Virginia Paycheck Calculator 2026

What comes out of a Virginia paycheck

Three taxes leave a Virginia paycheck, and the calculator keeps them apart because they behave differently. Federal income tax withholding follows your W-4 through the IRS percentage method. FICA is flat: 6.2% for Social Security up to $184,500 and 1.45% for Medicare with no cap. And Virginia's own income tax, graduated from 2.00% to 5.75%, applied on an annualised basis the way the state's withholding tables do. On $85,000 paid every two weeks a single filer sees $379.62 of federal withholding, $250.09 of FICA and $156.67 of Virginia tax come out of $3,269.23, and keeps $2,482.85 — position 45 of 51 states for take-home on that salary.

No city or county in Virginia levies its own income tax on wages, so the state line is the last one. That is worth saying explicitly because several calculators carry a generic «local tax» field that does not apply here.

Everything else that reduces the deposit is a deduction rather than a tax: your 401(k), health premiums, an HSA or FSA, and after-tax items. A traditional 401(k) contribution lowers federal and Virginia taxable wages but not FICA; a Section 125 health or HSA contribution lowers all of them. The advanced panel takes each separately so the saving is computed on the right base.

Virginia income tax 2026: rates, brackets and deduction

Virginia uses a graduated schedule: 2.00% from $0 to $3,000; 3.00% from $3,000 to $5,000; 5.00% from $5,000 to $17,000; 5.75% above $17,000. The standard deduction is $8,750 for a single filer and $17,500 for a joint return, with a personal exemption of $930 per person. Like federal tax, only the slice of income inside each bracket is taxed at that bracket's rate, so the effective rate is always below the top rate you see quoted.

Verification. Standard deduction of $8,750 / $17,500 and the $930 personal exemption confirmed; all four brackets match. FORWARD WARNING: Virginia's raised standard deduction SUNSETS after tax year 2026 and reverts to $3,000 / $6,000 unless the legislature extends it. It is the sharpest scheduled reversal we have seen in any state. There is also $800 of extra exemption for age or blindness that we do not apply.

Virginia's higher standard deduction is temporary — it sunsets after 2026 and reverts to $3,000 single and $6,000 joint unless the legislature extends it.

Local income taxes in Virginia

Virginia does not allow cities, counties or school districts to tax wages, so there is no local line on a Virginia paycheck. If a calculator asks you for a «local rate» in this state, the answer is zero.

Where Virginia workers do meet a local tax is across the state line. Neighbouring Maryland and West Virginia and Kentucky do have local income taxes, so commuting into those states for work can add a line that does not exist at home.

Your Virginia withholding form

Alongside the federal W-4, Virginia employers use Form VA-4 (Personal Exemption Worksheet) to set state withholding. It matters because the federal W-4 no longer uses allowances and many state forms still do: leaving the state form blank means your employer applies the state's default, which is usually single with no allowances and withholds more than needed. The calculator assumes the state form matches your real situation, which is what a correctly completed one produces.

If your Virginia paycheck differs from the calculator's state line, the state form on file is the first place to look. The second is the annualisation: state withholding tables assume you earn the same every period, so a one-off bonus or an overtime-heavy week is withheld as if it happened every payday and comes back at filing. The W-4 fixer handles the federal side; the state side generally follows once the federal is right.

Paid hourly in Virginia? Overtime and minimum wage

Hourly workers in Virginia use the same tax rules with a gross built from rate × hours. Federal law requires time-and-a-half after 40 hours in a week; Virginia follows the federal weekly rule without a daily overtime requirement. From 2026 the premium part of overtime pay is deductible when you file — up to $12,500 for a single filer — although your employer still withholds on it in full. The Virginia hourly paycheck calculator models overtime, multiple rates and tips, and shows what the new deduction does to your refund.

The state minimum wage, tipped minimum and any city minimums are on the hourly page, checked against the Virginia labor department, so that a full-time minimum-wage paycheck can be computed to the cent rather than guessed.

Bonuses and supplemental pay in Virginia

A bonus, commission or severance paid separately is withheld federally at a flat 22% (37% above a million dollars in the year). Virginia has its own treatment of supplemental wages — some states publish a flat supplemental rate, others require the aggregate method — and the Virginia bonus tax calculator applies it. The important thing to understand is that 22% is withholding, not tax: your actual tax on the bonus is your marginal rate, and the difference comes back or is owed when you file.

For a single filer on $85,000 in Virginia, a $5,000 bonus is withheld at $1,100 federally, while the tax actually due on it at the 22% marginal rate is $1,100 — so this bonus under-withholds and reduces the refund.

Virginia vs neighbouring states

On $85,000 paid every two weeks, a single filer keeps $2,482.85 in Virginia. In Maryland the same paycheck is $2,498.31 ($15.46 more); In District of Columbia the same paycheck is $2,475.81 ($7.04 less); In West Virginia the same paycheck is $2,517.90 ($35.05 more); In Kentucky the same paycheck is $2,529.62 ($46.77 more); In Tennessee the same paycheck is $2,639.52 ($156.67 more); In North Carolina the same paycheck is $2,528.64 ($45.79 more). Ranked, that is Tennessee > Kentucky > North Carolina > West Virginia > Maryland > Virginia > District of Columbia.

Living in one state and working in another brings reciprocity into play: a handful of state pairs let you pay tax only where you live, and the rest make you file in both with a credit for tax paid to the work state. Note that Tennessee has no income tax, so commuting there from Virginia does not remove Virginia's tax on a Virginia resident. The state hub has the full comparison for any salary and filing status.

Example Virginia paychecks in 2026

All computed by the calculator's engine for a single filer with a clean W-4, paid every two weeks, no pre-tax deductions, 2026 rates:

$35,000 a year → $1,119.39 take-home per paycheck (federal withholding $77.69, Virginia tax $46.09, 16.8% of gross to all taxes).

$50,000 a year → $1,549.78 take-home per paycheck (federal withholding $146.92, Virginia tax $79.27, 19.4% of gross to all taxes).

$65,000 a year → $1,980.16 take-home per paycheck (federal withholding $216.15, Virginia tax $112.44, 20.8% of gross to all taxes).

$85,000 a year → $2,482.85 take-home per paycheck (federal withholding $379.62, Virginia tax $156.67, 24.1% of gross to all taxes).

$120,000 a year → $3,352.47 take-home per paycheck (federal withholding $675.77, Virginia tax $234.07, 27.4% of gross to all taxes).

$200,000 a year → $5,280.00 take-home per paycheck (federal withholding $1,412.85, Virginia tax $411.00, 30.9% of gross to all taxes).

Two things to read in the series. First, the effective rate rises with salary because both federal and Virginia brackets are progressive. Second, the FICA line falls away above $184,500: on the $200,000 example Social Security stops partway through the year and the later paychecks are larger than the first ones. The salary after tax pages give the full table for any amount, and each amount has a Virginia page.

The math behind a Virginia paycheck

Take the $85,000 example, paid every two weeks, so $3,269.23 gross per paycheck. Federal. The percentage method annualises the paycheck back to $85,000, subtracts the $8,600 step-1 adjustment for a single filer to get $76,400, and looks that up in the standard withholding table: the row that starts at $57,900 carries a base of $5,800 plus 22% of the excess, giving $9,870 for the year and $379.62 per paycheck. FICA. 6.2% of $3,269.23 is $202.69 and 1.45% is $47.40.

Virginia. On an annualised $85,000, the state deduction of $8,750 leaves $75,320 taxable after a $930 personal exemption. Running it through the brackets gives $60 at 2.00% + $60 at 3.00% + $600 at 5.00% + $3,353 at 5.75% = $4,073 for the year, or $156.67 per paycheck — an effective state rate of 4.79% against a marginal rate of 5.75%.

Put together: $3,269.23 − $379.62 − $250.09 − $156.67 = $2,482.85. Every intermediate figure is visible in the «Show me the math» diagram under the calculator for whatever you enter, and the state deduction, exemption and brackets used are the ones listed with their source at the top of the page.

A year of Virginia paychecks: the ones that change

Most people's paychecks are identical all year, and most calculators assume they are. Two things break that. The first is the Social Security wage base: at $184,500 of wages the 6.2% stops, so anyone earning more sees a larger paycheck from that point on. On $200,000 in Virginia, paid every two weeks, that happens around paycheck 24 of 26: the take-home goes from $5,280.00 to about $5,756.92. Enter your year-to-date gross in the advanced panel and the calculator places the change on the right paycheck.

The second is the calendar. Paid every two weeks you get 26 paychecks, and twice a year a month holds three of them; paid twice a month you get 24 and every month holds exactly two. The gross for the year is the same either way, but the biweekly paycheck is about 7.7% smaller and the two «extra» paychecks are the budgeting cushion people forget. Virginia's tax does not care which schedule you are on: it is annualised the same way. The biweekly pay calculator shows the three-paycheck months of 2026 for your first pay date.

A bonus, a raise mid-year or a change of hours all move the line too. Because withholding annualises each paycheck on its own, a single large paycheck is withheld as if it repeated all year and the excess comes back at filing; the «withholding vs what you owe» box under the calculator shows how far the year is drifting from zero.

Filing status and dependents in Virginia

The filing status on your W-4 changes the federal deduction and the brackets, and Virginia has its own treatment of joint returns (deduction $17,500 joint against $8,750 single). On $65,000 every two weeks in Virginia, a single filer keeps $1,980.16, a head of household $2,021.39 and a married person filing jointly $2,083.35 — the joint figure assumes this is the household's only income, which is exactly the case the W-4's step 2 exists to correct when it is not.

Dependents work through step 3 of the W-4: $2,200 per qualifying child (the 2026 child tax credit) entered as an annual amount, which the percentage method subtracts from the tentative withholding before dividing by pay periods. Two children on that $65,000 salary — $4,400 on step 3 — lift the biweekly paycheck from $1,980.16 to $2,149.39, $169.23 more each time. Virginia's personal exemption of $930 per person on the state form does the same job at state level.

The mistake to avoid is claiming the same child on two W-4s (yours and a spouse's): each employer subtracts the full credit and the household under-withholds by the credit amount. The W-4 fixer splits it correctly and gives each spouse the exact lines.

What a raise really leaves in Virginia

A $5,000 raise from $65,000 to $70,000 adds $192.31 of gross to a biweekly paycheck in Virginia and $130.00 of take-home: 67.6% of the raise survives. The rest is the marginal rate — federal at 22%, FICA at 7.65% and Virginia at 5.75% — applied only to the new dollars. Nothing about the raise changes the tax on the first $65,000: the idea that a raise can «push you into a higher bracket» and leave you worse off is arithmetic that does not exist in a progressive system.

The pay raise calculator does this for any two figures, in Virginia or anywhere, and says whether the raise beats inflation.

How Virginia's rate has changed

Virginia faces the sharpest scheduled reversal of any state: its standard deduction more than halves after 2026 unless extended.

Already legislated for the future: 2027 — The higher standard deduction sunsets and reverts to $3,000 single and $6,000 joint unless the legislature extends it. That is enacted law rather than a proposal, so it is worth planning around.

For context, 26 states have cut income tax rates since 2021 and 7 have replaced brackets with a single rate. Only 5 jurisdictions went the other way.

Source for the series: Virginia Tax, New Virginia Tax Laws.

What the paycheck buys in Virginia

A paycheck is only worth what it buys, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes a price index for every state — the Regional Price Parities, 2024 edition, with 100 as the national average. Virginia sits at 101.1 overall: goods at 100.4, housing at 106.8, utilities at 92.2. Housing is the component that decides a move, and in Virginia it is 7% above the national average.

Deflating the $85,000 biweekly take-home of $2,482.85 by Virginia's price level gives $2,455.84 in national-average dollars. Doing the same for the neighbours: Maryland $2,379.34, District of Columbia $2,252.78, West Virginia $2,813.30, Kentucky $2,804.46, Tennessee $2,872.17, North Carolina $2,681.48. So at least one neighbour with a larger paycheck buys more once prices are counted — the paycheck ranking and the purchasing-power ranking are not the same list.

Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area, 2024 (released 19 February 2026) (checked 2026-09-08). The index is what the BEA published; it is not extrapolated to 2026.

An hourly paycheck in Virginia, worked through

Take $20 an hour, 40 hours a week, paid every two weeks: $1,600.00 gross. Federal withholding is $108.15, FICA $122.40, Virginia tax $60.69, take-home $1,308.76 — 81.8% of gross, a higher share than the salaried examples above because the federal brackets are gentler at this income.

Add five overtime hours at time-and-a-half ($150.00 more gross) and the paycheck becomes $1,750.00 gross and $1,420.66 net: $111.90 of the $150.00 survives, 74.6%. The premium half of that overtime — $50.00 per paycheck, $1,300 a year — is deductible federally from 2026, which the withholding ignores and the hourly calculator counts toward your refund: $1,300 of deduction on these numbers.

Reading a Virginia pay stub

The lines on a Virginia stub map onto the calculator's result one to one. Gross or Earnings is the top figure. FIT or Fed W/H is federal income tax withholding. OASDI, SS or FICA-SS is Social Security; MED, HI or FICA-MED is Medicare. SIT, VA W/H or Virginia tax is the state line. YTD columns show the running totals the wage-base rules work on.

Pre-tax deductions (401(k), medical, dental, HSA) appear above the taxes and reduce the taxable figures; after-tax ones (Roth, garnishments, dues) appear below. If the stub's federal taxable wages differ from gross by more than your pre-tax deductions, something is being treated as taxable that you thought was not — the most common case is a benefit the employer counts as imputed income. The pay stub preview above puts the calculator's figures in the same layout so you can compare line by line, and the what is a pay stub guide decodes the abbreviations.

A worked example: $72,000 in Virginia, paid every two weeks

Take $72,000 a year in Virginia, paid every two weeks (26 paychecks), single, standard W-4, no pre-tax deductions. The gross per paycheck is $2,769.23. Federal income tax withholding, from the 2026 Publication 15-T percentage method, takes $269.62. Social Security takes 6.2% of gross, $171.69, and Medicare 1.45%, $40.15. Virginia withholds $127.92 under its brackets and deductions. The net deposit is $2,159.85, 78.0% of gross; over the year that is $56,156 from $72,000, an effective rate of 22.0% on all taxes together. Every line is reproducible from the documents on the sources page, and the table below lists them in the order they appear on a stub.

Two things on that stub are not obvious from the totals. First, the federal line is withholding, not tax: the tables annualise this paycheck as if all 26 were identical, and the year's actual tax, $7,010, differs from the $7,010 withheld by $0, which becomes a refund in April. Second, Social Security and Medicare are the same fraction of every paycheck of the year, because the salary is under the wage base, and no form can change them; only Section 125 deductions reduce their base. The reading guide walks each line and names what it should equal.

Common mistakes on Virginia paychecks

Leaving the Virginia withholding form blank. Without Form VA-4 your employer withholds at the default, usually single with no allowances, which over-withholds for most married workers.

Claiming the same child twice. Two working spouses who each put the child on step 3 of their W-4 under-withhold by the credit amount and owe at filing. Put the credit on one form.

Reading the bonus withholding as the bonus tax. The flat 22% federal rate on a bonus is withholding; the tax is your marginal rate, and the difference settles in April. Budgeting from the wrong paycheck. Biweekly and semi-monthly paychecks differ by about 7.7% on the same salary. Ignoring the Social Security cap. Above $184,500 the later paychecks are larger, and a budget built on January's paycheck is too tight for December's.

Your first paycheck in Virginia: a checklist

Starting a job in Virginia — or moving there with the same job — is the moment withholding gets set, and the settings tend to stay for years. Four things to do before the first payday. Fill in the federal W-4 properly: filing status, step 2 if there is a second income in the household, step 3 for children, step 4(c) if last year ended with a bill. Fill in Form VA-4, the Virginia form, rather than leaving the default. Check the benefits enrolment: health, HSA and 401(k) elections usually start on the first or second paycheck and change the net noticeably. Compare the first stub with this calculator: the pay stub preview above is laid out like a real one.

If you moved during the year, the old state stops and Virginia starts on the move date, and you will file two part-year returns next spring. Virginia taxes the wages earned from the day you became a resident; the previous state taxes the earlier ones. The year-to-date figures on your stub reset for state purposes but not for Social Security, whose wage base counts all your wages in the year regardless of where they were earned.

Working in Virginia for an out-of-state employer

Remote work made this the most common question on state pages. The general rule is that wages are taxed by the state where the work is physically performed, so a Virginia resident working from home for a company in another state pays Virginia tax on those wages and normally nothing to the employer's state. The employer should register to withhold for Virginia; if it does not, the employee ends up paying Virginia through estimated payments or at filing.

The exception is the handful of states with a «convenience of the employer» rule — New York, Delaware, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and a few others — which tax remote workers whose employer is based there unless the remote arrangement is for the employer's convenience. A Virginia resident with a New York employer can therefore be taxed by both, with a credit on the Virginia return for the New York tax. The state page of the employer's state says whether it has such a rule.

Virginia vs Texas, California, New York

The states people most often compare against are the big four, so here is Virginia against Texas, California, New York at three salaries, single filer, every two weeks. At $50,000: Virginia $1,549.78, Texas $1,629.05, California $1,589.07, New York $1,548.17. At $85,000: Virginia $2,482.85, Texas $2,639.52, California $2,498.75, New York $2,485.94. At $150,000: Virginia $4,076.16, Texas $4,376.58, California $4,003.31, New York $4,076.20.

The gaps grow with income wherever a graduated state is involved and stay fixed where both states are flat or tax-free. Virginia's position against Texas and Florida is the size of its own state tax; against California and New York it depends on where Virginia's schedule sits relative to theirs at your income. Each comparison has its own page on the salary after tax silo, for any amount.

What changed in Virginia for 2026

Virginia's 2026 figures were checked against Virginia Tax, "New Virginia Tax Laws" and the 2026 Form 760ES on 2026-09-01 and match. Federal changes apply here as everywhere: the standard deduction is $16,100 single, the Social Security wage base $184,500, and the new overtime and tip deductions reduce federal tax at filing without changing withholding.

Every change to a figure on this page is listed, dated and sourced in the data changelog; anything we got wrong is in corrections.