Louisiana · rates effective Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026 · verified 2026-08-12
Louisiana Paycheck Calculator 2026
3% flat state tax rate in Louisiana — no local income tax, no state payroll deduction.
Louisiana taxes wages at a flat 3% after a standard deduction of $12,875, but your employer withholds at 3.09% - the state publishes two different rates and it is not a typo. This calculator uses the 2026 figures from the state's own withholding document.
Official 2026 tables, never copiedSources stamped & dated99 golden tests before publish
CEBy the Calceva data desk · Verified against official sources · Updated 2026-08-12 · 4 min read
Jan 1 · 2026 tables take effectJan 1 · individual income tax rate graduated 1.85% / 3.5% / 4.25% → flat 3% (withheld at 3.09%)Aug 12 · verified against the official documentAug 25 · all 6 sources re-checked automatically
Click any line to see exactly how it is computed, straight from the official documents.
ESTIMATE — NOT A PAY STUB
Educational rendering by Calceva — no employer, no pay-period history. ANNUAL = full-year projection.
Louisiana's income tax is a flat 3%, set by Act 11 of the 2024 reform that killed the old graduated brackets. But the formula the state hands employers withholds at 3.09%. Both numbers are printed by the Department of Revenue; the second is a deliberate cushion, which is why a Louisiana refund is common even when nothing unusual happened during the year. On a $60,000 single salary the tax itself comes to $1,414 for the year.
The 2026 deduction is not the one in the reform
The reform set the standard deduction at $12,500 for a single filer and doubled it for married-joint, head of household and qualifying surviving spouse. It also indexed both to inflation. For 2026 the published figures are $12,875 and $25,750 - exactly the reform amounts plus 3%. Louisiana's L-4 no longer asks about dependents or personal exemptions at all: you claim 0, 1 or 2, and that single digit picks your deduction.
Where the official page will mislead you
The Department of Revenue page titled “Louisiana Withholding Tax Tables” currently offers one document: a Declaration of Emergency from February 2018, carrying the dead progressive rates of 2.1% and 2.2%. The live 2026 tables sit in the forms catalogue instead. Anyone building a calculator from the obvious link gets a plausible, officially sourced, wrong answer.
One number on this page is not final yet
Louisiana has not published its final 2026 standard deduction. The $12,875 used above is the figure the state itself put into its 2026 withholding tables, and its own bulletin says the official amount “may be slightly different” once the January 2026 inflation data is in. Its Legislative Fiscal Office goes further and notes that the December-to-December inflation figure would give a lower deduction than the one used — which would raise the tax by roughly a dollar a year. Nothing will be settled until the 2026 Form IT-540 appears, around January 2027. We use the only number the state has put in writing, and we would rather tell you the state tax here is good to about a dollar than let a clean figure imply a certainty that does not exist.
The Louisiana L-4 trips up more households than any other form here. The figure you claim on it is a 0, 1 or 2 choice about the standard deduction — it is not a count of your dependents. Claiming 2 when both spouses work is the classic way a Louisiana household ends up under-withheld and owing at filing. If both of you earn, one of you claiming 2 is usually one too many.
Why does Louisiana withhold 3.09% when the tax is 3%?
Both figures are the state's. The 3% is the tax on your return; 3.09% is the rate in the employer formula published in R-1306. The gap is a small built-in cushion, and it usually comes back as a refund.
What is the Louisiana standard deduction for 2026?
$12,875 for single and married-separate filers, $25,750 for married-joint, qualifying surviving spouse and head of household. Both are the 2024 reform amounts adjusted for inflation.
What do I put in Block A of the L-4?
0 for no deduction, 1 if you are single or married-separate, 2 if you are married-joint, a qualifying surviving spouse or head of household. Louisiana dropped personal exemptions and dependent credits in the reform, so nothing else goes there.
Does any Louisiana parish or city tax my wages?
No. Louisiana's withholding law provides for state income tax only; no parish or municipality adds a wage line to your stub.
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 2026-08-12
LA R-1306 (1/26), Louisiana Withholding Tables and Formulas (PDF read in full) — 2026 withholding: standard deduction $12,875 (single / married-separate) and $25,750 (married-joint, qualifying surviving spouse, head of household); computer formula W = (S - deduction/N) x 3.09%. The document is headed "Effective on or after January 1, 2026".
Verified 2026-08-12
Louisiana Revised Statutes 47:32, Rates of tax (statute text, read 2026-08-08) — R.S. 47:32(A), text in force: "The tax to be assessed, levied, collected, and paid upon the taxable income of an individual shall be computed at the rate of three percent on net income." Subsection B (the old graduated brackets) is shown as "Repealed by Acts 2024, 3rd Ex. Sess., No. 11, s.4, eff. Dec. 4, 2024", and the amendment history names Acts 2024, 3rd Ex. Sess., No. 11, ss.2, 4.
Verified 2026-08-12
LDR 2024 Third Extraordinary Session Legislative Summaries, page 7 (PDF read) — Act 11 of the 2024 Third Extraordinary Session repeals the graduated brackets and rates for individual income tax and establishes a flat 3% rate beginning January 1, 2025. It raised the standard deduction for single and married-separate filers from $4,500 to $12,500, set married-joint / qualifying surviving spouse / head of household at 200% of the single amount, and provides for annual adjustments based on the increase in the CPI for all urban consumers.
Verified 2026-08-12
LDR 2026 Regular Session Legislative Summaries (PDF read) — Act 307 (HB 633) of the 2026 Regular Session updates individual safe harbor calculations to reflect "the state's current single-rate income tax structure and standard deduction", applicable to taxable periods beginning on or after January 1, 2026 - confirming the flat regime is the one in force for 2026.
Verified 2026-08-12
LA Form L-4 / R-1300 (1/26) (PDF read in full) — The L-4 (R-1300) asks only for a standard deduction claim of 0, 1 or 2 - Louisiana's old personal exemptions and dependent credits are gone. An employee who files no certificate is withheld on "without any standard deduction".
Verified 2026-08-12
Louisiana Revenue Information Bulletin 26-005, Notice Concerning Updated Withholding Tables Effective January 2026, 12 January 2026, page 1 — The 2026 standard deduction of 12,875 is PROVISIONAL. The Department states it plainly: "Using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Customers (CPI-U) data available as of December 1, 2025, for purposes of the withholding tables a standard deduction of $12,875 was used for single and married-filing-separately taxpayers, and $25,750 for married-filing-jointly, qualifying surviving spouse, and head-of-household taxpayers. The official 2026 standard deduction amounts may be slightly different based on CPI-U data released in January 2026 for the 2025 calendar year." R.S. 47:294(B) indexes the deduction annually from 1 January 2026 by the CPI-U increase for the previous calendar year, without specifying which CPI-U measure.
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 Louisiana withholding formula reproduces all 2 worked examples of R-1306 (1/26) exactly as the agency prints them, re-checked on every build. Check them in the official PDF.
Cite this pageCalceva, “Louisiana Paycheck Calculator (2026),” verified 2026-08-12, https://calceva.com/louisiana-paycheck-calculator/