Do Green Card Holders Pay Social Security and Medicare on Every Paycheck in 2026?

If you want a fast comparison, run one estimate in Texas and one in California. That helps you separate FICA from state withholding and see what is really shrinking your net pay.

Short answer: yes, in most normal W-2 jobs

If you have a green card and work a normal W-2 job in the United States, the short answer is yes: you usually pay Social Security and Medicare on your paycheck. Those two taxes together are called FICA.

For most workers, the math is straightforward. Social Security is 6.2% of wages. Medicare is 1.45% of wages. Add them together and the standard employee FICA rate is 7.65%.

That rule is not special to green card holders. It is the same basic payroll treatment that applies to most other employees in regular W-2 work. Once you are in that normal payroll lane, the system usually does not care that much whether you are a citizen or a permanent resident. It cares about your wages, your job type, and whether a real exception applies.

This is why many new permanent residents are surprised. They expect the green card itself to create a new paycheck formula. Usually it does not. If you were already in a standard W-2 setup, your paycheck may look almost the same as before. If you want a broader green-card paycheck breakdown, compare this with our guide on your first green card paycheck.

When Social Security can stop but Medicare keeps going

This is the part that confuses people most. Medicare usually comes out of every paycheck all year. Social Security does not always do that.

Social Security has an annual wage base cap. Once your year-to-date wages go over that limit, the Social Security part stops for the rest of the year. Medicare does not stop at that same point. It keeps coming out of later paychecks.

There is also an extra Medicare rule for higher earners. If your wages from one employer go above $200,000 in the year, payroll must start withholding an additional 0.9% Medicare tax on wages above that threshold. That means some high earners pay 2.35% Medicare on the top slice of wages.

So the accurate answer to the keyword is this: green card holders usually pay Social Security and Medicare on every paycheck, except that Social Security can end after you cross the yearly cap. Medicare is the one that generally stays on every remaining paycheck.

Real paycheck example: $58,500 salary

Let’s use a clean example: $58,500 annual salary, single filer, paid biweekly, no 401(k), and no health insurance deduction in the base example. That gives a $2,250 gross paycheck.

That table makes the payroll point clear. On this income, a green card holder in a normal W-2 job should expect to see both FICA lines on the paycheck. In a no-income-tax state like Texas, your pay stub is usually easier to read because there is no state income tax line competing for attention. In a state like California, your net pay may feel smaller, but part of that is state tax rather than the green-card question.

Why your paycheck lines might look different

There are a few cases where a green card holder’s paycheck may not look like the simple example above. The biggest one is timing. If you moved from a status with special payroll treatment into permanent residency, your employer may have updated payroll before or after the actual immigration milestone.

Another issue is multiple jobs. If you have two employers, each employer separately withholds Social Security until you hit the cap with that employer’s payroll system. That can create excess Social Security withholding across the year, which you may later recover on your tax return.

A third issue is just bad setup. If payroll has the wrong W-4, wrong filing status, or stale benefit elections, your paycheck may look “wrong” even though the FICA lines are correct. That is why it helps to compare your pay stub with a calculator estimate and check related pages like green card paycheck taxes explained.

How to Put This to Work (3 steps)

1. Check the FICA math first: multiply gross pay by 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. If the paycheck is close, those lines are probably fine.
2. Check year-to-date wages next: if Social Security suddenly stopped, see whether you may have already crossed the yearly wage cap. Medicare should usually still be there.
3. Check the non-FICA lines last: compare federal withholding, state withholding, insurance, and retirement deductions to figure out what is actually changing your take-home pay.