RSU Calculator
Finance & InvestmentCalculate your RSU vesting schedule, pre-tax value, estimated withholding tax, and net shares after tax. Model a 4-year vest with 1-year cliff or a custom schedule.
🇺🇸This tool is specific to United States
RSUs Granted
Stock Price at Vest
$
Vesting Period
years
Cliff Period
years
Supplemental Tax Rate
%
Total Pre-Tax Value
$0
Tax Withheld
$0
Net Value
$0
Net Shares
0
Total RSUs
4,000
What is a RSU?
The RSU Calculator projects the value of your Restricted Stock Unit grant across its vesting schedule, showing pre-tax value, estimated tax withheld, and net shares you'll actually receive after tax. RSUs are a standard form of equity compensation at US technology and growth companies, typically granted alongside a base salary offer and vesting over several years as an incentive to stay with the company.
Unlike stock options, RSUs carry real value the moment they vest — there's no strike price to pay, so even a flat or declining stock price still delivers value, just less than originally projected. This calculator models that vesting timeline using your RSUs Granted, Stock Price at Vest, Vesting Period, and Cliff Period inputs, then applies your chosen Supplemental Tax Rate to estimate what actually lands in your account after the mandatory tax withholding that occurs the moment shares vest.
For a fuller picture of equity-heavy compensation, pair this tool with the Capital Gains Tax Calculator to model what happens if you hold shares past vesting before selling, and the 401(k) Calculator to see how your overall retirement and equity compensation fit together.
How to use this RSU calculator
- Enter your RSUs Granted — the total number of units in your grant, as stated in your offer letter or equity agreement.
- Enter the Stock Price at Vest — use the current price for a same-day estimate, or a projected future price to model growth scenarios.
- Set the Vesting Period in years — the total time over which your full grant vests (commonly 4 years).
- Set the Cliff Period in years — the waiting period before any shares vest at all (commonly 1 year, or 0 for no cliff).
- Adjust the Supplemental Tax Rate if you want to approximate your combined federal and state withholding — the default 22% reflects only the federal flat rate.
- Review the Total Pre-Tax Value, Estimated Tax Withheld, Total Net Value After Tax, and Net Shares After Tax results, and use the step-by-step breakdown to see how each figure was derived.
Formula & Methodology
For a standard cliff-vest schedule, the annual tranche size is: Annual Tranche = RSUs Granted ÷ Vesting Years At the cliff year, all tranches accrued up to that point vest simultaneously: Cliff-Year Vesting = Annual Tranche × Cliff Years Every subsequent year vests one standard annual tranche. For each vesting year t: Pre-Tax Value(t) = Shares Vesting(t) × Stock Price Tax Withheld(t) = Pre-Tax Value(t) × Supplemental Tax Rate Net Value(t) = Pre-Tax Value(t) − Tax Withheld(t) Totals across all years sum these per-year figures. Example: 4,000 RSUs granted, 4-year vest with a 1-year cliff, stock price $50 at each vest, 22% supplemental tax rate. Annual tranche = 4,000 ÷ 4 = 1,000 shares. At Year 1 (the cliff), 1,000 shares vest (pre-tax value $50,000; tax withheld $11,000; net value $39,000). Years 2 through 4 each vest another 1,000 shares under the same math. Total pre-tax value across all four years: $200,000. Total tax withheld: $44,000. Total net value after tax: $156,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) is a promise from your employer to give you company stock once a vesting schedule is satisfied, rather than stock you own outright on day one. Unlike stock options, RSUs have value as soon as they vest regardless of the stock price, since you're not paying a strike price — you simply receive the shares (or their cash equivalent) at vest.
A cliff is a waiting period before any shares vest at all — commonly one year on a four-year grant. No shares vest during the cliff period, but once it passes, the shares that would have vested during that time vest all at once, and the remaining shares typically vest in regular installments (monthly or annually) afterward.
RSUs are taxed as ordinary income at vest, based on the fair market value of the shares on the vesting date — this is true whether or not you sell the shares immediately. Employers typically withhold tax automatically using the IRS supplemental wage rate (22% federal flat rate for amounts up to $1 million in a calendar year, 37% above that), which this calculator uses as its default assumption.
Not necessarily — the 22% flat rate is a withholding mechanism, not your actual marginal tax rate, and if your total income places you in a higher bracket (32%, 35%, or 37%), you'll likely owe additional tax when you file. Many RSU recipients are under-withheld and should set aside extra cash or adjust their W-4 to avoid a surprise tax bill.
If you sell immediately at the same price used to calculate your vest-date income, there's typically little to no additional capital gain or loss, since your cost basis is set to the fair market value at vest. If the stock price moves between vesting and selling, that difference is taxed separately as a short-term or long-term capital gain or loss depending on how long you hold the shares after vesting.
Many financial advisors recommend selling RSUs at vest to diversify away from concentration risk in a single company's stock, especially if you already have a meaningful portion of your net worth tied to your employer through salary and equity. Holding shares longer only makes sense if you have strong conviction in the company and are comfortable with the added risk — there's no tax advantage to holding, since the income tax is already due at vest regardless.
This calculator lets you set both the total vesting period and the cliff length independently — for example, a 3-year vest with no cliff, or a 4-year vest with a 1-year cliff. Adjusting these inputs reshapes when each tranche of shares vests and is taxed, which changes the year-by-year value even though the total number of RSUs and total tax rate stay the same.
Net shares after tax is calculated by converting your after-tax dollar value back into share-equivalent terms at the vesting stock price, which can produce a slightly uneven percentage depending on rounding at each vesting tranche. Most employers actually withhold tax by selling a portion of your vesting shares directly ('sell-to-cover'), which produces a similar but not always identical result to this dollar-based estimate.
No — this calculator uses only the federal supplemental wage withholding rate as its tax input. If you live in a state with income tax (California and New York have particularly high rates for tech employees), your actual total withholding and tax liability will be higher than shown here; adjust the Supplemental Tax Rate input upward to approximate your combined federal and state burden.
Not directly — stock options have a strike price and different tax treatment (ordinary income on the spread for non-qualified options, or potential AMT exposure for incentive stock options), neither of which this calculator models. This tool assumes RSUs, where the full fair market value at vest is taxed as ordinary income with no strike price involved.
Divide your total pre-tax RSU value by the number of vesting years to get an average annual equity value, then add that to your base salary and any cash bonus for a rough total comp figure — keep in mind that vesting is usually back-loaded after a cliff, so early years will show less equity income than later years. Use the [401(k) Calculator](/401k-calculator-us/) and [Capital Gains Tax Calculator](/capital-gains-tax-calculator/) alongside this tool to model the fuller picture of an equity-heavy compensation package.
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