Mega Millions Payout Calculator: Jackpot After Taxes

A Mega Millions jackpot is taxed as ordinary income: the lottery withholds 24% for federal tax, but a jackpot is taxed almost entirely at the 37% top rate, so most winners keep roughly 63% of the cash value before state tax. Most states then add their own income tax, while Texas, Florida and the other states without a broad income tax (plus California, for tickets bought there) take nothing.

This calculator is for informational purposes only. Its results are estimates, not tax advice and not a guarantee of what the lottery or any tax agency will withhold or assess. It opens with the current Mega Millions jackpot and cash value from the jackpot box above; change any input to test your own situation. The federal and state rules behind it, which are the same for every lottery, are explained in how lottery winnings are taxed, and the general lottery tax calculator handles state lotteries and other games.

How to use the Mega Millions payout calculator

The calculator is preset for Mega Millions, so the payout structure is already right: one immediate payment plus 29 annual payments that grow 5% a year. You only need to check four things:

1. Advertised jackpot and cash value. Both load from the latest drawing. If you are checking an older or future drawing, replace them with the figures Mega Millions publishes for that drawing. Leave the cash value filled in; the percentage estimate is only a fallback.
2. Filing status and other income. The prize is taxed on top of your wages and other income for the year, using the 2026 brackets from Rev. Proc. 2025-32.
3. State of residence and state where you bought the ticket. They can be different. A ticket bought on a trip can be taxed by the state that sold it.
4. Investment return. Used only for the lump-sum-versus-annuity comparison.

For a non-jackpot prize, enter the multiplied prize amount (for example $50,000 for 4 white balls + Mega Ball at 5X) as both the jackpot and the cash value, and the result shows the federal tax on that prize given your income. The prize table below the calculator already does this for every tier at the 2X and 10X multipliers, for a single filer with $60,000 of wages.

How the Mega Millions cash value relates to the advertised jackpot

The headline number is not a pile of cash. According to the official rules on megamillions.com, the cash option is "a one-time, lump-sum payment that is equal to all the cash in the Mega Millions jackpot prize pool," and the annuity is "one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments," each 5% larger than the previous one.

The game's FAQ explains how the two are set before each drawing:

• The cash option is based on actual ticket sales, with estimates built from sales projections the members review twice a week.
• The advertised annuity jackpot is what that cash would buy as a 30-payment annuity at that day's 30-year U.S. Treasury rate.

So the cash-to-jackpot ratio is not fixed. When long-term interest rates are higher, the same pool of cash supports a bigger advertised annuity, and the cash option looks like a smaller share of the headline. That is why the calculator asks for the published cash value rather than assuming a percentage, and why the jackpot box above shows both numbers side by side.

Mega Millions lump sum vs annuity after taxes

To show the arithmetic without quoting a jackpot that changes twice a week, take a hypothetical $400 million advertised jackpot with a hypothetical $170 million cash value, won by a single filer with no other income in 2026, living in a state with no income tax.

The cash option

1. Taxable income: $170,000,000 − $16,100 standard deduction = $169,983,900
2. Federal tax: $192,979.25 + 37% × ($169,983,900 − $640,600) = $62,850,000 (37.0% of the prize)
3. Withheld when you claim: 24% × ($170,000,000 − $5 ticket) = $40,799,999 (the Form W-2G instructions apply the 24% to winnings minus the wager)
4. Still owed with your return or as estimated tax: about $22,050,000
5. Left after federal tax: $107,150,000

The annuity

Because each payment is 5% larger than the last, the 30 payments add up to the first payment times 66.4388 (the sum of 1.05 raised to the powers 0 through 29). So the first payment is the jackpot divided by 66.4388:

• First payment: $400,000,000 ÷ 66.4388 = $6,020,574
• Federal tax on it: $192,979.25 + 37% × ($6,020,574 − $16,100 − $640,600) = $2,177,613 (36.2%)
• Left after federal tax in year one: $3,842,961
• Final (30th) payment: $6,020,574 × 1.05²⁹ = $24,781,499, about 4.1 times the first

At 2026 rates, federal tax over all 30 payments totals about $146.5 million, leaving about $253.5 million.

The annuity pays more total dollars, but the tax rate is almost the same: every payment from the first one onward sits mostly in the 37% bracket. On a Mega Millions jackpot, picking the annuity is not a tax-saving move. It is a choice between investing $107 million yourself and receiving a 5%-growing stream backed by the game. The calculator's "which option is worth more" line compares the two at the investment return you enter. The annuity also carries tax-law risk (later payments are taxed at whatever rates apply then) and estate exposure if the winner dies with payments outstanding; the estate tax calculator shows how large unpaid installments interact with the $15 million 2026 exemption.

How the built-in multiplier changes the tax on Mega Millions prizes

Every $5 Mega Millions play comes with a multiplier that is "randomly assigned at purchase and applicable on all non-jackpot prizes" (official rules). The published odds are 1 in 2.13 for 2X, 1 in 3.2 for 3X, 1 in 8 for 4X, 1 in 16 for 5X and 1 in 32 for 10X. There is no unmultiplied prize, so the smallest win, Mega Ball only, pays at least $10, twice the ticket price.

For tax purposes the multiplier is simply part of the prize. The IRS does not look at the base prize; it looks at what you were paid. That matters because the federal thresholds in the Form W-2G instructions are fixed dollar amounts:

• Form W-2G is issued when winnings are at least $2,000 for payments made in 2026 and at least 300 times the wager ($1,500 on a $5 play). The payer may subtract the wager first when deciding.
• 24% federal withholding is mandatory when the winnings minus the wager are more than $5,000, and it is figured on the whole amount, not only the part above $5,000.

Which Mega Millions prizes are withheld

Prize amounts below are from the official prize chart (outside California). The tax column is the federal tax the prize adds for a single filer with $60,000 of wages, whose prize lands in the 12% bracket unless it is large enough to climb higher.

Two edge cases come straight out of the thresholds. A 4 white balls prize at 10X is exactly $5,000; minus the $5 wager that is $4,995, which is not more than $5,000, so nothing is withheld even though a W-2G is issued. And a $2,000 prize (4 white balls at 4X, or 3 white balls + Mega Ball at 10X) is right on the W-2G line: if the lottery subtracts the $5 wager, the $1,995 falls under it. Either way the prize is taxable, and the tax is due when you file.

Example: 4 white balls + Mega Ball at 10X

A single filer earning $60,000 matches four white balls and the Mega Ball on a ticket carrying the 10X multiplier, for a $100,000 prize.

1. Withheld: 24% × ($100,000 − $5) = $23,998.80
2. Taxable income without the prize: $60,000 − $16,100 = $43,900; tax $5,020
3. With the prize: $143,900; tax $17,966 + 24% × ($143,900 − $105,700) = $27,134
4. Tax the prize adds: $27,134 − $5,020 = $22,114 (22.1%)
5. At filing, about $1,885 of the withholding comes back, assuming wage withholding covers the wage tax

The same match at 2X ($20,000) adds $3,750 of tax against $4,798.80 withheld, so withholding again overshoots. The picture flips at Match 5: a $2 million prize at 2X adds $707,180 of tax against $479,999 withheld, leaving about $227,181 to pay, which is large enough that an estimated payment for the quarter of the win is worth considering (see paying quarterly estimated taxes).

Mega Millions in California: pari-mutuel prizes and no state tax

California is the one place where the fixed prize chart does not apply. Mega Millions states that "prize amounts in California are paid on a pari-mutuel basis and will differ from the fixed prize amounts shown," meaning the California Lottery divides each non-jackpot prize pool among its winners. The prize table below the calculator uses the fixed chart, so a California winner should replace the amount with the actual prize paid.

The state tax side is simpler. The California Franchise Tax Board says it does not tax winnings from the California Lottery, including SuperLotto, Powerball and Mega Millions. That exemption covers tickets sold by the California Lottery only; a California resident who wins on a ticket bought in another state reports it as taxable income on the California return. Federal tax and the 24% withholding apply in California exactly as everywhere else.

Buying a Mega Millions ticket in another state

Mega Millions is sold in 47 jurisdictions, 45 states plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands (FAQ), so buying across a state line is easy and common near borders. Tax follows the ticket: the state that sold it can tax the prize as its own source income, and your home state taxes you as a resident, usually with a credit for the tax paid to the selling state.

Pennsylvania is a clear example. Mega Millions tickets bought from a licensed Pennsylvania vendor are Pennsylvania-source income, and "both residents and nonresidents are subject to tax" on cash prizes (PA Department of Revenue) at the state's flat 3.07% rate. On the hypothetical $170 million cash prize, that is $5,219,000 to Pennsylvania, even for a winner who lives in a state with no income tax and therefore has no home-state tax to credit it against.

To model a cross-border ticket, set the purchase state separately from your home state in the calculator. It charges the selling state's tax and credits it against your home state's, so you end up paying roughly the higher of the two rates. Moving after the drawing does not remove the selling state's claim on the prize, or on future annuity payments in states that keep taxing them; the lottery tax calculator has state-by-state examples, including New York and New Jersey.

Mega Millions office pools and Form 5754

Group play is common when the jackpot climbs. If a group legitimately bought the winning ticket together, the person who claims the prize gives the lottery Form 5754, listing each member and their share. The lottery uses it to issue a separate W-2G to each member, and the form goes back to the payer, not to the IRS.

Two rules matter for pools:

• Thresholds apply to the whole prize. The W-2G instructions tell payers not to split winnings among the members before deciding whether the reporting or withholding thresholds are met. A $50,000 prize (4 white balls + Mega Ball at 5X) shared by ten coworkers is withheld at 24% even though each share is only $5,000, which on its own would not be withheld.
• Each member pays tax in their own bracket. The $5,000 share above adds $600 of tax for a member in the 12% bracket and $1,100 for one in the 22% bracket, against $1,199.88 withheld from each share (24% of the $49,995 of proceeds after the $5 wager, split ten ways).

Put the pool agreement in writing before the drawing, with who paid and how the prize is split. Without it, the claimant can be treated as the only winner who then gave money away, which brings gift-tax filings into play; the gift tax calculator shows how the $19,000 annual exclusion works for 2026.

What is a $5 Mega Millions ticket worth after taxes?

Expected value is a method, not a forecast: it multiplies each prize by its probability and adds them up. Here is the arithmetic for one $5 play outside California, using the official odds.

Non-jackpot prizes. Weighting the published multiplier odds gives an average multiplier of almost exactly 3X. Summing each base prize (the 2X prize divided by two) times its probability and multiplying by that average gives about $1.12 per play before tax. After federal tax for a single filer with $60,000 of wages, it is about $0.93, because nearly all of it comes from small prizes taxed at 12%, while Match 5 is taxed at 35% to 37%.

Jackpot. With the hypothetical $170 million cash value, a sole winner's share is worth $170,000,000 ÷ 290,472,336 = about $0.59 per play before tax and about $0.37 after federal tax.

Total: about $1.70 per $5 play before tax and about $1.30 after federal tax. Before tax, the cash value would have to reach roughly $1.13 billion for a play to be worth $5 on average; after federal tax, roughly $1.88 billion. Both figures ignore state tax and the chance of splitting the jackpot with another winning ticket, which grows as ticket sales rise. Summing the published odds of all nine tiers, about 1 in 23 plays wins something.

Mega Millions drawings, rules and claim deadlines

• Drawings: Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 p.m. Eastern Time (FAQ).
• Price: $5 per play, including the multiplier, beginning with the April 8, 2025, drawing (it was $2 before). The redesigned game also starts each jackpot run at $50 million.
• Odds of the jackpot: 1 in 290,472,336 (5 white balls + Mega Ball).
• Claim deadlines: set by the state that sold the ticket, ranging from 90 days to one year from the draw date. The 60-day window in the W-2G instructions for choosing between a lump sum and an annuity is a separate federal rule: when the choice is made within 60 days of becoming entitled to the prize, an annuity is taxed only as each payment arrives.

If you want to compare games, the Powerball payout calculator does the same math for Powerball's $2 ticket and Power Play prizes. To see the bracket arithmetic behind every figure on this page, use the federal tax bracket calculator.