Massachusetts Hourly Paycheck Calculator 2026
Massachusetts taxes hourly wages at a flat 5%, so every extra hour is taxed at the same state rate as your first — there is no bracket to climb into by picking up a shift. At $20 an hour and 40 hours a week ($41,600 gross) the modeled Massachusetts income tax is about $1,860 a year, leaving roughly $33,554, or about 81% of gross.
The biggest variable for hourly workers is not the tax rate — it is the hours. The figures below assume 52 paid weeks at 40 hours. Unpaid time off, a part-time schedule or a fluctuating roster all move the annual total, which is why the tables cover part-time hours and overtime as well as a standard week.
Overtime is where hourly pay differs most from salary. Hours past 40 in a week are generally paid at time and a half under federal law, and that premium is ordinary taxable income — it is not taxed at a special penalty rate, though a bigger single check can be over-withheld and refunded at filing. The overtime table below shows what a Massachusetts year actually looks like at 45, 50 and 55 hours a week.
The calculator shows one paycheck as payroll would withhold it, with federal tax from your Form W-4 under the IRS 2026 percentage method. The tables below are annual estimates for a single filer.
Paid a salary instead? Use the Massachusetts paycheck calculator, or convert a rate with the annual pay calculator.
Paid at 1.5× your hourly rate. Total regular and overtime hours cannot exceed 168 per week.
Form W-4 adjustments · optional
Copy these from the W-4 you gave your employer. Leave them blank if you only filled in Step 1.
$2,200 for each child under 17 plus $500 for each other dependent, as entered on the form.
Capped at the 2026 standard employee limit of $24,500.
Health premiums, HSA and similar. Lowers income tax and take-home cash, but not Social Security, Medicare or state program deductions.
- Gross pay
- $1,600.00
- Federal income tax withheld
- −$98.55
- Massachusetts income tax (est.)
- −$67.54
- Social Security and Medicare
- −$122.40
- MA PFML
- −$7.36
- 401(k) contribution
- −$80.00
- Take-home pay
- $1,224.15
An estimated $1,756 a year goes to Massachusetts income tax. Massachusetts's payroll program (MA PFML) takes $191 a year on this pay.
Federal withholding follows IRS Publication 15-T (2026) and your Form W-4 entries. Massachusetts income tax is the year's estimated tax spread evenly across your paychecks; your employer's state withholding formula can differ a little. Social Security, Medicare and state program deductions are averaged over the year. Credits, bonuses and mid-year changes are not modeled. The temporary federal deduction for qualified overtime pay is not calculated; in the paycheck view it counts only if you include it in your W-4 Step 4(b) deductions.
Sources & assumptions
Tax year 2026
Tax data 2026.10.29-interim
Page updated 2026-10-29
- The per-paycheck view withholds federal income tax from your Form W-4 entries using the IRS 2026 percentage method (Publication 15-T). State income tax is the year's estimate spread evenly across paychecks, not the state's own withholding formula.
- Mandatory state payroll programs (such as CA SDI, NY Paid Family Leave, NJ and RI disability insurance, WA Paid Leave and WA Cares) are included at their 2026 employee rates and caps. The Annual tax view shows the year's liability instead of withholding.
- Pay date, year-to-date pay, bonuses, tax credits and residence/work-state interaction are not modeled.
- Local income tax is included only when you select a listed or custom rate in a salaried state calculator. Hourly estimates and comparison tables exclude local income tax; listed rates are representative, so confirm yours with your locality.
- State schedules are an interim planning model. Filing combinations without a sourced schedule are unavailable rather than silently approximated.
- Internal Revenue Service: 2026 inflation adjustments and income-tax brackets — Federal annual-liability brackets and standard deductions.
- Internal Revenue Service: Publication 15-T (2026) — Worksheet 1A and the 2026 annual percentage-method tables used for per-paycheck federal withholding from a Form W-4.
- Social Security Administration: 2026 contribution and benefit base — Social Security wage base and employee rate.
- Internal Revenue Service: Additional Medicare Tax — Liability thresholds and the additional 0.9% rate.
- Tax Foundation: 2026 state individual income-tax rates and brackets — Secondary compilation used as a starting reference; local taxes are excluded.
- Arizona State Legislature: Arizona Laws 2026, Chapter 140 — Signed June 13, 2026; supersedes the earlier Arizona deduction snapshot.
- Plante Moran state and local tax advisor (April 2026): Supplemental budget with OBBBA conformity — Maine's 2026 IRC-conformity update; supersedes the earlier Maine deduction snapshot.
- California Franchise Tax Board: 2025 Form 540 tax rate schedules and standard deduction — California's latest published Schedule X and Y brackets; the $5,706 / $11,412 standard deduction is from the 2025 Form 540 booklet, line 18.
- Connecticut Department of Revenue Services: IP 2026(7), Is My Connecticut Withholding Correct? — Connecticut's 2026 rate table, 2% phase-out add-back and tax recapture tables.
- New York State Department of Taxation and Finance: Instructions for Form IT-2105 (2026) — New York's 2026 rate schedules and the tax computation worksheets that apply the supplemental tax above $107,650.
The email includes this route only; calculator inputs are not attached.
Massachusetts take-home pay by hourly wage (2026)
Full-time estimates at 40 hours a week for 52 paid weeks — single filer, no 401(k), no other deductions. The effective rate column is everything withheld — federal, Massachusetts, FICA and state payroll deductions — as a share of gross pay.
| Hourly wage | Annual gross | Annual take-home | Per month | Per week | Effective tax rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $15.00/hr | $31,200 | $25,766 | $2,147 | $495.49 | 17.4% |
| $16.00/hr | $33,280 | $27,323 | $2,277 | $525.45 | 17.9% |
| $17.00/hr | $35,360 | $28,881 | $2,407 | $555.41 | 18.3% |
| $18.00/hr | $37,440 | $30,439 | $2,537 | $585.36 | 18.7% |
| $20.00/hr | $41,600 | $33,554 | $2,796 | $645.27 | 19.3% |
| $22.00/hr | $45,760 | $36,670 | $3,056 | $705.19 | 19.9% |
| $25.00/hr | $52,000 | $41,343 | $3,445 | $795.05 | 20.5% |
| $28.00/hr | $58,240 | $46,016 | $3,835 | $884.92 | 21.0% |
| $30.00/hr | $62,400 | $49,131 | $4,094 | $944.83 | 21.3% |
| $35.00/hr | $72,800 | $56,290 | $4,691 | $1,082.50 | 22.7% |
| $40.00/hr | $83,200 | $63,038 | $5,253 | $1,212.28 | 24.2% |
| $45.00/hr | $93,600 | $69,787 | $5,816 | $1,342.06 | 25.4% |
| $50.00/hr | $104,000 | $76,536 | $6,378 | $1,471.84 | 26.4% |
Part-time hours in Massachusetts: what 20, 25 and 30 hours a week pay
Annual take-home estimates when the schedule is not full time. Halving the hours does not halve the tax: the federal standard deduction shelters a bigger share of a smaller income, so part-time workers keep a higher percentage of gross pay even though the dollar total is lower.
| Hourly wage | 20 hrs/week | 25 hrs/week | 30 hrs/week | 40 hrs/week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $15.00/hr | $13,775 | $16,824 | $19,822 | $25,766 |
| $18.00/hr | $16,224 | $19,822 | $23,421 | $30,439 |
| $20.00/hr | $17,823 | $21,821 | $25,766 | $33,554 |
| $25.00/hr | $21,821 | $26,739 | $31,607 | $41,343 |
| $30.00/hr | $25,766 | $31,607 | $37,449 | $49,131 |
Overtime in Massachusetts: 45, 50 and 55 hours a week
Hours past 40 in a week are generally paid at time and a half under the Fair Labor Standards Act. These rows assume that premium is worked every week of the year and taxed as ordinary income — a bigger check can be over-withheld in the moment, but the annual liability is what the table shows.
| Hourly wage | 40 hrs (no overtime) | 45 hrs/week | 50 hrs/week | 55 hrs/week | Gross at 50 hrs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $18.00/hr | $30,439 | $35,696 | $40,953 | $46,211 | $51,480 |
| $20.00/hr | $33,554 | $39,396 | $45,237 | $51,079 | $57,200 |
| $25.00/hr | $41,343 | $48,645 | $55,446 | $61,773 | $71,500 |
| $30.00/hr | $49,131 | $57,133 | $64,726 | $72,318 | $85,800 |
Salaried workers classified as exempt do not receive this premium, which is the single biggest structural difference between hourly and salaried pay. Some states set stricter daily overtime rules than the federal weekly one; those are not modeled here.
How Massachusetts taxes hourly earnings
Massachusetts applies a flat 5% rate, which makes hourly pay unusually easy to reason about: the state share of every additional hour is identical regardless of how many hours you work. Deductions still mean the effective rate on gross wages runs below the statutory one. A 4% surtax applies to income over about $1.08M (2026), not modeled here. The personal exemption is modeled as a deduction.
Massachusetts payroll deductions besides income tax
Massachusetts requires one deduction from employee pay on top of income tax and FICA. It is levied on gross wages, so a 401(k) does not reduce it, and the calculator above shows it as its own line.
Paid Family and Medical Leave (employee share)
0.46%First $184,500 of wages
Employees can be charged up to 0.46% of wages (0.18% family plus 0.28% medical) up to the Social Security wage base. Employers with 25 or more workers pay a further 0.42%.
On a $60,000 salary: $276.00 a year
Mass.gov — PFML contribution rates
2026 rates, checked against each agency on October 29, 2026. Where the law lets an employer pay part of the employee share, we show the most it may deduct; your stub can be lower.
Frequently asked questions
- How much is $20 an hour after taxes in Massachusetts?
- At 40 hours a week for 52 paid weeks, $20 an hour is $41,600 gross. This model estimates $33,554 annual take-home for a single filer with no 401(k) — about $645.27 a week or $1,290.55 on a bi-weekly cycle. Those per-period figures are the annual estimate divided out, not a payroll withholding prediction.
- How much is $15 an hour after taxes in Massachusetts?
- $15 an hour full time is $31,200 gross a year, and this model estimates $25,766 after federal income tax, Massachusetts income tax, state payroll deductions and FICA. That works out to roughly $495.49 a week — an effective all-in tax rate of about 17.4%.
- Is overtime taxed differently in Massachusetts?
- No — overtime is ordinary taxable wages in Massachusetts and enters the same brackets as your regular hours. What changes is the size of the check: a payroll system annualizes each period, so an unusually large overtime week can be over-withheld and refunded when you file. Working 50 hours a week all year at $20 an hour instead of 40 adds an estimated $11,683 to annual take-home in Massachusetts, because the extra 10 hours are paid at time and a half. A temporary federal deduction may apply to qualifying overtime compensation for 2025–2028; it is not modeled here.
- What does part-time work pay after taxes in Massachusetts?
- Part-time hours cut gross pay proportionally but cut tax more than proportionally, because the federal standard deduction covers a larger share of a smaller income. At $20 an hour and 20 hours a week, gross is $20,800 and this model estimates $17,823 take-home — you keep about 86% of a part-time wage versus about 81% of the full-time one.
- Does Massachusetts have a state income tax on hourly wages?
- Yes. Massachusetts applies a flat 5% state income tax to taxable income, whether you are paid hourly or on salary. A 4% surtax applies to income over about $1.08M (2026), not modeled here. The personal exemption is modeled as a deduction.
- How reliable is this Massachusetts hourly estimate?
- The tables are a planning scenario: 52 paid weeks at a steady rate for a single filer with no Form W-4 adjustments. The calculator's paycheck view uses your own W-4 entries. Neither models tax credits, the temporary qualified-overtime deduction, shift differentials, tips or unpaid leave.