take-home per year
$18,589
from $20,000 gross per year — 7.1% goes to tax, CPP & EI
*what your next $100 actually loses — includes CPP/EI phase-ins, provincial surtax and health premium, and low-income credits phasing out
Download statement (PDF)Every line explained, bracket figures and a pay schedule — ready to print.Link to this calculation →
The bracket map
Only the income inside a bracket pays that bracket's rate. Your marker shows how far up the ladder your taxable income reaches — everything below it is taxed at the lower rates, not the top one.
Hover or tap a segment to inspect it.
Hover or tap a segment to inspect it.
Where every dollar goes
Your $20,000 gross per year, split into what you keep and what comes off the top.
| Take-home | $18,589 | 92.9% |
| Federal income tax | $104 | 0.5% |
| BC income tax | $0 | 0.0% |
| CPP + CPP2 | $982 | 4.9% |
| EI premium | $326 | 1.6% |
The raise myth
Of your next $1,000 raise, you keep $795. New dollars are taxed at your true marginal rate of 20.5% — not your overall effective rate of 0.5%, and never 100%.
A raise can never shrink your take-home pay — only the new dollars get taxed at the higher rate.
How we got this number · 2026
Following $20,000 in British Columbia, dollar by dollar
Before any tax, CPP and EI come off the top.
Canada Pension Plan takes 5.95% of what you earn between $3,500 and $74,600. Employment Insurance takes 1.63% of earnings up to $68,900. Both keep growing with each raise until you reach $68,900 for EI and $74,600 for CPP.
- CPP
- $982
- EI
- $326
- Payroll contributions
- $1,308
The enhanced slice of CPP ($165) is deductible, so income tax is worked out on $19,835 of taxable income, not $20,000.
Ottawa taxes your income in layers, not all at once.
All of your taxable income sits in the federal first bracket (14%); the second starts at $58,523, $38,688 further up. Each layer pays only its own rate:
Rate Layer Income in it Tax 14% $0–$58,523 $19,835 $2,777 - Tax on the layers
- $2,777
- Less credits: basic personal amount, CPP, EI, Canada employment amount
- − $2,673
- Federal income tax
- $104
British Columbia stacks its own brackets — 7 of them, from 5.6%.
All of your taxable income sits in British Columbia's first bracket (5.6%); the second starts at $50,363, $30,528 further up.
Rate Layer Income in it Tax 5.6% $0–$50,363 $19,835 $1,111 - Tax on the layers
- $1,111
- Less British Columbia credits: basic personal amount, CPP, EI
- − $804
- BC tax reduction credit
- − $307
- British Columbia income tax
- $0
- BC tax reduction credit: Up to $690, phasing out at 3.56% of net income above $25,570.
After the carving: your take-home.
$20,000 − $1,308 CPP & EI − $104 federal − $0 British Columbia = $18,589
That is 92.9% of your gross. Income tax alone is 0.5% of it — your effective rate.
Your bracket rate is 19.6% (14% federal + 5.6% British Columbia). But your next dollar actually loses 20.5%, because payroll contributions still come off each new dollar (CPP at 5.95% and EI at 1.63%) until you pass their yearly maximums and the BC tax reduction credit still cancels all of your provincial tax.
Of a $1,000 raise you would keep $795. Only the new dollars are taxed at that rate — a raise never lowers your take-home.
$20,000 a year, per pay
The same salary at each pay frequency. These are yearly averages: in practice CPP and EI stop once you hit the yearly maximums, so late-year pays run a little bigger.