Federal Tax Bracket Calculator
Estimate federal income tax from taxable income and filing status, including OBBBA inflation on the lower brackets. For planning only, not a tax return.
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Informational only — not a substitute for a tax, legal, or investment professional who knows your facts. About the publisher
Estimate regular federal income tax from taxable income and filing status. The model uses the seven statutory rates and the OBBBA inflation split on the lower brackets. Results are for planning only. They are not a filed return and they are not a guarantee of what the IRS will assess.
How US federal tax brackets work
The United States taxes ordinary income in stacked layers, not at a single flat rate on every dollar. The first slice of taxable income is taxed at 10%. The next slice is taxed at 12%, then 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. Crossing into a higher bracket does not reprice the dollars already in the lower layers.
That design is why “I got a raise and jumped a bracket, so I lost money” is almost never true for ordinary wages. Only the dollars above the threshold take the higher rate. The rest of your income keeps the lower rates.
Two numbers matter more than the headline bracket:
- Marginal rate — the rate on the next dollar of ordinary taxable income.
- Effective rate — total regular tax divided by taxable income (and, for a household picture, sometimes divided by AGI instead).
A single filer with $90,000 of taxable income might sit in the 22% bracket while paying an effective rate closer to the mid-teens. Use the calculator above to see both.
This page is part of the federal income tax hub. For the law changes that froze the TCJA rate structure and changed inflation on the bottom two brackets, read the OBBBA tax-changes guide.
Taxable income is not your salary
Brackets apply to taxable income, not to gross wages or to AGI.
A simplified path looks like this:
- Start with gross income (wages, interest, some retirement distributions, business profit, and so on).
- Subtract above-the-line adjustments to reach adjusted gross income (AGI).
- Subtract the standard deduction or itemized deductions.
- Apply other adjustments the return allows (for example QBI on a separate form).
- What remains is taxable income — the number this calculator wants.
If you only know take-home pay, start with the paycheck after-tax calculator and the tax withholding calculator. Those tools work from wages and W-4 settings. This tool starts later in the stack, after deductions.
MAGI is a different figure used for Roth IRA phaseouts, some credits, and Medicare IRMAA. If a form asks for MAGI, use the MAGI calculator instead of pasting a bracket result.
Ordinary rates versus capital gains
The seven rates on this page are for ordinary income: wages, interest, short-term capital gains, nonqualified dividends, and most retirement withdrawals that are not Roth.
Long-term capital gains and qualified dividends use a separate 0% / 15% / 20% structure (plus NIIT for some households). Do not run a stock sale through this calculator as if it were a bonus. Use the capital gains calculator and, if you are near the 3.8% surtax, the NIIT calculator.
Filing status still moves every threshold
The same seven rates apply to every filing status. The widths of the brackets change.
- Single — one set of thresholds.
- Married filing jointly — wider 10% and 12% bands, which is the usual “marriage bonus” on two similar wage earners stacked into one return.
- Married filing separately — generally half of the joint widths, with extra traps on credits.
- Head of household — in between single and joint, for qualifying unmarried people who keep up a home for a dependent.
A couple comparing “file jointly versus separately” should not look only at brackets. Credits, the standard deduction, student-loan interest, and IRA rules can dominate. Run both statuses here, then check credits with the child tax credit calculator or EITC calculator if those apply.
OBBBA inflation on the lower brackets
The OBBBA kept the seven TCJA rates and made that structure the baseline going forward. It also told IRS inflation indexing to treat the 10% and 12% bands differently from the 22%–37% bands for the 2026 inflation cycle: a larger adjustment on the bottom two rates, a standard chained-CPI style adjustment on the rest.
Practically, that means:
- More income stays in 10% and 12% than a uniform inflation factor would have allowed.
- Higher earners still see the usual annual creep in the 22%+ thresholds, just not the extra 4% bump.
The calculator lets you switch tax year so you can see the difference between the prior year’s tables and the current ones. Treat the output as an estimate. Official IRS Revenue Procedures and Form 1040 instructions control a filed return.
Inflation adjustments also hit the standard deduction, AMT exemption, and many credit phaseouts. The IRS inflation adjustments guide walks through those tables in one place.
Worked example: single filer
Suppose a single filer has $80,000 of taxable income (already after the standard deduction).
In a typical current-year table:
- The 10% band covers the first slice.
- The 12% band covers the next slice.
- The remainder falls in 22%.
Tax is (10% × first slice) + (12% × second slice) + (22% × remainder). The marginal rate is 22%. The effective rate is total tax ÷ $80,000, which will be lower than 22%.
If that person later earns $1,000 of extra overtime, only that $1,000 is taxed at 22% for ordinary tax (FICA is separate). They do not pay 22% on the entire $80,000.
Overtime and tips may also qualify for temporary OBBBA deductions. Those are not the same as a bracket change. Model them on the Working Families Tax Cuts hub.
Worked example: married filing jointly
A couple with $180,000 of combined taxable income often sits in 22% at the margin while still having a large share of income taxed at 10% and 12%. Dual-income households sometimes look at “whose extra dollar is taxed more.” For ordinary wages on a joint return, the next dollar is taxed at the household’s joint marginal rate, not at each spouse’s old single rate.
Where stacking still hurts is payroll tax (Social Security wage base, Additional Medicare) and state tax, which this calculator does not include. California filers can pair this page with the California income tax calculator. For a national paycheck picture, stay on the payroll tax hub.
What this tool does not include
A real Form 1040 applies credits, other taxes, and phaseouts this estimator skips or only approximates:
- Payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, Additional Medicare).
- The alternative minimum tax — use the AMT calculator.
- Net investment income tax — NIIT calculator.
- Self-employment tax on 1099 profit — 1099 tax calculator.
- The 20% QBI deduction — QBI deduction calculator.
- Credits (CTC, AOTC, LLC, EITC, adoption, and others).
- State and local income tax.
- Preferential rates on long-term gains and qualified dividends.
If you are a high earner with incentive stock options, AMT on a large ISO exercise can dwarf ordinary bracket tax. Use the ISO tax calculator with the AMT tool, not this page alone.
How to use the result
- Confirm you entered taxable income, not gross pay.
- Match filing status to the return you actually file.
- Read total tax as regular federal income tax only.
- Read effective rate as a planning ratio, not a withholding percentage. Withholding uses Publication 15-T tables and your W-4, which is why the withholding calculator exists.
- If the result looks high, check whether you forgot the standard deduction. If it looks low, check capital gains, NIIT, or SE tax.
Mid-year, compare this annual estimate with what your employer has withheld year-to-date. A large gap is a W-4 problem, not a bracket-table problem.
Credits sit after the brackets
A $2,200 child tax credit does not change your 22% bracket. It subtracts from the tax the brackets produced. That is why a family can have a high marginal rate and a low (or zero) final tax. Run credits separately: child tax credit, EITC, AOTC, lifetime learning credit.
If a credit is refundable, you can get money back even when bracket tax is already zero. If it is nonrefundable, it only eats the tax this calculator estimates. Mixing those ideas is how people conclude “brackets are wrong” when the real issue is a credit phaseout driven by MAGI.
How to use this calculator
Pick filing status, enter taxable income (not gross pay), and choose the tax year you are modeling. Read total tax first, then the bracket label, then the effective rate. If you only have a salary offer, subtract a draft standard deduction before you enter the number, or you will overstate tax.
Keep a second tab open with last year’s return so you can sanity-check order of magnitude. A result that is double last year’s tax on similar income usually means you entered gross wages or you omitted a deduction the return had. A result that is almost zero on six-figure wages usually means you entered take-home pay.
Informational use only
Bracket widths, inflation adjustments, and related rules change. This calculator is an educational estimate. It does not file a return, give tax advice, or promise that your IRS balance due will match the output. Confirm figures against current IRS publications and, for material amounts, a qualified tax professional.
Related reading and tools: federal income tax hub, standard deduction calculator, paycheck after-tax calculator, OBBBA tax-changes guide.