Locum tenens take-home pay in California, 2026

California charges a locum tenens physician roughly $25,521 in state income tax on a $336,000 contract year — the difference between that contract and the identical one worked in Texas. This page works the whole calculation through, then covers the two things California does that no calculator elsewhere accounts for: the unpublished 2026 brackets, and a franchise tax that quietly eats an S-corp election.

Figures below are produced by the same take-home calculator you can run yourself, with the inputs stated. Tax data last reviewed 3 August 2026.

The number, on a standard contract

Holding everything constant except the state — MD/DO, $1,600 a day, 5 days a week, 42 weeks a year, single filer, no business expenses claimed:

The contract advertises $200 an hour. After self-employment tax, federal tax and California tax it pays $120.51. Nothing here is unusual or aggressive — no expenses have been claimed, no entity has been formed, and the federal figures would be identical in any state.

California's 2026 schedule

California runs one of the longest bracket ladders in the country. Single filers, taxable income:

Standard deduction $5,706; a $153 exemption credit applies. Most full-time locums land in the 9.3% band, which starts at $72,724 — well below a single locum contract year. The 10.3% step at $371,479 is reachable on a busy year or a second income in the household.

The S-corp trap California sets

This is the part that catches people, because the federal arithmetic is genuinely attractive and the California arithmetic is applied afterwards.

• California taxes S-corporations at 1.5% of net income, with an $800 minimum franchise tax payable whether the entity earns anything or not.
• If the entity is an LLC electing S-corp treatment, California charges an annual LLC fee on gross receipts on top of the $800.
• The federal saving from an S-corp election is not 15.3%. Above the Social Security wage base ($184,500 for 2026) only the 2.9% Medicare portion is still in play, so the election saves 2.9% of whatever you characterise as distribution rather than salary.

Put those together: California's 1.5% entity tax takes back roughly half the federal saving before you have paid a payroll service, filed a separate 1120-S, or defended your salary as reasonable. An election that looks worth $6,000 a year on a federal-only spreadsheet can be worth a fraction of that in California, and the compliance burden is unchanged.

It is not automatically wrong — at high net profit it can still clear — but California is one of the states where the answer flips. The full S-corp analysis, with the arithmetic →

The QBI deduction will not rescue this

Medicine is a specified service trade or business under IRC § 199A(d)(2)(A). For 2026 the deduction phases out completely above $276,775 of taxable income for single filers. A full-time locum physician is above that, and forming a PLLC or electing S-corp status does not change it — the test is what the business does, not how it is organised. Assume zero, and treat any QBI deduction you do get as a surprise.

California against the states locums actually compare it to

Identical $336,000 contract, identical assumptions, only the state changed:

A California assignment has to pay $15.19 an hour more than a Texas one to leave you in the same place. On a 13-week contract at 40 hours that is roughly $7,900 of rate you should be negotiating for, and it is a concrete number to put in front of a recruiter rather than a feeling that California is expensive.

Cost of living is a separate question and this page does not model it. But the tax gap is real, it is knowable before you sign, and it does not appear anywhere on the contract.

Also worth reading before a California assignment

• Quarterly estimated taxes — California wants its own instalments, on its own form, on a schedule that does not match the federal one.
• Deductible business expenses — the fastest legitimate way to reduce the California line as well as the federal one.
• Malpractice and tail coverage — priced independently of tax, but the single largest expense most locums carry.