Federal Income Tax Calculator

This income tax calculator estimates your 2026 US federal income tax from three simple inputs: your filing status, your gross income (or AGI), and whether you take the standard deduction or itemize. It reports your taxable income, your total federal tax before credits, your effective and marginal tax rates, and — if you enter what has already been withheld — whether you are on track for a refund or a balance owed.

It uses the official 2026 tax brackets and standard-deduction amounts published in IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32, which apply to the return you will file in early 2027. The calculation is federal only — it does not include state income tax, Social Security and Medicare (FICA) payroll taxes, or self-employment tax — it isolates the annual federal income-tax liability and your effective and marginal rate. If you are converting an hourly wage into the annual income figure to enter here, start with the hourly-to-salary calculator.

The United States uses a progressive marginal-bracket system. Your income is not taxed at a single rate; it is sliced into layers, and each layer is taxed at its own bracket rate. The formula the engine applies is:

taxableIncome = max(0, income − deduction)
tax = Σ_b rate_b × (income falling inside bracket b)
effectiveRate = tax ÷ taxableIncome
marginalRate = rate of the highest bracket you reach

• Deduction: the 2026 standard deduction for your filing status, or the itemized total you enter — whichever you choose.
• Taxable income: gross income minus the deduction, floored at zero (you never have negative taxable income).
• Tax: the sum of each bracket layer's rate times the portion of your income inside that layer.

There are seven statutory rates: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%. The table below shows the single-filer taxable-income thresholds for tax year 2026. Married-filing-jointly brackets are roughly double; Head of Household and Married Filing Separately have their own schedules, all applied automatically when you pick your status.

Everyone qualifies for the standard deduction with no receipts or paperwork — it's the fixed dollar amount this calculator subtracts from gross income by default. The amount depends only on filing status:

These figures already include the 2026 inflation adjustment under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Switch the calculator's deduction toggle to “itemized” only if your actual deductible expenses exceed the amount for your status.

This calculator stops at your pre-credit federal tax liability — the number the bracket math produces before any credits are applied. Credits reduce your final bill dollar-for-dollar (unlike a deduction, which only reduces the income that gets taxed), so your actual amount owed is often lower than the figure shown here. Common federal credits not modeled in this version include:

• Child Tax Credit — a per-qualifying-child credit that phases out at higher incomes.
• Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) — a refundable credit for low-to-moderate-income workers, sized by income and number of qualifying children.
• Child and Dependent Care Credit — for a share of qualifying childcare or dependent-care expenses that let you (and a spouse, if filing jointly) work.
• American Opportunity and Lifetime Learning Credits — for qualified higher-education tuition and fees.

If any of these apply to you, treat the tax figure this calculator shows as an upper bound on what you will actually owe — your real Form 1040 liability, after eligible credits, will typically be lower.

These figures are computed live by the same engine that powers the calculator above, so they can never drift from the actual math. A single filer earning $75,000 who takes the standard deduction lands in the 22% marginal bracket but pays an effective rate closer to 13%.

Filing status determines both your standard deduction and your bracket widths. The comparison below runs the same $100,000 of income through all four statuses, each with its own 2026 standard deduction. Note how Married Filing Jointly's wider brackets produce the lowest tax on the same income.

Planning around a salary change? Pair this with the salary hike calculator to see how a raise moves you between brackets, or the hourly-to-salary calculator to convert an hourly rate into the annual income you would enter here.

• Tax year 2026 (returns filed in 2027) figures per IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32, reflecting the seven-bracket structure made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with a 2026 inflation adjustment.
• Federal ordinary income only — no state or local income tax, no FICA/payroll or self-employment tax, no capital-gains or qualified-dividend preferential rates, no AMT, and no Net Investment Income Tax.
• You enter AGI/gross income directly; the calculator does not derive AGI from wages minus above-the-line adjustments.
• No credits are modeled — the result is your pre-credit liability. The Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit and education credits reduce your final bill dollar-for-dollar, so your actual tax owed is typically lower.
• The effective tax rate is expressed as tax ÷ taxable income (the IRS “average tax rate” framing), not tax ÷ gross income.
• This is an estimate, not tax advice, and not a substitute for IRS Form 1040 or a qualified tax professional.