South Carolina Income Tax Calculator

At a glance

Everything below is for tax year 2026 and a single filer unless stated otherwise. Rates, brackets and deductions come from the Tax Foundation tables in force on January 1, 2026, as amended by state laws enacted through June 2026; federal amounts come from IRSRevenue Procedure 2025-32.

Verified: October 6, 2026. Amended for 2026 by Act 110 (H 4216, 30 March 2026): 1.99%/5.21% schedule with a $15,000 deduction. How we calculate · A figure looks wrong? Report it

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Paycheck examples

Four salaries, all computed by this site's own engine: single filer, paid every two weeks, no 401(k) deferral, no health premiums and no local tax. “Take-home” is what lands in the account each payday after every withholding below.

Payroll taxes on a South Carolina paycheck

A $75,000 salary paid every two weeks, single filer, no 401(k) deferral, no health premiums and no local tax. Each line below comes off the gross before the money lands; the last column is what that line costs out of every dollar earned.

Payroll taxes come in two halves. The table above is the employee half — what is withheld from you. The employer half is paid on top of your salary and never shows up on a pay stub: a matching share of Social Security and Medicare, federal unemployment insurance (FUTA) and South Carolina's own unemployment insurance. It changes what you cost to employ, not what you take home, and this calculator does not model it. Working for yourself means carrying both halves — the 1099 calculator prices that in.

Withholding forms and payroll rules in South Carolina

What decides each line above: the certificate you file, the deductions it produces, and any local tax stacked on top.

• South Carolina uses its own SC W-4 allowance certificate because the 2020 federal W-4 dropped allowances while the state's withholding tables still calculate tax by allowance count.
• If a new hire never returns an SC W-4, the employer must withhold using zero allowances, and employees claiming exempt must resubmit the form every year by February 15.
• Employers must send a copy of any SC W-4 claiming ten or more allowances, or suspected to be fraudulent, to the Department of Revenue within thirty days of receiving it.
• All employers reporting South Carolina wages must also file W-2 forms directly with the Department of Revenue and report new hires within twenty days of the first day of work.

Source: South Carolina Department of Revenue, last verified October 27, 2026. A figure looks wrong? Report it

Hourly pay in South Carolina

Hourly wages are annualised the way the hourly-to-salary converter does it: 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, or 2,080 hours a year. The take-home column runs through the same engine as every other table on this page.

An extra dollar an hour is worth $2,080 of gross pay a year. At $35 an hour the total effective tax rate is 20.3%, which leaves $27.88 of every hour worked in the account.

Take-home by pay frequency

The same $100,000 salary, paid the four ways the calculator supports, under the assumptions above. Moving the payday changes the size of each deposit, never the yearly totals.

More scenarios at $100,000

Two setups readers ask about most, beside the single-filer baseline above: filing jointly, and deferring 6% of pay into a 401(k). Both stay biweekly, with no premiums and no local tax.

A 401(k) lowers the wages federal and South Carolina income tax are figured on, but Social Security and Medicare stay charged on the full salary — and the deferral itself still leaves every paycheck, so take-home drops by the deferral minus the tax it saved.

Real-world worker profiles in South Carolina

How different career stages and family setups fare under South Carolina's tax rules:

Brackets and deductions

South Carolina applies these rates to state-taxable income for single filers. Married couples filing jointly use the same rates against the joint thresholds in the source tables. The South Carolina standard deduction of $15,000 (single) or $30,000 (married) comes off first.

What we do not model

For South Carolina: South Carolina’s new income-adjusted deduction (SCIAD, $15,000 single / $30,000 joint) phases out with federal AGI and is fully gone by $95,000 single / $190,000 joint; the full pre-phase-out amount is used here, so the estimate reads low for higher incomes. The figures above exclude local and municipal income taxes, tax credits, dependent exemptions and credits, itemized deductions, additions for age or blindness, income-specific exemptions such as tips and overtime, phase-outs, alternative minimum tax, state disability insurance, and the Form W-4 details that change real withholding. They are an estimate, not tax advice — see the full disclaimer for what the model does and does not cover. The method shows how each figure above is calculated.

Common questions

Want to run the numbers yourself? Open the calculator with South Carolina selected, put any second state next to it, or browse income tax in all 50 states — including its rank on a $100,000 salary, cheapest first.