Pennsylvania Paycheck Calculator

How Pennsylvania paychecks work

Pennsylvania keeps it unusually simple — and unusually strict. A flat 3.07% applies from the first dollar: no brackets, no standard deduction, no personal exemption.

Worked example

The three deductions every PA worker should know

• PA taxes your 401(k) contributions. Unlike federal law and almost every other state, Pennsylvania gives no deduction for employee retirement deferrals — contribute $10,000 and you still pay PA tax on it (~$307). The flip side: retirement withdrawals are PA-tax-free after 59½ — you prepaid on the way in. This calculator models the rule correctly (the pre-tax field reduces federal tax only for PA).
• Employee UC withholding is real, and uncapped. Pennsylvania is one of the few states that withholds unemployment contributions from employees, not just employers: 0.07% of gross wages for 2026 (70¢ per $1,000), with no wage ceiling. It is small — $45.50 on a $65,000 salary — but it applies from dollar one, it is not reduced by 401(k) deferrals, and it appears on your paystub as “PA UC” or “UC-EE.” The rate is set annually by the PA Department of Labor & Industry.
• Local Earned Income Tax (EIT) comes on top. Nearly every PA municipality + school district taxes wages — commonly ~1%, with Philadelphia’s wage tax at roughly 3.74–3.75% for residents. Local EIT isn’t in the calculation above (it varies by address); add your locality’s rate mentally or check your paystub’s “LST/EIT” lines.

Flat vs. progressive — who wins in PA?

Flat 3.07% is light for high earners (a $300k earner pays 3.07% where New York would charge ~6%+) and relatively heavy for low incomes, since it starts at dollar one with no deduction. PA does offer Tax Forgiveness (SP) credits for low-income households, which this general calculator doesn’t model.

Pennsylvania wage rules that shape your paycheck

The 3.07% is the part of Pennsylvania law you feel every payday. Four other rules decide when the money arrives, what happens when the job ends, and what the state does — and does not — make employers give you on top of wages.

1. The $7.25 minimum wage is not really Pennsylvania’s number

Look up the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act of 1968 and the schedule in § 4(a) simply stops: the last rate it names is $7.15 an hour beginning July 1, 2007. The $7.25 everyone quotes comes from the next subsection. Section 4(a.1) says that if the federal Fair Labor Standards Act minimum rises above the state figure, the Pennsylvania minimum “shall be increased by the same amounts and effective the same date” as the federal increase, and subsection (a) is suspended to the extent it differs.

So Pennsylvania’s wage floor is a federal one on loan. It moved to $7.25 in July 2009 because Congress moved, not because Harrisburg legislated, and by the terms of § 4(a.1) it will not move again unless Congress raises the federal minimum or the legislature amends the Act itself.

2. Paydays must be designated in advance, and the lag is capped at 15 days

Under § 3 of the Wage Payment and Collection Law, an employer must pay all wages “on regular paydays designated in advance” — the schedule cannot be improvised month to month. Wages earned in a pay period are then due within the number of days a written employment contract specifies; failing that, within the standard time lapse customary in the trade, or within 15 days of the end of the pay period, whichever applies. Overtime is the one permitted lag: it may be treated as earned and payable in the next succeeding pay period.

Fringe benefits and wage supplements run on a separate clock. Union dues deducted from your pay, and employer contributions to a trust or pooled fund, must be remitted within 10 days of when they are required to be paid — or within 60 days of a proper claim where no time is specified. That is why an unremitted 401(k) deferral or union deduction is its own violation in Pennsylvania, separate from a late paycheck.

3. Final pay: the next regular payday, by certified mail on request

Section 5 draws no distinction between quitting and being let go. Whether an employer “separates an employe from the payroll” or the employee “quits or resigns,” the wages earned become due no later than the next regular payday on which they would otherwise have been payable. There is no shorter clock for a discharge the way Texas gives six days, and no obligation to cut a check on your last day.

The detail most summaries drop is the second sentence: if the employee requests it, the payment must be made by certified mail. If you leave a job mid-period and do not want your last check sitting in an office you no longer visit, that request is a statutory right, not a favour.

4. No statewide paid sick leave — but Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have their own

Pennsylvania mandates no paid sick leave at state level, and unlike Florida it does not stop cities from doing so. Philadelphia’s ordinance gives employees 1 hour of sick leave for every 40 hours worked, capped at 40 hours in a calendar year and usable after 90 days on the job, paid at your normal rate. Employers with 10 or more employees must make it paid; those with nine or fewer must still provide it unpaid. Anyone working at least 40 hours a year inside the city is covered, with carve-outs including independent contractors, seasonal workers, interns and employees under a collective bargaining agreement. Pittsburgh runs a separate Paid Sick Days Act with its own accrual rate.

Neither shows up in a paycheck calculator, because sick leave is time rather than a deduction — but in Philadelphia it is worth up to 40 hours of pay a year that your gross salary already assumes you will earn.

5. The state insurance line, and the one that does not exist

Pennsylvania is one of the few states that withholds unemployment contributions from employees at all — the 0.07% uncapped UC line covered above. What it does not run is a state disability or paid-family-leave fund: there is no PA counterpart to California’s SDI, Colorado’s FAMLI or Washington’s PFML premium. So on a Pennsylvania paystub the state-side deductions are exactly two, the 3.07% income tax and the 0.07% UC, plus whatever your municipality charges in local EIT and LST.

How this estimate is calculated

• Federal income tax: 2026 IRS brackets with the 2026 standard deduction ($16,100 single / $32,200 married filing jointly), no credits or itemizing.
• FICA: Social Security 6.2% up to the $184,500 wage base + Medicare 1.45% (plus 0.9% additional above $200k single / $250k married).
• Pre-tax deductions (401(k), traditional retirement) reduce federal taxable income but not FICA wages.
• Results estimate your annual tax liability spread across paychecks — real per-check withholding depends on your W-4 and settles at tax time.