Take-home pay on a $30,000 salary in Missouri

What applies to you at $30,000, and what does not

What the $25,829 above does not account for

The $25,829 above is what $30,000 leaves after federal withholding, FICA and Missouri state withholding, and nothing else. Anything a city, county or school district levies on wages sits outside that figure, and whether any of it reaches your paycheck is a municipal question rather than a state one — so it is not modelled here. Missouri's own published position is below.

Only Kansas City and St. Louis City levy a 1% local earnings tax; Missouri law bars any other municipality from imposing a local income tax. Residents of those cities pay 1% on all earnings; non-residents pay 1% on income earned within city limits.

A bonus is withheld differently from a raise in Missouri

Missouri withholds supplemental wages — a bonus, a commission, a payout — at a flat 4.7%, not at the rate the rest of your pay is charged. That is exactly the rate your salary is charged at this rung, so a bonus and a raise are withheld identically here. On $1,000 of bonus it is the difference between $47.00 and $47.00 of Missouri withholding. Withholding is not the tax: what you owe is settled on the return either way.

The federal tax deduction Missouri allows on $30,000

Missouri lets you subtract part of the federal income tax you owe: 35% of it at $25,000 of income or less, falling in steps to 5% and to none above $125,000, capped at $5,000. At $30,000 the share is 25%, so $355 of the $1,420 federal income tax on this page comes off Missouri taxable income. The subtraction is worth $16.69 of Missouri income tax at this salary, and it is already inside the $455.98 on this page. Missouri's withholding formula leaves this deduction out, so an employer withholds a little more Missouri tax than this and the difference comes back when you file.

$30,000 against Missouri's wage floor

The minimum wage in Missouri is $15.00 an hour, which is $31,200 a year at forty hours a week. $30,000 is BELOW that: a full-time year at the Missouri minimum pays $1,200 more than this rung. Run the floor through the same engine and it keeps $26,739 of that $31,200 — 14.3% withheld — against 13.9% at $30,000. Both salaries sit low enough that the standard deduction is doing most of the work, which is why the two withholding shares are so close together despite the $1,200 between the salaries.

Effective Jan 1, 2026 under voter-approved Proposition A (2024). HB 567 (signed July 2025) removed the future automatic inflation adjustments Prop A had set. Does not apply to public employers.

If you pay for childcare, $30,000 sets your credit rate

The Child and Dependent Care Credit pays a percentage of qualifying care costs, up to $3,000 of expenses for one dependent and $6,000 for two or more, and that percentage is set by your income. At $30,000 it is 43.0%: you are on the first slide, where the rate drops a point for every $2,000 of income above $15,000. It levels off at 35.0% once income reaches $45,000, so a raise from here costs you a little of this credit on the way. It is a nonrefundable credit and none of the figures above include it: they model a filer with no dependents.

$30,000 against Missouri's own schedule

Missouri taxes a single filer through eight bands. $30,000 reaches the eighth of them, so the top slice of your Missouri taxable income ($13,545 after the $16,100 Missouri takes off first and the $355 it allows for the federal income tax on this salary) is charged at 4.7%. That is the top of the published schedule, and 30.3% of the Missouri taxable figure sits inside that last band, the rest having been charged across the seven below it. This is the last band Missouri publishes and it has no upper edge, so the rate on further income does not move again however much more you earn. Below it, $1,348 escaped Missouri's tax entirely and $8,088 was charged at lower rates, which puts the effective rate on the whole salary — 1.5% — 3.2 percentage points under the 4.7% headline.

There is no band above this one, so where you sit inside it changes nothing.

$30,000 is the bottom of this ladder

Nothing below this level is modelled here. Going up to $40,000 would add $7,579 a year, $632 a month, out of $10,000 of extra gross — 75.8% of the raise survives withholding, the highest keep rate anywhere on this page, because the bands down here are the cheapest ones.

Maxing a 401(k) is not realistic at $30,000

The 2026 elective deferral limit is $24,500, which is 81.7% of a $30,000 salary. Nobody at this income is hitting it, and the advice to "max out your 401(k)" is written for a salary several rungs up this ladder. What is worth knowing is the rate: every dollar you do defer comes off at 12% federally plus 4.7% in Missouri, so even a small contribution is bought at a real discount.

Where Missouri ranks on $30,000

Run the same $30,000 through all fifty states and the District of Columbia and Missouri comes 15 from the top on take-home pay — 37 from the bottom — keeping $25,829. The jurisdictions immediately above it at this salary are Ohio and Washington; immediately below are Mississippi and Idaho. North Dakota tops the table at $26,285, $456 more than Missouri on identical gross pay, and Oregon is last at $24,148. That ranking is specific to $30,000: flat-rate and graduated states change places as income rises, so Missouri's neighbours on this table are different at other salaries.

What the top of your federal bill is actually taxed at

The next dollar you earn at $30,000 is taxed in the second federal band. It runs $38,000 from edge to edge, 3.1 times the width of the band beneath it, and it is the widest band your taxable income reaches, which is why a raise at this level is unusually efficient: nothing about the extra income changes its treatment until you leave the band. The band still has $36,500 of headroom, which is about $36,500 of raise before a higher rate touches any part of it.

How this figure was computed

Every number above is computed at build time by the same engine that runs the Missouri paycheck calculator, from this repository's 2026 tax data file. Nothing is hand-typed and nothing is copied from another site.

Gross

$30,000 a year, spread evenly: $14.42 an hour, $1,153.85 a fortnight.

Federal

2026 brackets on $13,900 taxable (gross less the $16,100 standard deduction), Rev. Proc. 2025-32 → $1,420.

FICA

Social Security $1,860 on all of $30,000, under the $184,500 base. Medicare $435.

Missouri

Its own schedule on $13,545 after the $16,100 Missouri subtracts first and the $355 it allows for federal income tax, through eight bands → $456.

What this does not include

• Not in the arithmetic. Pre-tax deductions (401(k), HSA, FSA, premiums), dependents and credits, itemizing, non-wage income, and the employer's half of FICA.
• What is specifically live at $30,000. None of the following is in the take-home figure above, and all of it is real at this income: the Child and Dependent Care Credit, whose rate at this income is set by the §21 schedule described above.
• Local income taxes are not included. Missouri cities of Kansas City and St. Louis levy a separate 1% local earnings tax on wages, which is not included in this estimate.
• Missouri's standard deduction conforms to the federal standard deduction. For a head of household the figure used here also includes the extra $1,400 Missouri allows on the annual return (Section 143.161 RSMo), so it is $25,550 rather than $24,150. Not modeled here: the additional standard deduction for taxpayers age 65 or older or blind, the same $1,400 for a qualifying surviving spouse, and Missouri tax credits.
• Missouri lets you deduct part of your federal income tax on your annual return, under Section 143.171 RSMo, and this estimate applies it. It uses the federal income tax this estimate works out from your pay, so other income or credits on your real return would change it. The share depends on your Missouri adjusted gross income: 35% at $25,000 or less, 25% from $25,001 to $50,000, 15% from $50,001 to $100,000, 5% from $100,001 to $125,000, and 0% at $125,001 or more. It is capped at $5,000 per return, or $10,000 on a married filing combined return. Missouri's withholding formula leaves this deduction out, so your employer will usually withhold a little more Missouri tax than this estimate shows, and you get the difference back when you file Form MO-1040.

A computed estimate, not tax advice. Your own W-4, benefits and credits move the number.