2026 Federal Income Tax Brackets and Standard Deduction

The rates apply to taxable income, which is income after the standard deduction (or itemized deductions) and pre-tax contributions. Each rate applies only to the slice of income inside its band.

The third column is the running total of tax from every lower band. Tax on any income is that figure plus the band's rate applied to the amount above the band's floor. A single filer with $83,900 of taxable income pays $5,800 plus 22% of $33,500, which is $13,170.

Every joint threshold is exactly double the single one except one: the 37% band starts at $768,700 for couples, not at double the single filer's $640,600. That is why some high-earning couples pay more tax married than they would as two single filers.

These match the single-filer bands until the 35% band, which ends at half the joint threshold rather than at the single one.

The standard deduction comes off before the brackets apply. A single filer earning $100,000 in wages with no other deductions has $83,900 of taxable income, not $100,000.

Each row assumes wage income, the standard deduction and nothing else: no pre-tax retirement contributions, no credits, no other income. The effective rate is the tax divided by the full income before the deduction.

At $100,000 a single filer's top bracket is 22%, but the tax is 13.17% of income. The gap between those two numbers is explained in marginal vs effective tax rate.

Subtract your deductions from your income to get taxable income, then find the band it lands in. That band's rate is your marginal rate, the rate on your next dollar of income. It is not the rate on all of your income. Moving into a higher bracket never reduces your take-home pay, because the higher rate applies only to the income above the threshold.

Long-term gains and qualified dividends are taxed on a separate, lower schedule. The bands are measured against total taxable income, with the gains stacked on top of ordinary income.

Short-term gains on assets held a year or less are taxed as ordinary income under the brackets above. Some higher earners also owe the 3.8% net investment income tax, which this table does not include.

Federal income tax is one of several taxes on the same pay. Social Security tax (6.2% up to the wage base) and Medicare tax (1.45%, plus 0.9% on wages above $200,000 for a single filer) are withheld separately and are not affected by your bracket. Most states add their own income tax. Credits such as the child tax credit reduce the tax these brackets produce, dollar for dollar, after the bracket calculation is done.

The federal income tax calculator applies these brackets to your income, pre-tax deductions and filing status and shows the tax in each band. The paycheck calculator adds Social Security, Medicare and state tax to give your take-home pay, and the capital gains tax calculator applies the capital gains schedule to a sale.

• Internal Revenue Service, Revenue Procedure 2025-32, inflation-adjusted tax rate tables, standard deduction and capital gains thresholds for tax year 2026. irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-25-32.pdf
• Internal Revenue Service, Federal income tax rates and brackets. irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brackets
• Internal Revenue Service, Topic no. 409, Capital gains and losses. irs.gov/taxtopics/tc409