How to Use the Salary Calculator — and Why It May Differ From Your Payslip

Tax year 2026 · ~5 min read

TL;DR. The Mysachar calculator estimates net pay assuming a steady-income month. A real Israeli payslip uses the cumulative annualised method (חישוב מצטבר), which shifts tax between months based on bonuses and YTD income. So in any single month the calculator can differ from the payslip by hundreds of shekels — but over 12 months the gap converges to nearly zero.

How to use the calculator in 6 steps

1. Enter your gross salary. This is your contract base, without bonuses or one-time items. If you regularly receive overtime, you can fold it into the base for a more accurate picture.
2. Pick gender and family status. Affects base credit points (male 2.25 / female 2.75) and the non-working-spouse credit.
3. Children. Enter each child's age. The calculator computes credit points using the 2026 schedule, which depends on the filer's gender and the child's age.
4. Pension and Keren Hishtalmut. Both on by default at the legal-minimum rates (6% / 2.5%). If your employer applies a different rate, change it under "custom rates".
5. Eligibility categories. Oleh hadash, recently discharged soldier, recent graduate, combat reservist, periphery, donations — toggle only what applies to you.
6. Taxable benefits. Meal vouchers, company car, corporate phone — these are imputed income: they raise your taxable base but never hit your bank account.

Results appear on the right: gross → deductions (income tax + Bituach Leumi + health tax + pension + Keren Hishtalmut) → net. Each line is interactive — hover to see the explanation.

Why your number may differ from the payslip

The calculator does a per-month static computation: "this month, this income, this tax". Real Israeli payroll works differently.

1. The cumulative method (חישוב מצטבר)

Each month, payroll re-projects the year's total tax based on YTD income and reconciles with what's been withheld. If a bonus landed in January, January's tax was "over-paid" — and the following months' tax shrinks to compensate. The calculator doesn't model this reconciliation; it treats every month as the first.

Example from a real audit. January with a ₪35,000 bonus: payslip showed tax ₪26,409, calculator ₪25,990 (Δ −₪420). February without a bonus: payslip ₪9,057, calculator ₪9,760 (Δ +₪703). Quarterly total: payslip ₪45,805 vs calculator ₪45,937 — 0.29% off over the quarter.

2. The bonus rule (תשלום נוסף)

For one-time large payments (annual bonus, 13th-month salary), Bituach Leumi and health tax use a special method: the bonus is allocated across prior months and BL is recomputed on each, bypassing the normal monthly ceiling. In practice this means more BL is collected on the bonus than the calculator's simple per-month ceiling (₪51,910/month) would imply. For a ₪35k bonus month, real BL can exceed the calculator's number by ~5% of the bonus amount.

3. Tax year

The calculator uses 2026 brackets and credit values. If you're auditing a 2024 or 2025 payslip, those years had slightly tighter thresholds, and real tax was ~₪150–300/month higher than this calculator would show.

4. End-of-year reconciliations

In December and the following March, payroll runs a full-year YTD true-up and either tops up or refunds the difference. This is why a single month can show a negative tax line (a refund) or a substantially-below-typical figure.

5. Eligibility you forgot to toggle

If you didn't tick periphery discount, a special credit for raising a child, or a custom pension rate that your employer applies — the calculator will show a higher tax than reality. Re-check every toggle in "Family status", "Eligibility categories", and "Other deductions".

What the calculator gets exactly right

An audit against real payslips found that Mysachar matches to the shekel on:

• Employee pension contribution (6% of pensionable salary)
• Employee Keren Hishtalmut (2.5%, including the spillover above ₪15,712)
• Bituach Leumi and health tax in a regular month (without a bonus)
• The taxable base for every deduction (gross + travel + meal + KH spillover + …)
• Credit points across all categories (base, children, oleh hadash, discharged, graduate, reservist)

The discrepancies show up only where cumulative mechanisms or special bonus rules apply.

Which number to trust

See also: How Israeli Tax Brackets Work, Reading Your Pay Slip, Average Salary in Israel.