Enter the desired take-home pay. Get gross wage, all deductions, and your total employer cost — instantly.
Estimates only · Ohio employees · 2026 tax rates · Assumes first payroll of year (wage bases: SS $184,500 · FUTA $7,000 · SUTA $9,000) · City/SUTA excluded unless entered · Not tax or legal advice — consult a licensed payroll professional.
Most payroll calculators run forward: you enter a gross salary and they tell you what lands in the bank. Employers usually have the opposite problem. You promised someone $1,800 a month take-home, and you need to know what to actually put on the paycheck. That is a net-to-gross calculation, and it has to be solved backwards because the tax owed depends on the gross you are trying to find.
This tool solves that loop for you. It takes the net figure you want, then works up through Ohio state income tax, federal withholding, Social Security, and Medicare until the after-tax number matches your target. It then adds the taxes the employer pays on top — the employer half of FICA, FUTA, and Ohio SUTA — so you can see the real cost of the hire, not just the paycheck.
Employee deductions: federal income tax withholding based on filing status, Ohio state income tax, Social Security at 6.2% up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500, and Medicare at 1.45% with the additional 0.9% surtax applied above $200,000.
Employer costs: the matching 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare contributions, FUTA estimated at 0.6% on the first $7,000 of wages, and Ohio SUTA on the first $9,000. New Ohio employers default to a 2.85% SUTA rate; if you have an experience rating, enter it directly.
Ohio is unusual. On top of the flat state income tax, most Ohio municipalities levy their own income tax, typically between 1% and 2.5% — Columbus is 2.5%, Cleveland is 2.5%, Cincinnati is 1.8%. Many school districts levy a separate income tax on residents as well. Because these rates depend on where the employee lives and works, and they change, this calculator does not guess. Use the Find your rate link to look up the exact municipal rate on The Finder, Ohio's official lookup tool, then type it in.
The most frequent error is treating gross-up as a simple percentage. If you owe someone $1,000 net and their combined tax rate is 25%, adding 25% gives you $1,250 — but tax on $1,250 is $312.50, leaving only $937.50. The correct gross is $1,333.33. The gap widens fast at higher incomes.
The second common error is forgetting that wage bases reset. Social Security stops at $184,500, FUTA at $7,000, and Ohio SUTA at $9,000 of cumulative wages per employee per year. This calculator assumes the first payroll of the year, so an employee who has already crossed those thresholds will cost less than shown.
The third is confusing employer cost with gross wage. The gross is what appears on the pay stub. The employer cost includes payroll taxes the employee never sees — usually 8% to 10% more.
Looking for the annual figure rather than a single paycheck? We publish net-to-gross salary tables for all 50 states, covering common take-home targets from $40,000 to $150,000 a year, with a full federal, FICA, and state tax breakdown for each.