Illinois Paycheck Calculator

On a $75,000 salary with no pre-tax deductions, a single filer in Illinois takes home about $58,025 a year, roughly $2,232 every two weeks. That accounts for federal tax, Illinois’s flat state tax, Social Security, and Medicare.

Here’s the full split on that example: $7,670 in federal income tax, $3,568 in Illinois state tax, $4,650 in Social Security, and $1,088 in Medicare. Federal tax alone is more than double the state tax, which surprises a lot of first-time Illinois filers who assume the flat rate makes state tax the bigger line item.

Illinois applies a flat 4.95% rate to your federal adjusted gross income, not your federal taxable income, and that distinction matters more than it sounds. Illinois doesn’t recognize the federal standard deduction at all.

Instead, Illinois gives you a personal exemption of $2,925 per filer for 2026 (so $5,850 for a married couple filing jointly), subtracted directly from your federal AGI before the 4.95% rate applies. Additional exemptions are available for dependents, but for a basic paycheck calculation we assume no dependents. That’s it — no other standard deduction stacks on top.

This is exactly why a paycheck calculator that just takes your federal taxable income and multiplies by 4.95% will overstate your Illinois refund or understate what you owe, since it’s applying the exemption on top of a deduction Illinois never allowed in the first place.

There’s a cliff built into this exemption too. It disappears completely if your federal AGI exceeds $250,000 (single) or $500,000 (married filing jointly), it doesn’t taper down gradually. Cross that line by one dollar and you lose the full $2,925 (or $5,850) exemption at once.

One more detail worth knowing: if you or your spouse are 65 or older, or legally blind, Illinois adds an extra $1,000 exemption per qualifying condition, confirmed directly on the state’s own guidance page. Turn 65 at any point during the tax year and you can claim it for that whole year, not just the months after your birthday.

Here’s a second example to show how this plays out differently by income level. On a $45,000 salary, single filer, no pre-tax deductions: federal tax comes to $3,220, Illinois tax comes to about $2,083 ($45,000 minus the $2,925 exemption, times 4.95%), Social Security is $2,790, and Medicare is $652.50. Take-home lands around $36,255 a year, or $1,394 every two weeks. Notice the gap between federal and state tax shrinks a lot at this income level compared with the $75,000 example above, since the flat Illinois rate doesn’t scale down the way federal brackets do for lower earners.

Federal income tax uses seven brackets from 10% to 37% in 2026, and where your income falls depends on your filing status and the standard deduction you’re entitled to.

The 2026 standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and $32,200 for married couples filing jointly, both up from 2025 to account for inflation. Like every federal bracket system, these are marginal, not flat, so only the income within each band gets taxed at that band’s rate, not your whole paycheck at your top rate.

You’ll pay 6.2% for Social Security on wages up to $184,500 for 2026, and 1.45% for Medicare with no cap at all. Together these are called FICA taxes, and every employee pays them regardless of filing status.

That $184,500 Social Security wage base is new for 2026, up from $176,100 in 2025, a jump of $8,400. Once your wages cross that line, Social Security withholding stops entirely for the rest of the year, capping out at $11,439. Medicare has no such ceiling, and once your wages pass $200,000, your employer is required to withhold an additional 0.9% for Additional Medicare Tax. For single filers this is also the actual liability threshold; for married filing jointly the actual threshold is $250,000, though the employer still withholds at $200,000 — you may receive a credit or refund when you file if your combined wages are below $250,000.

No, and this is one of Illinois’s biggest tax advantages. Social Security benefits, pensions, and withdrawals from 401(k)s and IRAs are all fully exempt from Illinois’s flat tax, regardless of how much you receive.

That exemption covers government pensions, private pensions, military pensions, and qualified retirement account distributions alike. A retiree pulling $80,000 from a pension and $20,000 from Social Security pays zero Illinois state income tax on any of it. This calculator is built for W-2 wage income specifically, since that’s what an actual paycheck represents, but it’s worth knowing the flat 4.95% rate you see on this page doesn’t follow you into retirement the same way it applies to working income.

No. Unlike states such as Ohio or Pennsylvania, where cities and school districts can add their own income tax on top of the state rate, Illinois has no local income tax anywhere in the state, including Chicago.

That means the 4.95% flat state rate is the whole state-level income tax picture for every Illinois resident, whether you work in Chicago, Springfield, or a small rural county. It’s one less variable this calculator has to account for compared with states where your specific city or county changes your withholding.