Maryland Paycheck Calculator

Every Maryland resident owes two separate income taxes: the state tax this calculator computes, and a mandatory local 'piggyback' tax set annually by their county of residence (or Baltimore City), added directly on top of the state amount. Select your county above and the countyTax output reflects the real 2026 rate for that specific jurisdiction, applied to the same Maryland taxable-income base ($75,000 gross minus the standard deduction, in this page's worked example) as the state tax.

22 of the 24 jurisdictions charge one flat rate against that base. Anne Arundel and Frederick Counties are the two exceptions — both charge a graduated rate that rises in tiers as income increases, and this calculator applies the correct tier automatically rather than a flat approximation. Published rates for 2026 span from Worcester County's 2.25% low up to the 3.2% statutory cap charged by several counties, including Howard, Montgomery, and Prince George's — a spread wide enough that two people earning the same salary in different counties owe noticeably different total tax, which is exactly why this is a per-county selector rather than a single statewide figure.

The source for every rate is the Comptroller of Maryland's own 2026 State and Local Income Tax Withholding Information memo — the same authoritative document well-resourced payroll platforms like SmartAsset and PaycheckCity draw from for their own county-aware calculators.

Maryland's 2025 legislative session made two changes that took effect for tax years beginning after December 31, 2024 (i.e. tax year 2025 forward, including 2026): it capped the state's former top 5.75% bracket and added two entirely new brackets above it — 6.25% and 6.5% — applying to the highest earners, while leaving the previously existing 2%-4.75% brackets and their thresholds unchanged.

The standard deduction was simultaneously set at $3,350 for single filers and $6,700 for married filing jointly, both confirmed directly by the Comptroller of Maryland's own Tax Alert document covering these 2025 legislative-session changes. Tax Foundation's independently published 2026 state tax table reproduces the identical full 10-bracket schedule and deduction figures for both filing statuses, cross-checking the Comptroller's own numbers.

Most Maryland wage earners at typical salary levels, including this calculator's own $75,000 worked example, fall well below the new top brackets and are affected by the 2025 changes only through the standard deduction adjustment — the new 6.25%/6.5% brackets apply specifically to income above $500,000 single/$600,000 MFJ.

This calculator keeps Maryland STATE tax (the stateTax output) and the county/Baltimore City piggyback tax (the countyTax output) as two separate figures rather than folding them into one number, even though totalTax already includes both. That separation makes it possible to see exactly how much of the bill comes from the state's own progressive brackets versus the flat (or, for Anne Arundel and Frederick, graduated) local rate your specific county charges — useful for comparing take-home pay against a different Maryland county, since only the countyTax line changes.

A Maryland resident using this calculator to estimate real take-home pay should select their actual county of residence above rather than leaving it unset — with no county selected, countyTax defaults to $0 and totalTax understates the real bill by whatever that county's piggyback rate amounts to.