How This Calculator Works
The calculator starts with your annual base salary pulled from official national-union schedules for APWU clerks, city carriers, mail handlers, PSEs, CCAs, and MHAs. Rural carriers, RCAs, and EAS employees enter the annual salary from their PS Form 50 or earnings statement. That salary is divided by 26 to get the scheduled biweekly base, then deductions are estimated: FERS (0.8%, 3.1%, or 4.4% depending on coverage), Social Security (6.2% up to the 2026 $184,500 wage base), Medicare (1.45%), federal and state tax, and your elective deductions.
Use Your Actual Deductions
Benefits, union dues, state and local taxes, additional withholding, and premium-pay eligibility vary by employee. Enter the amounts from your latest earnings statement instead of relying on a generic example. The result is a planning estimate, not a payroll calculation.
Premium Pay: Where Postal Checks Get Interesting
Few jobs have as many pay premiums as USPS. Overtime, penalty overtime, Sunday premium, and holiday-worked pay depend on employee status and the applicable agreement. Night differential is not one universal 10% rate: APWU and NPMHU schedules use published flat-dollar rates, and other crafts have their own rules. Enter the exact hourly night-differential amount from your earnings statement or official wage chart. City carriers on a T-6 string get a 2.1% carrier technician premium — toggle it on above. See our guides to USPS overtime rules and night differential and Sunday premium.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
First: don’t divide your annual rate by 24. The USPS schedule uses 26 biweekly periods; calendar year 2026 happens to contain 27 paydays, but that does not reduce the base amount of each check. Second: enter your actual union dues and night differential instead of relying on a generic craft estimate. Third: non-career employees do not have the same FERS and benefit deductions as career employees; adjust those fields to match your earnings statement. If any line differs, use our pay stub guide and verify against payroll.
Official Sources
Pay tables come from official APWU pay information, the NALC March 7, 2026 pay chart, and the NPMHU September 6, 2025 wage chart. Federal estimates use IRS Publication 505. Your PS Form 50 and earnings statement control if they differ.