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

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

$30,000 is the bottom of this ladder

Nothing below this level is modelled here. Going up to $40,000 would add $7,405 a year, $617 a month, out of $10,000 of extra gross — 74.1% of the raise survives withholding, the highest keep rate anywhere on this page, because the bands down here are the cheapest ones.

The Maine deductions that are not income tax

Separately from income tax, Maine withholds one employee-funded premium from this paycheck.

• Maine PFML at 0.50% costs $150.00 a year, $5.77 a paycheck. It is charged on only the first $184,500 of wages, which $30,000 does not reach, so the whole salary carries it.

That takes $150.00 a year out of $30,000, 0.5% of gross pay. It is withheld after tax, so unlike a 401(k) contribution it reduces nothing else, and it appears in no bracket table anywhere.

The childcare credit rate that $30,000 buys you

Qualifying childcare costs earn a credit worth a percentage of the spend, on expenses of up to $3,000 for a single dependent and $6,000 where there are two or more. Which percentage you get depends on what you earn. 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. Being nonrefundable, it can only cancel tax you already owe, and the take-home numbers on this page do not include it at all.

A bonus is withheld differently from a raise in Maine

Maine withholds supplemental wages — a bonus, a commission, a payout — at a flat 5%, not at the rate the rest of your pay is charged. That is below the 5.8% your salary is charged at this rung, so a bonus is under-withheld and the difference is owed at filing. On $1,000 of bonus it is the difference between $50.00 and $58.00 of Maine withholding. Withholding is not the tax: what you owe is settled on the return either way.

$30,000 against Maine's wage floor

The minimum wage in Maine is $15.10 an hour, which is $31,408 a year at forty hours a week. $30,000 is BELOW that: a full-time year at the Maine minimum pays $1,408 more than this rung. Run the floor through the same engine and it keeps $26,656 of that $31,408 — 15.1% withheld — against 14.6% 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 $1,408 between the salaries.

Effective Jan 1, 2026 (up from $14.65); CPI-indexed annually (CPI-W, Northeast Region). Tipped/service direct cash wage is $7.55/hr.

Where $30,000 lands in Maine's bands

Maine taxes a single filer through four bands. $30,000 reaches the first of them, so the top slice of your Maine taxable income ($9,000 after the $21,000 Maine takes off first) is charged at 5.8%. The next band up, where your Maine rate next moves, begins $18,400 of taxable income further on, but a raise of about $18,401 gets you there. Maine's standard deduction plus personal exemption shrinks as income rises, so a raise adds to your Maine taxable income twice: once as pay, and again as the deduction it takes away. The deduction is $21,000 at $30,000 and $21,000 at $48,401 of pay. The band holding the top slice of your income runs $27,400 from edge to edge, so it governs a long stretch of income. A raise has to be substantial before any of it is charged at a higher Maine rate.

This is the first band Maine publishes and $30,000 does not leave it, so every dollar of Maine taxable income here is charged at the one rate — there is nothing below it to be charged at less. The next edge is $18,400 of taxable income further on, and higher rungs of this ladder do cross it.

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 5.8% in Maine, so even a small contribution is bought at a real discount.

Where Maine ranks on $30,000

Run the same $30,000 through all fifty states and the District of Columbia and Maine comes 25 from the top on take-home pay — 27 from the bottom — keeping $25,613. The jurisdictions immediately above it at this salary are Arkansas and Montana; immediately below are North Carolina and New Jersey. North Dakota tops the table at $26,285, $672 more than Maine 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 Maine's neighbours on this table are different at other salaries.

What the top of your federal bill is actually taxed at

At $30,000 your next dollar falls in the second band up, a stretch of $38,000 — 3.1 times the run of the band below it. A raise here is about as cheap as a raise gets: the extra income is treated exactly like the income underneath it, all the way to the edge. There is $36,500 of room left in the band, so roughly $36,500 of further salary is charged at this rate before any of it meets the next one.

How this figure was computed

These figures are generated, not written: the 2026 tax data file in this repository goes into the same engine that powers the Maine paycheck calculator, and the page is rebuilt from the result.

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.

Maine

Its own schedule on $9,000 after the $21,000 Maine subtracts first, through one band → $522. Plus Maine PFML at 0.50% → $150.00.

What this does not include

• Left out of the sums. Anything taken pre-tax (401(k), HSA, FSA, insurance premiums), any dependants or credits, itemised deductions, income that is not wages, and the half of FICA your employer pays. There is no local wage income tax in Maine, so that line is not missing anything.
• 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.
• This estimate includes Maine's $5,300 personal exemption ($10,600 for a married couple filing jointly), added to the standard deduction. Both shrink at higher incomes and both reductions are applied: for a single filer the $15,700 standard deduction shrinks away between $102,250 and $177,250 of income, and the exemption between $341,000 and $466,000. Maine rounds the share it takes away slightly differently, so the result can differ from your return by a few dollars.
• For 2026 Maine adds a 2% surcharge on taxable income above $1,000,000 (single), $1,500,000 (married filing jointly / head of household), or $750,000 (married filing separately). This estimate models the single/joint thresholds; married-filing-separately filers reach the surcharge sooner.
• The age-65+/blindness additional deduction and Maine tax credits are not modeled.
• Maine has no local or city income tax on wages.

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