Tax year 2026
Day Rate
Tell it what you want to take home. It works backwards through tax, business costs, federal holidays, your time off and the days you do not get booked, and gives you the rate that actually gets you there. Everything updates as you type, and nothing you enter leaves your browser.
What you want to make
Take-home means the money that lands in your account and is yours to spend, after every tax and every business cost. Not revenue, and not profit before tax.
Your year
Start at 365 and take away everything you will not be working. What is left is what you are available for, which is not the same as what you get paid for.
See the 2026 federal holidays
How much of it gets booked
The number nobody wants to put in. Being available for 300 days does not mean being paid for 300 days. Set this to the share of your available days that turn into actual work.
What it costs you to work
Every dollar here is a dollar you have to earn before you earn anything. Add or remove rows freely. These come off Schedule C, so they cut your self-employment tax as well as your income tax.
A business cost and a health premium of the same size are not worth the same. The business cost also removes 15.3% of self-employment tax. The premium does not, because the deduction sits above the line rather than on Schedule C. Most calculators treat them identically and quietly overstate what you keep.
Compare it to a salary
The comparison that matters. A salaried job is quietly paying half your payroll tax, your holidays, your time off and most of your premium. Put a number in and see what you would have to charge to end up in the same place.
Tax detail
State tax is a single rate against your adjusted gross income. That is an estimate and it is editable, because one rate cannot capture a graduated bracket table, a state standard deduction, or a city tax. The defaults are the rate a single filer meets at roughly $100,000 of taxable income, not each state's top marginal rate, which is the number most calculators use and which is badly wrong for anyone who is not a millionaire.
If you work in several states in one year, which describes most touring crew, no calculator can give you a correct state number. Income gets sourced to the state it was earned in, and your home state credits some of it back. Treat the state line here as a placeholder and talk to an accountant who has done a tour before.
This does not model itemized deductions, an S corporation election, capital gains, the Section 199A wage and property limits, or the qualified business income treatment of a spouse's income. It is a planning tool for setting a rate. It is not tax advice and it is not a tax return.