Pay Raise Calculator
↻ Updated 2026Enter your current salary and a raise percentage — or a target new salary — to see your new pay and the increase per year, month and paycheck.
Educational calculators — always consult a licensed professional before making financial decisions.
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is sent to us.How this works
How to read your raise
A 5% raise on $75,000 is $3,750 a year, $312.50 a month, $144.23 a paycheck — all gross. The per-paycheck line is the one that tells you the truth, because it's the number you'll actually notice, and it's usually smaller than the annual figure led you to expect.
How a raise percentage becomes a new salary
The calculator runs in two directions and they're inverses of each other. Give it a percentage and it produces a salary; give it a salary and it produces the percentage. Both sit on the same identity: the increase divided by what you were on before.
The denominator is the part people get wrong. A raise percentage is always measured against the old salary, never the new one — which is why a 5% raise followed by a 5% cut doesn't return you to where you started. $75,000 up 5% is $78,750; down 5% from there is $74,812.50.
from a percentage: new salary = current salary × (1 + raise % ÷ 100) from a target salary: raise % = (new salary − current salary) ÷ current salary × 100 annual increase = new salary − current salary monthly increase = annual increase ÷ 12 bi-weekly increase = annual increase ÷ 26
- current salary
- Your gross annual pay today — the base every percentage on this page is measured against
- raise %
- The increase as a share of your current salary — US employers budgeted around 3.5% for total salary increases in 2026 and 3.2% for merit alone (Mercer)
- new salary
- Gross annual pay after the raise — enter this directly instead, and the tool reports the percentage it implies
- annual increase
- New salary minus current salary, gross — the headline — and the number you keep the smallest share of
- monthly increase
- Annual increase ÷ 12 — a budgeting figure; no employer pays monthly unless you're on a monthly cycle
- bi-weekly increase
- Annual increase ÷ 26 — what the raise looks like on a fortnightly stub — $144.23 on the defaults, before tax
The two modes exist because raises get discussed in two currencies. Managers and compensation teams work in percentages, because merit budgets are allocated as a pool of percent. Employees think in salaries, because that's what a mortgage application asks for. Entering $80,000 against a current $75,000 reveals what the ask actually is: 6.67% — nearly double the typical merit budget, which is why that conversation goes differently from a $78,750 one.
Nothing here is taxed. That's a deliberate simplification, but it's also where raises are most often oversold to yourself: on the defaults, the $3,750 increase sits entirely inside the 22% federal bracket, and FICA takes 7.65% on top, so 29.65% of it never arrives. If the increase came as a lump sum instead, the bonus tax calculator shows why the withholding rate on it looks almost identical.
Worked examples
Example: a 5% raise on $75,000
The calculator's defaults — a raise slightly above the typical 2026 merit budget, on a mid-career salary.
| Current salarythe base | $75,000 |
| Raise percentagevs a ~3.2% median merit budget in 2026 | 5% |
| New salary$75,000 × 1.05 | $78,750 |
| Annual increasegross | $3,750 |
| Monthly increase$3,750 ÷ 12 | $312.50 |
| Bi-weekly increase$3,750 ÷ 26 — what you'll actually see | $144.23 |
$3,750 a year sounds like a holiday. $144.23 a fortnight, before tax, is the same money described honestly — and after federal tax and FICA it's closer to $101 a check. The annual figure isn't wrong, it's just the framing that makes a raise feel largest, which is presumably why it's the one that gets quoted.
Example: asking for $80,000 instead
Switch to 'Enter new salary' and type 80,000 against the same $75,000. The tool works backwards to the percentage that request represents.
| Current salaryunchanged | $75,000 |
| Target new salaryentered directly | $80,000 |
| Annual increase$1,250 more than the 5% raise | $5,000 |
| Implied raise percentage$5,000 ÷ $75,000 | 6.67% |
| Monthly increaseup from $312.50 | $416.67 |
| Bi-weekly increaseup from $144.23 | $192.31 |
A round-number ask of $80,000 is a 6.67% raise — roughly double the 3.2% merit budget most US employers set for 2026. That's the number your manager has to defend upward, and it's worth knowing before the meeting that you're asking for two years of standard increase in one. The reverse mode exists precisely to translate what feels like a modest round number into the language the decision gets made in.
Frequently asked questions
How much of a 5% raise do you actually take home?
About 70% of it. On the $75,000 default, a 5% raise is $3,750 gross and roughly $2,638 net — $101 a paycheck rather than $144.23. You can reproduce it on the take-home paycheck calculator by comparing $75,000 and $78,750 as a single filer with no 401(k) and a 0% state rate: $61,593 against $64,231.
The 70% isn't a coincidence, it's arithmetic you can predict. The whole $3,750 falls inside the 22% federal bracket, and FICA takes 7.65% on every dollar of it. 22% + 7.65% = 29.65%, so you keep 70.35% — and that's before any state tax, which comes straight off the top of what's left.
Will a raise push me into a higher tax bracket and lower my pay?
No. It's not possible under a progressive system — the higher rate applies only to the dollars above the bracket line, never to the ones below it. A raise that crosses a bracket boundary still leaves you with more money than before, always.
The 2026 single brackets show why: 10% to $12,400 of taxable income, 12% to $50,400, 22% to $105,700 (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32). Cross from 12% into 22% and only the crossing dollars are taxed at 22%; every dollar underneath keeps its old rate. What is true is that your raise's dollars are taxed at your top rate rather than your average one, which is why a 5% raise never feels like 5% — the last dollars in are always the most expensive.
How do you calculate a raise percentage?
Subtract the old salary from the new one, divide by the old salary, and multiply by 100. Going from $75,000 to $80,000: $5,000 ÷ $75,000 × 100 = 6.67%. That's what this calculator's 'Enter new salary' mode does.
Two things to watch. Always divide by the old salary — dividing by the new one understates the raise, and it's the most common error in the calculation. And a percentage on a promotion isn't comparable to a percentage on a merit cycle: the same 6.67% means something very different attached to a new job title than it does as an annual adjustment.
What is a good raise percentage in 2026?
Against the market, anything meaningfully above about 3.5% is above budget. Mercer reports most US employers holding 2026 total salary increases flat with 2025 at around 3.5%, with merit alone budgeted near 3.2%; Payscale's forecast lands at 3.5% as well. Promotions and retention adjustments come out of separate pools, which is how individual raises exceed the merit number.
Against your own costs, the benchmark is different and less flattering: a raise only increases your purchasing power if it beats inflation. A 3% raise in a 3% inflation year is a lateral move in real terms, which is the arithmetic behind the calculator's default sitting at 5% rather than at the market median.
What a raise calculator can't tell you
It compares two salaries. Most of what determines whether a raise is a good one is not in either number.
- Every figure is gross — No federal tax, no FICA, no state tax. You keep roughly 70% of a raise that stays inside the 22% bracket, and less if it crosses into 24% or your state takes a cut. The per-paycheck number on this page is the one people plan around, and it's the one most inflated by the omission.
- It ignores inflation entirely — A 3% raise in a 4% inflation year is a real-terms pay cut, and this calculator will report it as an increase. The percentage that matters for your standard of living is the raise minus inflation, not the raise.
- Only base salary moves — Bonus targets are usually a percentage of base, so a raise quietly raises them too; 401(k) matches and pension accruals often follow base as well. Equity, on the other hand, is typically granted separately and doesn't move at all. The real change in total compensation can be larger or smaller than the number here.
- It assumes the raise is permanent and immediate — A raise effective in April is worth three-quarters of the annual figure in its first year. Retention bonuses, market adjustments and one-off lump sums don't compound into next year's base the way a merit increase does — the annual figure here treats them all as if they do.
- There's no bracket arithmetic in it — The tool computes a gross difference and stops. It doesn't know that a raise from $115,000 to $125,000 straddles the 22%/24% boundary for a single filer — taxable income crosses $105,700 on the way — so the take-home increase is proportionally smaller than the same $10,000 lower down the scale.
- ·U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Employment Cost Index — Benchmark for US wage and salary growth
Rates, brackets and limits here are checked against primary sources. If a number still looks off, email support@realmoneyiq.com and we'll review and fix it.
RealMoneyIQ provides free educational calculators, not financial, tax, investment or legal advice. Results are estimates based on the assumptions you enter and publicly published rates; your actual outcome will differ. Always confirm decisions with a licensed professional who knows your full situation.