What Is FICA?

The short answer

FICA stands for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act — the law that funds Social Security and Medicare. "FICA tax" isn't one tax; it's two separate taxes bundled together on your pay stub: a 6.2% Social Security tax and a 1.45% Medicare tax, for a combined 7.65% withheld from most paychecks in 2026. Your employer withholds this from your pay and sends an equal matching amount of their own — so the government actually receives 15.3% of your wages between the two of you, even though your pay stub only shows your half.

Social Security: 6.2%, but only up to a cap

Social Security tax is 6.2% of your wages — but only up to the annual wage base, which is $184,500 for 2026. Once your year-to-date wages pass that amount, Social Security withholding stops for the rest of the calendar year; it starts again each January 1. This is why a high earner might notice their paycheck get slightly bigger in November or December — the Social Security line simply disappears once they've hit the cap.

The wage base rises most years, tracking average wage growth nationally, and is set by the Social Security Administration — see the SSA's contribution and benefit base page for the current figure and history.

Medicare: 1.45%, with no cap at all

Medicare tax is 1.45% of your wages — every dollar you earn, with no wage base and no ceiling. This is a real structural difference from Social Security: a $10 million earner still pays 1.45% Medicare tax on the full $10 million, but stops paying Social Security tax after the first $184,500.

Additional Medicare Tax: the extra 0.9% at higher incomes

Above $200,000 in wages in a calendar year (regardless of filing status — this threshold doesn't change for married couples the way many other tax thresholds do), an Additional Medicare Tax of 0.9% applies to the amount over $200,000. That brings the Medicare rate on wages above the threshold to 2.35% total (1.45% + 0.9%). Unlike regular Medicare tax, employers don't match this additional 0.9% — it's employee-only. See IRS Topic 560 for the official rule.

One quirk worth knowing: your employer applies this threshold based only on what they've paid you, per employer — not your household or combined income from multiple jobs. If you and a spouse each earn $150,000 from separate employers, neither employer will withhold the Additional Medicare Tax, even though your combined household wages ($300,000) are well over the $200,000 threshold that applies at filing. You may owe more at tax time in that situation, or can request extra withholding via Form W-4 Step 4(c) to cover the gap in advance.

Why is Social Security capped but Medicare isn't?

Social Security benefits are calculated based on your taxed earnings history, and benefit payouts are also capped — so the tax is capped too, roughly matching contributions to potential future benefits. Medicare doesn't work that way: benefit eligibility isn't tied to how much you paid in, so there's no equivalent reason to cap the tax.

If you're self-employed: the same 15.3%, but all on you

Self-employed workers don't have an employer to split FICA with, so instead they pay "SECA" tax (Self- Employment Contributions Act) — the full 15.3% (12.4% Social Security + 2.9% Medicare) on their net self-employment earnings, up to the same Social Security wage base. The one break: self-employed filers can deduct half of that SECA tax as an adjustment to income on their federal return, roughly mirroring the fact that an employer's half of FICA isn't taxable income to an employee either.

See it on your own paycheck

The paycheck calculator breaks out Social Security, Medicare, and Additional Medicare Tax as separate line items for your actual salary and state — with an explanation behind each line if you click to expand it.