I’m considering a career change going CFI to regional route and I’m trying to figure out how much regional pilots REALLY get paid so I can plan a budget.

I’ve seen all the pay scales for each regional airline. However, it’s challenging to deduce how much regional pilots really take home because of the ambiguous bonuses and bullish regional airline recruitment marketing promising “up to $65K FIRST YEAR FO PAY!!!”

After looking at pay scales, it looks like first year FOs at most regional airlines make about $37K @75 hours p/m. Even if I received a $15k bonus, bonuses are taxed at a much higher rate than regular comp.

When bonuses are factored in, taxes deducted, how much do regional pilots actually take home each month?

How much should I realistically expect to make my first year? How much for 2nd-4th year? How much do regional captains really make?

Yes, I know there will be many variables that will create various answers. I’m just hoping to get a general idea of how much take home pay will really be to create a budget.

A general rule of thumb is to take the pay rate X 1000 to determine annual compensation. That will roughly account for guarantee, over guarantee flying, per diem, training pay, etc. Yes if you're a homeboy and don't ever want to work you'll make less, and you'll make much more if you sell your soul to the company and pick up extra flying all the time. The other big factor to consider is reserve time, as generally you will make less on reserve than as a line holder, so an airline with long reserve times will usually hurt your pay. So if you go to a place and expect to upgrade in 3 years, and the 3rd year CA pay rate is 70/hr, then you can roughly plan to make about 70 grand that year as a captain.

Also a note on bonuses, they are withheld when paid out at a 25% federal tax rate (plus state, local, etc) but at the end of the year all compensation counts towards your taxable income and all taxes withheld go towards whatever your tax bill is based on your taxable income.

Go somewhere you can get off reserve and max credit/ pick up open time. Hourly pay rates don't mean much when you're only making minimum guarantee.

Whatever your current tax rate is now, if regional pay is close to your CFI pay, your take home will be about the same. As stated, bonuses are withheld at 25%, but you'll get the difference back at tax time (assuming you are lower than the 25% margin, which it sounds like you are).

It's very simple... take min guarantee hours times pay rate times times (100 times your current tax rate). That's your base pay. Take the proposed bonus times 68%, and that's roughly your net bonus income. Add those two. That's your salary, plus or minus a little.

I'm a RJ captain line holder never pickup opentime or more flying than I have to. After everything is deducted, taxes, insurance etc I bring home about 4300 a month. The FOs probably make about 30% less, you get taxed way less too.

1st year Envoy FO here. After taxes, insurance, etc. (single, no kids) I bring home about $2600 a month in the bank including per diem. Lineholder, no open time pickup. Quarterly retention bonus just hit today, $1715 in the bank, new-hire bonus was about 10.1k after taxes (15k before). Tax rebate from 2016 also just hit, $2850 in the bank (no mortgage, just standard deduction and student loan interest). Hardly consider myself rich, or even close to it, but I get by just fine. Light years ahead of where I started in Part 121 8 years ago.

No, they are not. Bonuses are treated exactly the same as other regular wages from a tax perspective (at the end of the year when you do your taxes).

Edit: Heh, sorry, guess I should read first...several other posts already pointed this out.

Yes and no. For example, if you get a 10k bonus added into one of your twice monthly paychecks, it's going to look to the tax tables like you are clearing $250k+ per year. So it will be taxed accordingly in much higher tax bracket. But when you go to file your taxes that's when you'll get a refund for having too much withheld. And the government gets to use your money interest free for up to a year....
...

As for the OP,

My first year I made just over $30k, no bonus, 60 hour guarantee training pay, $24/hour for the first 8 months, then $35/hour when we got the "new" first year pay.

Someone else said 1000x hourly rate is a good estimate. So $36k in basic salary at my company + $22k in bonus money realistically puts you at $58,000. They all add in per diem into these income figures and that's easily another $500/month, $6k per year. (Not really income, but money in your pocket). Pick up a few trips in open time at premium pay and $65,000 is somewhat realistic with the per diem added in.

I made $73k first year at Endeavor not including per diem but that was with a lot of pick ups

$32,900 for the first year. Lots of sitting, no open time and mostly 75 hour lines at 29.00 per hour with little per diem on top.