Lyft (LYFT) NSO Exercise Calculator

Calculator · free · no signup · LYFT

Plan your Lyft NSO exercise — federal, state, FICA — and compare sell-vs-hold for long-term capital gains.

Beta · invite-only · AlphaLatitude Inc. · Free Tools

Your grant

pre-IPO? enter price manually

Tax inputs

Hold strategy

1 yr
20%
10.0%

Best after-tax payout — at year 1

$199,194

Sell + invest wins by $20,795 over Hold 1 yr.

Your NSO exercise pushes your top federal rate from 24% to 35%. Hover the Federal value below for the bracket-by-bracket slicing.

Sell + invest

Best payout
Bargain element (sale − strike)$350,000
Federal
State
Medicare−$5,075
Additional Medicare−$3,150
Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0%$18,583
LTCG on diversified gain (fed + state + NIIT)−$5,222
Net at year 1$199,194

Sell every share immediately; invest the after-tax cash at the market return for 1 yr, then liquidate. Diversified — no single-stock concentration risk.

Exercise + hold 1 yr

Sale proceeds (year 1)
LTCG tax (federal + state + NIIT)$0
Net at year 1$178,399

Sold 2,677 shares at exercise to cover strike + tax; 2,323 shares held 1 yr for LTCG.

Social Security + Medicare are payroll taxes (collectively called FICA) — they apply because you're exercising as a current employee.

Both columns are stated in year-1 dollars: sell-now proceeds compound at the market return and pay LTCG on the gain at year 1; any cash paid out of pocket on the hold side carries the same opportunity cost.

Net at year N — by hold period

Sell + investExercise + hold
$0$54K$108K$162K$216KYr 1Yr 2

Estimates only. Excludes AMT (NSOs do not trigger AMT), state-AMT, multi-state moves, and disqualifying-disposition edge cases. Not financial advice.

Lyft (LYFT) is a public Marketplace company. Lyft IPO'd on 2019-03-29. Use this calculator to estimate your NSO exercise tax (federal, state, FICA), then compare selling now versus holding through the long-term capital gains threshold. Inputs are yours — grant terms, current price, your income, your state.

All Lyft tools → · Use the generic NSO Exercise Calculator for any company.

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