefit Base). The maximum Social Security tax any worker pays in 2026 is therefore $184,500 × 6.2% = $11,439.00. Earn a dollar more and your Social Security withholding stops — which is why high earners notice a small "raise" in their take-home pay late in the year once they cross the cap. Medicare's 1.45%, by contrast, keeps coming out of every paycheck all year because it has no cap.
High earners pay an extra 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages above a threshold that depends on filing status: $200,000 single/head of household, $250,000 married filing jointly, and $125,000 married filing separately. So once a single filer passes $200,000, their Medicare rate effectively becomes 2.35% on the excess. Two important quirks: your employer does not match the 0.9% (it is employee-only), and employers must start withholding it once your wages with that employer pass $200,000 — regardless of your filing status — which is later reconciled on Form 8959 with your tax return.
| Step | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Social Security | $184,500 × 6.2% (capped) | $11,439.00 |
| Regular Medicare | $250,000 × 1.45% | $3,625.00 |
| Additional Medicare | ($250,000 − $200,000) × 0.9% | $450.00 |
| Total employee FICA | — | $15,514.00 |
Notice the effective FICA rate here is only about 6.2% of $250,000 — lower than 7.65% — because the Social Security cap shields income above $184,500 from the 6.2% piece. FICA is mildly regressive at the top for exactly this reason.
FICA is calculated on Medicare wages, not your headline salary. Pre-tax 401(k) contributions reduce your income-tax wages but not your Social Security and Medicare wages — you still pay FICA on money you defer into a traditional 401(k). However, pre-tax health insurance, HSA, and other Section 125 cafeteria-plan deductions do reduce FICA wages. This is why your stub's "Social Security wages" (Box 3) and "Medicare wages" (Box 5) often differ from your gross pay and from your Box 1 federal wages.
If you are self-employed, there is no employer to split FICA with, so you pay the full 15.3% yourself as self-employment tax (SECA) — 12.4% Social Security up to $184,500 plus 2.9% Medicare with no cap. The trade-off is that you deduct half of it as an above-the-line adjustment, and you compute SE tax on 92.35% of net earnings. Our self-employment tax calculator handles that version.
FICA is 7.65% of wages: 6.2% Social Security on the first $184,500 of 2026 wages plus 1.45% Medicare on all wages. High earners pay an extra 0.9% on wages above $200,000 (single). On a $60,000 salary the employee FICA is $4,590 ($3,720 Social Security + $870 Medicare).
The 2026 Social Security wage base is $184,500. The 6.2% Social Security portion only applies up to that amount; the 1.45% Medicare portion has no cap.
Yes. You pay 7.65% and your employer matches another 7.65%, for a combined 15.3%. The employer does not match the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax.
An extra 0.9% on Medicare wages above $200,000 (single), $250,000 (MFJ), or $125,000 (MFS), paid only by the employee on top of the regular 1.45%.
No. FICA is a flat 7.65% funding Social Security and Medicare. Federal income tax is separate, uses graduated brackets, and depends on your W-4 and deductions.