Your real tax rate
See the tax you really pay.
Your payslip shows income tax and social contributions — but that's only half the story. You also pay VAT or sales tax on nearly everything you buy, plus heavy fuel duties. Tax.cal adds it all up. Free, and your figures never leave your device.
What you spend each month
we pre-fill typical amounts — edit freelyWhat you see vs what you don't
Your tax, by type
Tax buried in what you buy
How your country compares
Direct tax (income + social + state) on the equivalent salary, converted at approximate exchange rates.
When you start working for yourself
Could you pay less in the UK?
General information, not personal tax advice. Rules have limits and conditions — check with a qualified adviser before acting.
Your Tax Wrapped
Find out what you can actually claim
The figure above is what's typically possible at your income. Tax.cal Plus asks you a short set of questions about your real situation, then tells you which of it you can actually use. In development — join the early-access list.
Curious what we'd ask? Try the questions now — free while Plus is in development, and your figures above carry over.
Tax.cal Plus is not yet available and no payment is being taken. Tax.cal provides general information, not personal tax, legal or financial advice.
How Tax.cal works
Most people only ever see income tax and social contributions on their payslip. But you also pay VAT or sales tax on almost everything you buy, and a large share of every fuel purchase is duty. Tax.cal combines all of these into one honest, effective rate — the real percentage of your income that becomes tax. It uses published 2026 rates, runs entirely in your browser, and stores nothing.
What's included, and how we estimate it
Direct tax (income tax, social contributions, US state and Canadian provincial tax) follows each country's published 2026 rules for a single employee with no other income — the figures on your payslip. Where the real rules vary more than one calculator can capture (US states, Spanish and Italian regions) Tax.cal uses a simplified or representative model and labels it in the results.
Indirect tax (VAT/sales tax and fuel duty) is genuinely an estimate: a shop receipt mixes items taxed at different rates, so we apply a reasonable effective rate to each spending category rather than pretending to know your exact basket. Each line is labelled known rate, estimate or rough so you can see how much to trust it.
- Fuel is taxed heavily and varies by country and state — treat it as a ballpark.
- Groceries are often zero-rated or reduced, so their hidden tax is small.
- The country comparison converts your salary at approximate exchange rates and shows direct tax only.
The full method, with every assumption spelled out and a list of what is deliberately left out: how we work out the tax that isn't on your payslip.
The same salary taxed in all eleven countries: which country taxes you most.
Is this tax advice?
No. Tax.cal is an educational estimate to show your total tax burden at a glance. It doesn't know your full circumstances — deductions, allowances, other income, regional quirks — and it is not a substitute for a qualified tax adviser. The "ways to keep more" tips are general information, not recommendations.
How is the “you could keep up to” figure worked out?
It's a typical-case model, not a personal finding. Tax.cal measures the marginal rate on your income — the rate you pay on your next pound or dollar earned — then applies it to the legal tax-advantaged contribution limits available in your country (a pension, 401(k), RRSP, superannuation and so on). We show the upper end of that range, so treat it as a ceiling rather than a forecast.
Because Tax.cal doesn't know what you already contribute or claim, some or none of it may apply to you. If you already max out your pension, your realistic figure is near zero. It's there to show the size of the prize, not to tell you what you personally are missing.
Where does my data go?
Nowhere. Every calculation on this page happens in your browser. Your salary and spending are never sent to a server and nothing is saved except an optional theme preference. Close the tab and it's gone.
Tax.cal Plus is the one exception here, and only if you ask for it: on that page you can press Save to keep your review behind a private link. Even then we store no name, no email and no password, and you can delete it yourself.
If you use Tax.cal inside ChatGPT, that is different: the figures you give are sent to Tax.cal's calculation service so it can do the sum, and are not retained. See the privacy page for exactly what is held.
Which countries and tax year?
Eleven countries on 2026 rules (verified 2 October 2026): the UK (2026/27, England, Wales & NI bands), the USA (all 50 states + DC, federal + state + FICA), Canada (all provinces), Australia (2026-27), Ireland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and India — Tax Year 2026-27 under the new Income-tax Act, 2025, with the new and old regimes side by side.