Equity vesting
tracker.
Enter your equity grants and current stock price to see your unvested value, upcoming vest events, and estimated tax liability at each vest on a fixed 4-year schedule with a 1-year cliff. The tracker saves your entries in your browser.
The question it answersWhat is my unvested equity worth and what will I owe in taxes?
Rules: United States. Tax year: models 2026 figures; check the assumptions before using it for another year. Privacy: runs in your browser. What you enter stays on your device unless you copy a share link, which puts your inputs in the link.
Tax notes: RSURestricted Stock Unit (RSU)Company shares your employer promises to give you over time, usually a chunk every year for four years. The shares are taxed as regular wages on the day each chunk lands in your account.Full definition vests are ordinary income, taxed at your bracket plus state plus FICAFederal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA)The federal payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare. Workers pay 6.2% for Social Security (on wages up to $184,500 in 2026) plus 1.45% for Medicare, and employers match both. Self-employed people pay both halves, 15.3%, as self-employment tax.Full definition (6.2% Social Security up to the $184,500 wage base, 1.45% Medicare, and 0.9% Additional Medicare on wages above $200,000, or $250,000 on a joint return and $125,000 on a separate one). Options (ISOIncentive Stock Option (ISO)A right your employer gives you to buy company shares at a fixed price later. Cheaper taxes than other stock options if you hold long enough, but can trigger an unexpected extra tax called AMT.Full definition/NSONon-Qualified Stock Option (NSO)An employee stock option taxed as ordinary income at exercise, unlike ISOs which receive better tax treatment.Full definition) are not tax events at vest; NSOs are taxed at exercise, and ISOs may trigger AMT at exercise. See Equity Compensation for the full mechanics. verify×DON'T TRUST, VERIFYClaim: RSU vests are ordinary income in the year of vesting. Options are not taxed at vest; they are taxed at exercise (NSO) or may generate AMT at exercise (ISO).Verify at: IRS Publication 525 ↗ Source 1 in the list belowGrant terms vary: check your grant agreement and plan document for the actual schedule and withholding.
Estimate, not tax or legal advice. It applies the 2026 rules listed in the assumptions to the numbers you enter. Details this tool does not model can change the result.
What this tool assumes
- Tax on each RSU vest = vest value × (your selected federal marginal bracket + state rate), plus payroll tax: 6.2% Social Security until your own wages for the calendar year reach $184,500, 1.45% Medicare, and 0.9% Additional Medicare on wages over your filing status threshold. Each vest is stacked on top of the other W-2 wages you enter and that year's earlier vests.
- All vests, including earlier ones this year, are valued at the current stock price you enter. The 2026 wage base is also used for vests in 2027 and later years.
- The Additional Medicare threshold is the one on the return: $200,000 (single, head of household or surviving spouse), $250,000 married filing jointly, counting your spouse's W-2 wages, or $125,000 married filing separately. Your employer starts withholding it only once it pays you $200,000 in the year, whatever your filing status, so withholding can differ from this estimate. Self-employment income is not counted.
- Out-of-range entries are clamped, with a note under the inputs: a blank price or state rate, or a negative price, wage or state rate, counts as 0, and the state rate is capped at 15%. A grant is added only with a whole number of shares above 0, a grant date, and (for options) a strike price entered as $0 or more.
- Vests fall on the grant date's day of the month; in a month without that day (a grant on the 29th to 31st), the vest falls on that month's last day.
- Options require strike pricestrike priceThe fixed price at which a stock option can be exercised to buy shares. and exercise timing decisions not modeled here.
Not financial or tax advice. Check your grant agreement for the actual vesting schedule.
HOW THIS IS CALCULATED
This tool runs entirely in your browser: no data is sent to any server. It uses no live stock prices; the grants you add are saved in this browser's localStorage and stay on this device.
- Every grant follows one schedule: 25% of the shares (rounded) vest on the first anniversary of the grant date, and the rest vest in 36 monthly steps after that, each on the grant date's day of the month, or on the month's last day when the month is shorter. Month m gets round(rest ÷ 36 × m) minus round(rest ÷ 36 × (m minus 1)) shares, so the steps add up to the full grant. With fewer than 36 shares left after the cliff some months round to 0 shares; those months are not listed as vest events.
- Vested = events dated today or earlier; unvested = later events. "Next 12 months" lists events before the same date next year.
- Value: RSU = shares × current price. ISO or NSO = shares × max(0, price minus strike), the spread before exercise.
- Estimated tax is shown for RSU vests only: vest value × (federal bracket + state rate), plus payroll tax. RSU shares count as ordinary income at their value when they vest[2]. Payroll tax is 6.2% Social Security on wages up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500 and 1.45% Medicare on all wages[3], plus the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages over the filing status threshold in a calendar year: $200,000, or $250,000 of combined wages on a joint return, or $125,000 on a separate return[4][5]. The spouse's wages count only toward the joint threshold; the Social Security wage base counts only your own wages. Within each calendar year the other W-2 wages you enter count first, then that year's RSU vests in date order, each valued at the current price; a vest that crosses a threshold is split at it. Vests in 2027 and later years use the 2026 wage base. Options show no tax at vest: NSOs create income at exercise, and an ISO exercise can trigger the alternative minimum tax[6].
Not modeled: employer withholding, which starts the 0.9% only above $200,000 paid by that employer whatever your filing status[3], self-employment income, how an employer spreads payroll tax across individual vests (the stacking gets each year's total right, not the split between vests), shares withheld to cover tax, the tax on options at exercise, and any other vesting schedule. The Share link carries the price and tax settings, not your grants. Verify the methodology or inspect the source code in your browser's dev tools.
Where to go from here
Sources
Bracketed numbers and verify badges in the text link to these sources. Figures, rates and rules change: check each source’s date before acting on it.
- Internal Revenue Service, IRS Publication 525 ↩
- Internal Revenue Service, U.S. taxation of stock-based compensation received by nonresident aliens, YouTube video text script. Checked 2026-09-26. ↩
- Internal Revenue Service, Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates. Checked 2026-09-26. ↩
- Internal Revenue Service, Topic no. 560, Additional Medicare Tax. Checked 2026-09-26. ↩
- Internal Revenue Service, Questions and answers for the Additional Medicare Tax. Checked 2026-09-26. ↩
- Internal Revenue Service, Topic no. 427, Stock options. Checked 2026-09-26. ↩
Calculators are educational estimates, not financial advice. Disclosures · How pages are reviewed