Employer Payroll Tax Calculator

Four, and none of them come out of the employee's pay. The employer half of FICA — 6.2% Social Security up to $184,500 and 1.45% Medicare with no ceiling, matching what the employee pays. FUTA, federal unemployment, at 6.0% on the first $7,000 of wages, reduced to 0.6% where state unemployment is paid on time. SUTA, state unemployment, which varies by state and by your own experience rating. And workers' compensation premiums, which vary by state and by job classification.

Meaningfully more than the salary. The statutory add-ons alone run around 8% to 10% of gross for most roles — on a $70,000 salary that is roughly $6,421 before a single benefit. Add health premiums, a retirement match, equipment and software and the total commonly lands 1.2 to 1.4 times salary. The calculator above gives the figure for your own numbers and expresses it as a burden percentage.

Everything you pay to employ someone beyond their gross wage, expressed as a percentage of that wage. A 25% burden means a $100,000 salary costs $125,000. It is the number to use when pricing work, deciding between an employee and a contractor, or building a headcount budget — quoting salary alone understates the commitment by a fifth or more.

No. Employers withhold federal and state income tax from the employee's gross pay and remit it, but that money is the employee's — it comes out of the salary you already agreed, not out of your pocket on top. The same is true of the employee's half of FICA. The genuine employer costs are the matching half of FICA, FUTA, SUTA and workers' compensation, which is exactly what this calculator separates out.

FUTA is federal and uniform: 6.0% on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages, with a credit of up to 5.4% where you have paid state unemployment on time, giving a net 0.6% — about $42 per employee per year. SUTA is the state equivalent and varies enormously: each state sets its own wage base and assigns you a rate from your claims history, so a business with layoffs pays more than one without. FUTA is reported on Form 940; SUTA goes to the state agency.

On payroll cost, yes — there is no employer FICA match, no unemployment tax and usually no benefits, which is most of the burden. But the contract rate is normally higher for exactly that reason, since the contractor carries both halves of FICA themselves, and misclassifying an employee as a contractor carries back taxes and penalties. Compare the true employer cost here against the rate a contractor would need, which the self-employment tax calculator works out from their side.

Because it has a ceiling. The employer match, like the employee's, applies only to the first $184,500 of wages in 2026. Above that the Social Security cost stops rising while Medicare continues without limit, so the burden percentage falls as salaries rise. FUTA has the same effect much earlier, capping at $7,000 of wages.

No. The 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on high earners is withheld from the employee and is not matched. The employer's Medicare obligation stays at 1.45% of all wages regardless of how much the employee earns, which is why the employer match and the employee deduction stop being equal above the threshold.