Is Your Maryland Withholding Right?
Every other calculator tells you what a paycheck should look like. This one checks the paycheck you already have. Copy four numbers off a normal paystub and find out whether your employer is taking out too much Maryland tax, too little, or about the right amount — and if it is wrong, which line of Form MW507 to change and by how much.
Paystub withholding checker
Copy four numbers off your paystub
Use a normal paycheck, and the current period column — not year-to-date. Nothing you type here leaves your browser.
Before any deductions, for this paycheck only.
Often labelled MD State Tax, MD Income Tax or just MD.
Most Maryland employers combine state and county tax into a single line. Pick “separately” only if you can see two distinct Maryland amounts.
Maryland local tax follows where you live, not where you work.
The number on the form your employer has on file. Not sure? Work it out here.
Leave at 0 if line 2 of your MW507 is blank.
Enter your gross pay to begin
Once you add the gross pay and Maryland tax from a single paycheck, this compares what your employer withheld against what the 2026 Maryland withholding tables say it should be — and tells you which line of Form MW507 to change if they disagree.
Where to find these numbers on your paystub
Stub layouts vary by payroll provider, but the same figures are on all of them. You are looking at the current period column, not year-to-date.
| What to enter | What it is usually called on the stub |
|---|---|
| Gross pay this period | Gross Pay, Total Gross, Gross Earnings, or the total of the earnings lines. Before any deductions. |
| Maryland tax withheld | MD State Tax, MD Income Tax, Maryland W/H, State Tax — MD, or simply MD. In most cases this single line already includes your county tax. |
| Local / county tax | Local Tax, County Tax, MD Local, Local W/H. Only some employers show this separately; leave the checker on the combined setting if you cannot see one. |
| Pay frequency | The pay period dates at the top of the stub. Two weeks apart is bi-weekly (26 a year); the 15th and last day of the month is semi-monthly (24 a year). |
Skip any paycheck containing a bonus, commission or heavy overtime. Supplemental wages are often withheld at a flat rate, so those stubs will not match the tables no matter how correct your MW507 is. Use an ordinary paycheck instead.
How to actually change your withholding
Maryland withholding is controlled by one form: Form MW507, which you give to your employer rather than to the Comptroller. Two lines on it do the work.
| If you are… | Change this |
|---|---|
| Under-withheld | Put the per-paycheck shortfall on line 2 as additional withholding. This is the precise instrument — it adds exactly the dollar amount you name to every paycheck. |
| Over-withheld | Reduce or clear line 2 first if there is anything on it. If not, claim the exemptions you are entitled to on line 1. |
| Unsure what line 1 should be | The Personal Exemptions Worksheet on page 2 of the form decides it. The MW507 worksheet works through it and hands you the filled-in official PDF. |
Timing matters more than precision. A correction filed in February spreads across 24 more paychecks; the same correction in November has two. If you are behind late in the year, line 2 is the faster lever, because it changes a dollar amount directly instead of nudging a rate.
To see the effect of a change before you file it, run the numbers through the MW507 withholding estimator or the Maryland paycheck calculator. For the walkthrough of the form itself, read how to fill out Form MW507.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I know if enough Maryland tax is being withheld from my paycheck?
- Compare the Maryland tax on a normal paystub against what the withholding tables produce for your income, county, filing status and MW507 exemptions. The checker on this page does that comparison: enter your gross pay for one pay period and the Maryland tax withheld, and it reports the gap per paycheck and projected across the year. A difference of a few dollars is normal, because the Comptroller permits employers to use several different withholding methods. A gap of 20% or more is worth acting on.
- Why is my Maryland withholding too low?
- The most common cause is a second income. Each employer withholds as though its paycheck were your only one, so two jobs — or a working spouse on a joint return — are each withheld at a lower rate than your combined income actually faces. After that: claiming more exemptions on Form MW507 line 1 than your situation supports, a mid-year raise that payroll has not caught up with, and income with no withholding at all such as freelance work, interest or capital gains.
- Why is my Maryland withholding too high?
- Usually an amount sitting on line 2 of Form MW507 that is no longer needed, or claiming fewer exemptions than you are entitled to. Both are sometimes deliberate — people who owed last year often over-withhold on purpose to be safe. Over-withholding is not an error, but it is an interest-free loan to the state until you file.
- My paystub only shows one Maryland tax line. Is that a problem?
- No, that is the normal case. Maryland county income tax is collected together with state tax and most employers report the two as a single line. Leave the checker on the combined setting and enter that one figure. Only switch to separate entry if you can genuinely see two distinct Maryland amounts on the stub.
- Should I use the current-period column or year-to-date?
- Current period. Every figure the checker asks for describes a single paycheck. Entering a year-to-date total is the one mistake that will make the result wildly wrong, which is why the checker warns about it on every result.
- How do I change my Maryland withholding?
- File a new Form MW507 with your payroll department — not with the Comptroller. To have more taken out, put the extra per-paycheck dollar amount on line 2. To have less taken out, claim the exemptions you are entitled to on line 1; the MW507 worksheet on this site works out the maximum your situation supports. Changes take effect from whichever payroll cycle your employer processes next, so the earlier in the year you file, the more paychecks there are to spread the correction across.
- Does this tool see my paystub or my personal information?
- No. There is no upload, and the numbers you type are never sent anywhere — the comparison runs inside your own browser using the same Maryland tax engine as the calculators on this site. Nothing is stored and nothing is transmitted.
- Why does the checker ask me to type numbers instead of uploading my paystub?
- Because a parser would sometimes be confidently wrong. Paystub layouts differ across ADP, Paychex, Workday, Gusto and in-house payroll systems, and much of what people have to hand is a photo or a scan. Software that misreads a year-to-date column as a current-period one, or a local tax line as a state one, would then hand out withholding advice based on that mistake. Four numbers you have read and confirmed yourself are slower to enter and considerably more trustworthy.
- Is a small difference between withheld and expected a problem?
- No. Maryland's withholding guide permits several methods — the percentage method, the wage-bracket tables and annualised variants — and they legitimately disagree by small amounts on the same wage. Rounding on your stub adds a little more. The checker treats anything within about 5% or five dollars as on-track for that reason.
- Will fixing my withholding change how much tax I owe?
- No. Withholding changes the timing, not the total. Your Maryland tax liability for the year is settled on your return either way; withholding only decides whether you pay it gradually through the year, owe a balance in April, or get a refund. The goal is to land close to zero.