UT · federal and state withholding
2026 Utah hourly paycheck calculator
Your rate and your hours in, one paycheck out. Utah withholds at 4.45%, but on its own schedule: the allowance it subtracts shrinks as your pay rises. The table below turns each rate into a yearly salary and shows the take-home pay left after every deduction.
That is $1,600.00 of gross pay per paycheck, $41,600.00 a year. Overtime runs through the same withholding tables as the rest of the cheque — there is no penalty rate. Tips, shift differentials and unpaid weeks are not modelled.
Take-home pay
per paycheck · $33,829.38 a year
- Gross pay
- $1,600.00
- Federal income tax
- −$108.15
- Social Security
- −$99.20
- Medicare
- −$23.20
- State income tax
- −$68.32
- Total withheld
- $298.87
18.7% of gross goes to taxes. 2026 rates. Estimate only — your employer's payroll may differ.
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At 40 hours a week
What each rate actually pays in Utah
| An hour | A year, before tax | Take-home a year | Every 2 weeks |
|---|---|---|---|
| $15 | $31,200 | $26,071 | $1,003 |
| $18 | $37,440 | $30,726 | $1,182 |
| $20 | $41,600 | $33,829 | $1,301 |
| $22 | $45,760 | $36,933 | $1,420 |
| $25 | $52,000 | $41,648 | $1,602 |
| $30 | $62,400 | $49,542 | $1,905 |
| $35 | $72,800 | $56,805 | $2,185 |
40 hours a week, 52 weeks, filing single, paid every two weeks, no pre-tax deductions and no dependents. 2026 rates. The table is straight time only — for an overtime week, use the calculator above, which takes overtime hours at 1.5× or 2×.
Hourly wage vs take-home
What an hour's pay loses in Utah
- Utah applies a single rate of 4.45% to your taxable wages, then subtracts a base allowance. That is why it is often called a flat-tax state — but the withholding is not flat.
- The allowance phases out: for every dollar you earn above a threshold set for your payroll period, 1.3 cents comes off it. Once the allowance reaches zero, every additional dollar is withheld at the full 4.45%.
- Utah has no state withholding certificate of its own. Your employer reads the filing status from your federal Form W-4 and picks the single or married schedule from it. Publication 14 tells employers to use the single column for head-of-household filers, which is what this calculator does.
- Utah taxable wages are the wages subject to federal withholding, so pre-tax deductions like a traditional 401(k) or a section 125 plan lower the Utah figure too. No subtraction is made for W-4 allowances.
- These figures come from Publication 14 Rev. 4/26, which applies to pay periods beginning on or after June 1, 2026.
- Federal income tax and FICA still come out of every paycheck — see the breakdown above.
Common questions
Hourly pay in Utah
How much is $20 an hour after taxes in Utah?
At 40 hours a week, $20 an hour is $41,600 a year before tax. Filing single with no pre-tax deductions, roughly $33,829 of that is take-home pay in Utah — about $1,301 in each biweekly paycheck. Your own figure moves with your W-4, your benefits and the hours you actually work.
Is hourly pay taxed differently from a salary in Utah?
No. Withholding is worked out from what you are paid in the period, not from how the job describes the pay. An hourly worker and a salaried worker who take home the same gross in the same period have the same federal tax, the same FICA and the same state withholding. The difference is that hourly pay varies week to week, so the withheld amount varies with it.
Is this the same as a UT paycheck calculator or a wage calculator?
Yes — one tool, several names, and UT is just the postal abbreviation for Utah. Enter your rate and the hours you are paid for and it works as a UT wage calculator; enter the gross figure from a stub you already have and it works as a UT pay stub calculator, because the lines it returns are the lines your employer prints: gross, federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and state income tax.
What is an hourly rate as a yearly salary in Utah?
At 40 hours a week it is the rate times 2,080 — the "a year, before tax" column in the table above. Take-home is the column beside it, once federal tax, FICA and Utah withholding have come out. If you are paid a fixed salary rather than by the hour, the Utah paycheck calculator asks the same question from the other end.
How is overtime taxed in Utah?
At the same rates as everything else on the cheque. Overtime is ordinary wages — it lands in the same pay period and runs through the same withholding tables, so no part of it is taxed at a penalty rate. A heavy week feels over-taxed because the percentage method annualises whatever the period paid: one busy week is withheld as though every week were that busy, and the difference is settled on your return. Enter your overtime hours in the calculator above and pick the multiplier your employer pays.
What is time and a half, and how do I work it out?
Time and a half is your rate times 1.5 for every hour past 40 in a week — the federal floor under the Fair Labor Standards Act. At $20 an hour that is $30 an overtime hour, so a 46-hour week pays $800 of straight time plus $180 of overtime. Some employers pay double time for holidays or a seventh consecutive day, so the calculator takes 1×, 1.5× or 2×. Tips and bonuses are separate: a bonus is often withheld at a flat supplemental rate rather than through the normal tables, which is why it lands smaller than people expect.
What if my hours change every week?
Withholding is calculated fresh each payroll run, so a heavy week is withheld as though every week were that heavy, and a light week the other way. Over a year it roughly averages out, and the difference is settled on your tax return. Enter a typical week to see a typical paycheck.
What is the difference between bi-weekly and semi-monthly pay?
Bi-weekly is every two weeks — 26 paychecks a year, always the same weekday, and for a 40-hour week always 80 hours on the stub. Semi-monthly is twice a month, usually the 15th and the last day: 24 paychecks, a weekday that moves, and an hour count that drifts between roughly 80 and 92. For hourly work the bi-weekly cheque is the easier one to check, because 80 times your rate is the whole of gross.
What is FICA on my paycheck?
FICA is the pair of federal payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare — 7.65% of gross wages together, 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. It is a flat rate rather than a bracket, so it comes off the first hour you work as well as the last, and your employer pays the same again on top. Social Security stops once you have been paid $184,500 in a year; Medicare has no cap, and wages above $200,000 carry an extra 0.9%. Enter your pay so far this year in the calculator above and both are applied.
What are pre-tax and post-tax deductions?
A pre-tax deduction comes out of gross pay before tax is worked out, so it lowers the amount you are taxed on — traditional 401(k), most health insurance premiums, HSA and FSA. A post-tax deduction comes out after tax and saves you nothing in tax at all — Roth 401(k), union dues, a garnishment, most life cover. Both have their own field under "pre-tax deductions and W-4 details" above, kept apart because they look identical on a pay stub and are not the same money.
Which states have no state income tax?
Texas, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee, Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, New Hampshire, Washington do not tax wage income. That does not always mean federal tax is the only thing withheld: a few of those states collect employee-paid premiums for programmes such as paid family leave or temporary disability, and where that applies this calculator includes it.
What's the difference between single and head of household?
Head of household is for someone unmarried who pays more than half the cost of keeping a home for a qualifying dependant. It is not a bigger standard deduction — Publication 15-T gives single and head of household the same $8,600 in the withholding worksheet — the brackets are simply wider, so more of your pay is taxed at a lower rate. On $20 an hour in Utah it is worth about $1,067 a year of take-home pay. Claiming it when you do not qualify means too little is withheld and a bill at filing time.
Why is there no "number of allowances" field?
Because Form W-4 stopped using allowances in 2020. The redesigned form asks for dependants as dollar amounts in Step 3, and for other income and deductions in Step 4, and the IRS rebuilt the withholding tables around it. A calculator that still asks how many federal allowances you claim is working from a form that was retired. If you have not filed a new W-4 since 2019, your employer is still withholding on your old allowances and no calculator will match your stub until you file one.
Is overtime pay taxed the same as a bonus?
No, and the difference is in the withholding rather than the tax. Overtime goes through the ordinary tables with the rest of your hours. A bonus paid separately is normally withheld at the flat supplemental rate — 22% federal, rising to 37% above $1,000,000 of supplemental pay in a year — which is why a bonus lands smaller than an overtime cheque of the same size. What you finally owe on either is the same; the bonus tax calculator does the supplemental method.
What's the difference between a deduction and withholding?
Withholding is money your employer sends to a tax authority on your behalf — federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, state income tax. A deduction is anything else taken off the cheque: insurance, retirement, union dues. Both shrink your pay, but only withholding is a prepayment of tax, and only withholding is settled up when you file.
Does my employer take unemployment insurance out of my hourly pay?
Almost never. Unemployment insurance is funded by an employer payroll tax in nearly every state and does not appear as a deduction on your stub at all. What some hourly workers do see instead is an employee-paid premium for a related state programme — paid family and medical leave, temporary disability, long-term care — and this calculator includes any that Utah charges.
Sources for these rates
- Utah Publication 14, Withholding Tax Guide (Rev. 4/26)
- IRS Publication 15-T (2026) — federal percentage method
- IRS Publication 15 (2026) — Social Security and Medicare
Tax year 2026. Rates last checked 2026-08-20. Estimates only — not tax, payroll or legal advice.
More Utah calculators
Same UT rates, a different question.
Other states
Hourly wage calculators for other states
Same rate table, another state's withholding — each one turns an hourly rate into a yearly salary and the take-home pay a pay stub would actually show.