2026 Federal Tax Brackets & Standard Deduction

For 2026, the federal income tax system has seven rates: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. The standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and $32,200 for married couples filing jointly. The top 37% rate kicks in above $640,600 of taxable income for single filers and above $768,700 for joint filers. The full tables for all four filing statuses are below, along with the 2025 tables that apply to the return you file in early 2026.

Data last updated July 9, 2026 · Source: IRS Revenue Procedures

2026 Federal Income Tax Brackets

Each rate applies only to the slice of income that falls inside its range — not to your whole income. Find your filing status, then read down the column to see where each rate starts and stops.

These ranges apply to taxable income — what is left after the standard deduction (or your itemized deductions) is subtracted from your income. Federal only; state income taxes use their own brackets.

2026 Standard Deduction

The standard deduction comes off the top before any bracket applies. Unless your itemized deductions add up to more than the figure below for your filing status, you take the standard deduction — and your first dollars of income are effectively taxed at zero.

How Tax Brackets Actually Work

The brackets are marginal. Moving into a higher bracket only changes the rate on the dollars above the threshold — everything below it is still taxed at the lower rates. That distinction is the difference between your marginal rate (the rate on your next dollar) and your effective rate (your total tax divided by your taxable income), and the effective rate is almost always lower — the two are equal only when all of your taxable income sits inside the bottom 10% bracket.

A worked example makes it concrete. A single filer with $75,000 of taxable income in 2026 pays 10% on the first $12,400 ($1,240), 12% on the income between $12,400 and $50,400 ($4,560), and 22% on the remaining $24,600 ($5,412). Total federal income tax: $11,212. That filer sits in the 22% bracket, but the effective rate is just 14.95%.

This is also why the common fear — “a raise could push all my income into a higher bracket and leave me worse off” — is a myth. A raise can never shrink your after-tax income under the bracket system. Only the portion of the raise that crosses into the next bracket is taxed at the higher rate; every dollar you were already earning keeps its old treatment. You can see this live by dragging the income slider in our Tax Bracket & Capital Gains Modeler.

Two related notes. First, these tables cover ordinary income — wages, interest, traditional retirement withdrawals. Long-term capital gains and qualified dividends use a separate, gentler rate schedule, while short-term gains are taxed as ordinary income right off these tables; see our capital gains brackets reference for those thresholds. Second, the marginal structure is what makes bracket management work: retirees often fill the lower brackets with Roth conversions in low-income years, a strategy you can model with the Roth Conversion Ladder calculator.

What Changed from 2025 to 2026

The annual inflation adjustment nudged both the standard deduction and the bracket thresholds upward:

• Standard deduction (single): up $350, from $15,750 to $16,100.
• Standard deduction (married filing jointly): up $700, from $31,500 to $32,200.
• Top of the 12% bracket (single): up $1,925, from $48,475 to $50,400.

Wider brackets and a bigger deduction mean that if your income stayed flat from 2025 to 2026, slightly more of it lands in the lower rates.

2025 Tax Brackets (for the return you file in early 2026)

The tax return you file in early 2026 covers income you earned in 2025 — so it uses the 2025 brackets and standard deduction below, not the 2026 figures above.

2025 Standard Deduction

Other 2026 Figures

Two more numbers from the same IRS and Social Security Administration updates matter if you have wage or self-employment income. The Social Security wage base for 2026 is $184,500 — earnings above that amount are not subject to the Social Security portion of payroll tax. For the self-employed, the self-employment tax runs 12.4% for Social Security (up to the wage base) plus 2.9% for Medicare, a combined 15.3% on top of the income tax brackets above. If you freelance or run a side gig, our Side Hustle Tax Estimator puts both layers together for you.

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