№ 063 · Income & taxes cluster

Tax Bracket Calculator

Your tax bracket is the rate on your last dollars, not on all of them. Enter your income and filing status to see your 2026 federal bracket, the effective rate you really pay, and exactly how much of your income each bracket taxes — and why a raise never leaves you with less.

2026 brackets · marginal vs. effective rate

For your actual paycheck — after Social Security, Medicare, and state tax — use the Take-Home Pay Calculator. Your bracket is also what a traditional 401(k) contribution saves you today, and half of the Roth vs. Traditional decision. Expecting a raise? The Pay Raise Calculator shows what it adds to every paycheck.

Your income01

Annual incomegross, before tax

Filing status

Pre-tax contributions401(k), HSA…

Deductions02

Deduction$16,100 standard

You are 65 or olderYou are blind

Each box adds $2,050 to your standard deduction. For 2026, 65 or older means born before January 2, 1962.

Other deductionstips, overtime…

New for 2025–2028 and taken on top of either deduction: qualified tips, overtime pay, the $6,000 senior deduction, and car-loan interest. Enter what you qualify for — their income limits aren’t applied here.

Your 2026 tax bracket · single

22%

Effective rate10.68%of your $78,000 income

Federal income tax$8,330.00on $61,900 taxable

Only your top $11,500 is taxed at 22%: the $50,400 beneath it is taxed at 10% and 12%, and $16,100 isn’t taxed at all. Your tax is 10.68% of your $78,000 income — not 22%.

Taxable income$61,900.00after $16,100 deducted

Taxed at 22%$11,500.00the only dollars in your bracket

To the 24% bracket$43,800.00more taxable income at 22%

Tax on a $1,000 raise+$220.00you keep $780.00 of it

Your income, bracket by bracket

Untaxed $16,100
10% $12,400
12% $38,000
22% $11,500

The 2026 brackets · single

The 2026 federal tax brackets for single filers: each rate, the taxable income it covers, how much of your income falls in it, and the tax on that slice.
Rate	Your income	Tax
10%$0–$12,400	$12,400.00	$1,240.00
12%$12,400–$50,400	$38,000.00	$4,560.00
22%$50,400–$105,700Your bracket	$11,500.00	$2,530.00
24%$105,700–$201,775	—	—
32%$201,775–$256,225	—	—
35%$256,225–$640,600	—	—
37%Over $640,600	—	—
Total13.46% average	$61,900.00	$8,330.00

Each rate taxes only the income inside its own range — over the lower figure, up to and including the upper one.

From income to taxable income

Gross income: $78,000.00
Standard deduction: − $16,100.00
Taxable income: $61,900.00

Federal income tax on ordinary income for 2026, before any tax credits. Social Security and Medicare, state income tax, and the lower rates on long-term capital gains aren’t included — for what actually lands in your paycheck, use the Take-Home Pay Calculator.

How it works · methodology

The math, in the open.

taxable income = gross income − pre-tax contributions
                 − standard or itemized deduction
                 − other deductions             (≥ $0)

tax            = Σ rate × your income in that bracket
               = 10% × $12,400 + 12% × $38,000
                 + 22% × $11,500 = $8,330

tax bracket    = the rate on your last taxable dollar
effective rate = tax ÷ gross income   ($8,330 ÷ $78,000 = 10.68%)

Each rate taxes only the slice of taxable income inside its own bracket, so moving into a higher bracket raises the rate on the dollars above the line and nothing else. That is why the effective rate always sits below the bracket — 10.68% against 22% for a single filer earning $78,000, the example above — and why a raise always leaves you with more.

gross income: Wages, salary, and other ordinary income for the year, before anything comes out
pre-tax contributions: Traditional 401(k), 403(b), HSA, and similar contributions that never reach taxable income
standard deduction: 2026: $16,100 single or married filing separately, $32,200 joint, $24,150 head of household — plus $2,050 ($1,650 if married) per filer 65 or older or blind
other deductions: Taken on top of either deduction: qualified tips, overtime, the senior deduction, car-loan interest, and from 2026 up to $1,000 of cash gifts to charity for non-itemizers
rate: The 2026 schedule for your filing status: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%

Assumptions & limits

Federal income tax on ordinary income for tax year 2026 only — the return filed in 2027. Social Security and Medicare, state and local income tax, the alternative minimum tax, the 3.8% net investment income tax, and the lower rates on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends are not included.
No tax credits. The child tax credit, the earned income credit, education credits, and others come off the tax after the brackets, so your final bill can be lower.
The tax is the exact Revenue Procedure 2025-32 formula, to the cent. Returns with taxable income under $100,000 use the IRS Tax Table, which taxes the midpoint of each $50 row and rounds to the dollar — a difference of up to about $6.
Other deductions are taken as entered: the income phase-outs, eligibility rules, and joint-return requirements of the tips, overtime, senior, and car-loan deductions are not applied, and neither is the 2026 limit on the tax benefit of itemized deductions for filers in the 37% bracket.
The 65-or-older and blind add-ons count both spouses on a joint return and only you on any other. A separate filer can claim a spouse’s add-ons only if that spouse has no income, files no return, and is no one’s dependent — a case not modeled, like the smaller standard deduction for someone claimed as a dependent.
A qualifying surviving spouse uses the married-filing-jointly brackets and standard deduction: choose Married filing jointly.

Sources

By the MintNumber Editorial Team·Reviewed October 26, 2026

Frequently asked

Questions about tax brackets

What is the difference between my tax bracket and my effective tax rate?

Your tax bracket — your marginal rate — is the rate on your last dollar of taxable income. Your effective rate is your total tax divided by your income. They differ because federal income tax is charged in layers: every filer pays 10% on the first slice of taxable income, 12% on the next, and so on, and only the dollars above each threshold see the higher rate. A single filer earning $78,000 in 2026 subtracts the $16,100 standard deduction, leaving $61,900 of taxable income: $12,400 is taxed at 10%, $38,000 at 12%, and only the top $11,500 at 22%. The tax is $8,330 — 13.46% of taxable income and 10.68% of the full $78,000. The bracket is 22%; the effective rate is about half that.

Will a raise push me into a higher bracket and cut my take-home pay?

No. Crossing into a higher bracket changes the rate only on the dollars above the line — everything below it is taxed exactly as before. Say a single filer with $105,000 of taxable income gets a $2,000 raise: the first $700 is still taxed at 22% and the other $1,300 at 24%, so the raise adds $466 of federal income tax and leaves $1,534. The brackets never take more than 37 cents of an extra dollar. Where more income genuinely can cost you is outside the brackets: some benefits and credits — the earned income credit, Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, Medicaid — shrink as income rises.

Should I take the standard deduction or itemize?

Take whichever is larger. For 2026 the standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and married couples filing separately, $32,200 for joint filers, and $24,150 for heads of household, plus $2,050 ($1,650 if married) for each filer who is 65 or older or blind. Itemizing pays only when your deductible expenses add up to more — mortgage interest, state and local taxes (capped at $40,400 for 2026, and less at high incomes), gifts to charity, and medical costs above 7.5% of your adjusted gross income — which is why most filers take the standard deduction. Two 2026 details: non-itemizers can now also deduct up to $1,000 of cash gifts to charity ($2,000 on a joint return), which goes under other deductions here; and if you are married filing separately and your spouse itemizes, you must itemize too. Switch the calculator to Itemized to see which way your tax comes out lower.

What are the 2026 federal income tax brackets?

There are seven rates: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. For single filers the brackets end at $12,400, $50,400, $105,700, $201,775, $256,225, and $640,600 of taxable income, with 37% on everything above; for married couples filing jointly the thresholds are $24,800, $100,800, $211,400, $403,550, $512,450, and $768,700. The IRS adjusts them for inflation every fall — the 2026 figures come from Revenue Procedure 2025-32, published in October 2025 — and the calculator lists every bracket for the filing status you choose. The rates themselves are now permanent: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on July 4, 2025, extended them. Without it they would have expired after 2025 and reverted to the pre-2018 schedule of 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35%, and 39.6%.

How do the new deductions for tips, overtime, seniors, and car-loan interest work?

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act added four deductions for 2025 through 2028, each taken on top of the standard or itemized deduction: up to $25,000 of qualified tips; up to $12,500 of qualified overtime pay — the extra half in time-and-a-half — or $25,000 on a joint return; $6,000 for each filer 65 or older; and up to $10,000 of interest on a loan for a new, U.S.-assembled vehicle bought after 2024. Each phases out at higher incomes — tips and overtime above $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($300,000 joint), the senior deduction above $75,000 ($150,000 joint), and car-loan interest above $100,000 ($200,000 joint) — and married couples must file jointly to claim the tips, overtime, or senior deduction. Enter the amount you qualify for under other deductions: the calculator subtracts it from taxable income but does not apply the phase-outs. Because these deductions come off taxable income, they save you your bracket rate on every dollar — and can drop you into a lower bracket.

What changes if we are married and file separately?

Each spouse reports their own income on brackets exactly half as wide as the joint ones — identical to a single filer’s through the 32% bracket, but with 37% starting at $384,350 instead of $640,600 — and gets a $16,100 standard deduction. A few rules bite: if one spouse itemizes, the other must itemize too, losing the standard deduction; the new tips, overtime, and senior deductions require a joint return; and several credits are reduced or unavailable. For most couples, filing separately costs more than filing jointly. It can still be worth it — to keep each spouse responsible only for their own return, or when one spouse has large medical bills or income-driven student-loan payments — so it pays to run the numbers both ways.

Why might my tax return differ from this by a few dollars?

Because of the IRS Tax Table. If your taxable income is under $100,000, the Form 1040 instructions have you look up your tax in a table of $50-wide rows rather than apply the rates, and each row shows the tax on its midpoint, rounded to the dollar. A single filer with $61,900 of taxable income falls in the $61,900–$61,950 row, taxed as if it were $61,925: $8,336 instead of the exact $8,330 shown here. The gap is never more than about $6, and from $100,000 up the IRS Tax Computation Worksheet uses the same exact formula as this calculator. Bigger differences come from what isn’t modeled here — tax credits, capital gains taxed at lower rates, and other taxes on the return.