Chicago paycheck calculator

Your pay Annual gross salary

Paid every

Filing status

Before-tax money you set aside

401(k), % of salary

Health premiums, $/year

401(k) money skips income tax but still pays Social Security and Medicare. Health premiums through your employer skip both.

Illinois per Form IL-W-4, Employee's and other Payee's Illinois Withholding Allowance Certificate

Exemption phases out on the IL-1040 for AGI > $250k single / $500k MFJ - a return-level rule that is not part of payroll withholding, so it is not applied here.

Click any line to see exactly how it is computed, straight from the official documents.

The auditor’s desk

Audit your actual pay stub

Type what your stub prints; every line is recomputed from the official 2026 formulas, in your browser only.

Gross pay on the stub

Pay period

Filing status on your W-4

Pre-tax on the stub (401k + health), $

Federal withholding printed

Illinois withholding printed

Social Security (OASDI) printed

Medicare printed

Educational reconciliation, not tax advice. Withholding legitimately varies with your exact W-4 entries; your final bill is set by your return.

The audit report appears here, line by line, stamped.

4.95%

Illinois flat state tax rate in 2026

$2,925

shielded per allowance claimed

local wage taxes anywhere in Illinois

Form IL-W-4

the certificate that sets your Illinois withholding

Illinois withholding rates for 2026

Illinois withholds at a flat 4.95% of taxable wages in 2026.

Read from 2026 Booklet IL-700-T on 2026-08-05. Every figure above is taken from that document; nothing here is our estimate.

The mechanics

The biggest US city with no city income tax

Here is Chicago's best-kept payroll secret: there is no Chicago income tax. None of Illinois' municipalities is allowed to tax wages, so a Chicago paycheck carries exactly the same lines as one from Springfield or Peoria - the flat 4.95% Illinois tax (after a $2,925 exemption allowance per the IL-W-4), plus the federal layer. Compare that with New York City's extra 3.078-3.876%, and Chicago suddenly looks like a bargain among big-city paychecks.

The flip side: Illinois' flat rate applies from the first taxable dollar, with no progressive lower brackets to soften entry-level salaries. The calculator above runs the exact IL-700-T formula, so what you see is what the state actually computes - Cook County adds sales and property taxes to life, but never a line to your stub.

Questions people ask about Chicago paychecks

Does Chicago have a city income tax?

No - and it legally cannot: no Illinois municipality taxes wages. A Chicago stub shows only the flat 4.95% Illinois tax and the federal lines.

Does Cook County take anything from my paycheck?

Nothing. County and city budgets in Illinois run on property and sales taxes, which never appear on a paycheck.

Why does my Illinois withholding differ slightly from 4.95% of my salary?

Because of the $2,925 exemption allowance per the IL-W-4: the 4.95% applies after allowances are subtracted, so the effective rate on your gross is a touch below the headline number.

Dossier · Calceva / 2026 What gets verified, gets filed.

Where these numbers come from

We never copy another calculator. Each rate is read from the official document, dated, and re-checked when agencies publish changes. This page's paper trail:

Verified
2026-08-05

2026 Booklet IL-700-T — 2026 flat rate 4.95% ('Effective January 1, 2026, Tax rate 4.95%' — cover of 2026 Booklet IL-700-T, rev. R-12/25, read directly)

Verified
2026-08-05

IDOR Informational Bulletin FY 2026-15 — 2026 exemption allowance $2,925 per allowance; additional 65+/blind allowance $1,000/yr. No standard deduction. Chicago and all IL municipalities: NO local income tax on wages.

Verified
2026-08-05

Illinois Booklet IL-700-T (R-12/25) — Withholding (automated payroll method, IL-700-T R-12/25): exemptions = Line 1 allowances x $2,925 plus Line 2 allowances x $1,000, divided by the number of pay periods; withholding = (wages - exemptions) x 4.95%. Reproduces the booklet's worked example to the cent.

Verified
2026-08-05

IDOR, Form IL-W-4 (R-07/23), served as the current-year form (PDF read in full, 2 p.) — Illinois withholding is set by Form IL-W-4, "Employee's and other Payee's Illinois Withholding Allowance Certificate and Instructions"; the number of allowances on Line 1 sets the base amount withheld, Line 2 allowances are subtracted from it and Line 3 adds a flat extra amount per pay period.

Federal
lines

Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare on this page follow IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32, Publication 15 and Publication 15-T, verified 2026-08-07. Our federal engine reproduces 2,175 of 2,175 Publication 15-T cells on every build. The six federal sources, itemised.

Matches
the agency

Reproduces the agency’s own published figures. Our implementation of the Illinois withholding formula reproduces all 19 published figures — 1 worked example and 18 cells of the official wage-bracket tables of Illinois Booklet IL-700-T (R-12/25), automated payroll method exactly as the agency prints them, re-checked on every build. Check them in the official PDF.

Cite this page Calceva, “Chicago Paycheck Calculator (2026),” verified 2026-08-05, https://calceva.com/chicago-paycheck-calculator/

Nearby, same method

Check a paycheck in a neighboring state

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