2026 Federal Income Tax Brackets: Rates, Tables and Examples

The United States has seven federal income tax rates in 2026: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%. Each rate applies to a band of taxable income called a bracket, and the bands are different for each filing status. The 2026 brackets were set by the IRS in Revenue Procedure 2025-32, after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the seven-rate structure permanent and gave the lower brackets an extra inflation adjustment. These are the brackets that apply to income you earn in 2026 and report on the return you file in early 2027.

This guide has the full tables for single filers, married couples filing jointly and heads of household, the 2026 standard deduction, a step-by-step example of how the brackets apply to a salary, a comparison with 2025, and answers to the most common misunderstandings about brackets. For a single filer, the 22% bracket covers taxable income from $50,401 to $105,700.

See which bracket your income falls in →

2026 tax brackets by filing status

The table lists the taxable income range for each rate. Taxable income is your income after the standard deduction (or itemized deductions) and any other deductions, not your salary. For married couples filing jointly, the brackets are exactly twice the single brackets up through the 32% rate, which avoids a marriage penalty for most couples. The 35% and 37% brackets are less than double, so some high-earning couples still pay more filing jointly than they would as two single filers.

Married couples filing separately use brackets equal to half the joint brackets. Heads of household get wider 10% and 12% brackets than single filers. In 2026, the head-of-household 12% bracket runs to $67,450, compared with $50,400 for single filers, which is worth up to about $1,705 a year in lower tax.

The 2026 standard deduction

Before any bracket applies, the standard deduction is subtracted from income. For 2026 it's $16,100 for single filers and married filing separately, $32,200 for married couples filing jointly, and $24,150 for heads of household. Taxpayers 65 or older or blind add an extra amount: $2,050 for single and head-of-household filers and $1,650 per qualifying spouse for married filers.

From 2025 through 2028, people 65 and older can also claim a separate senior deduction of up to $6,000 each, which phases out at 6% of modified adjusted gross income above $75,000 ($150,000 joint). It's available whether you take the standard deduction or itemize. You itemize only if your mortgage interest, state and local taxes (capped at $40,400 in 2026), charitable gifts and medical costs over 7.5% of income add up to more than the standard deduction; about nine in ten filers take the standard deduction.

How brackets work: a worked example

Brackets are marginal: each rate applies only to the income inside its band. Take a single filer earning $85,000 in salary with no other deductions. Subtracting the $16,100 standard deduction leaves $68,900 of taxable income. The first $12,400 is taxed at 10%, the next $38,000 at 12%, and the remaining $18,500 at 22%. Total federal income tax is $9,870.

That person is "in the 22% bracket", but their tax is only 11.6% of their salary. The 22% is their marginal rate, the rate on their next dollar of income. The 11.6% is their effective rate, total tax divided by income. The gap between the two is why moving into a higher bracket never reduces take-home pay, and why a deduction is worth your marginal rate while your average tax is much lower. The table shows the slice-by-slice calculation.

See $85,000 split across the brackets →

The bracket myth: will a raise cost me money?

No. Moving into a higher bracket only raises the tax on the dollars above the threshold. A single filer earning $66,500 sits exactly at the top of the 12% bracket. A $1,000 raise to $67,500 pushes $1,000 into the 22% bracket, adding $220 of federal income tax. After Social Security and Medicare, take-home pay still rises by about $704. The rest of their income is taxed exactly as before.

The idea that a raise can leave you worse off comes from benefit cliffs, not tax brackets. Some programs, such as Medicaid, housing assistance or child care subsidies, end abruptly at an income limit, and losing one can outweigh a small raise. Tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit phase out gradually rather than at a cliff. The federal brackets themselves never cause a net loss.

Federal income tax at common incomes

The tables show federal income tax for single filers and for married couples filing jointly at seven income levels, using the standard deduction and no credits. The effective rate rises steadily but stays far below the top marginal rate, even at $500,000. Credits, especially the Child Tax Credit of up to $2,200 per child in 2026, reduce these amounts for many households, and Social Security, Medicare and state income tax come on top.

What changed from 2025 to 2026

Each bracket threshold rose for inflation. For single filers, the top of the 12% bracket went from $48,475 to $50,400, and the top of the 22% bracket from $103,350 to $105,700. The 10% and 12% brackets rose by about 4%, slightly faster than the higher brackets, because of an extra adjustment in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The standard deduction rose from $15,750 to $16,100 for single filers and from $31,500 to $32,200 for joint filers.

The practical effect is a small tax cut for the same income. A single filer earning $75,000 in both years pays about $279 less federal income tax in 2026, because more of their income is shielded by the deduction and the lower brackets. If your pay rose by less than inflation, your federal income tax may have fallen even though your salary went up.

Filing status: which one to use

Your filing status is set by your situation on December 31. Single applies if you're unmarried and don't qualify as head of household. Married filing jointly combines both spouses' income and is the best choice for most couples. Married filing separately rarely lowers the total tax, but it can make sense if one spouse has large medical bills, owes back taxes, or is on an income-driven student loan plan.

Head of household requires that you're unmarried (or considered unmarried) and paid more than half the cost of keeping up a home where a qualifying person, usually your child, lived for more than half the year. It's commonly overlooked by single parents and by people supporting a parent. A qualifying surviving spouse can use the joint brackets for two years after the spouse's death if they have a dependent child.

Lowering the income that reaches the top bracket

Because the highest rate applies to your last dollars of income, anything that reduces taxable income saves at your marginal rate. Traditional 401(k), 403(b) and 457 contributions, HSA contributions and health insurance premiums through payroll all come off before the brackets apply. For a single filer in the 22% bracket, every $1,000 contributed to a traditional 401(k) saves $220 of federal income tax.

From 2025 through 2028, workers in eligible occupations can deduct up to $25,000 of qualified tips, and workers who earn overtime can deduct the premium part of their overtime pay up to $12,500 ($25,000 joint). Both deductions phase out for incomes over $150,000 ($300,000 joint) and reduce taxable income before the brackets apply. Our guides to the tips and overtime deductions explain who qualifies.

See how a $5,000 401(k) changes your tax →

Married filing separately and surviving spouses

Married couples who file separate returns use brackets exactly half the width of the joint brackets at every rate in 2026: 10% up to $12,400, 12% up to $50,400, 22% up to $105,700, 24% up to $201,775, 32% up to $256,225, 35% up to $384,350, and 37% above that. The standard deduction is $16,100, and if one spouse itemizes, the other must itemize too.

Filing separately also loses or limits several credits and deductions, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, the education credits and the student loan interest deduction, and it shrinks the income thresholds for others. That's why it rarely lowers a couple's combined tax. A qualifying surviving spouse, someone whose spouse died in one of the two previous years and who has a dependent child at home, uses the married filing jointly brackets and standard deduction.

Capital gains brackets for 2026

Long-term capital gains, from assets held more than a year, and qualified dividends are taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% instead of the ordinary rates. The rate depends on total taxable income, with gains stacked on top of ordinary income. For 2026, the 0% rate applies to taxable income up to $49,450 for single filers, $98,900 for joint filers and $66,200 for heads of household. The 20% rate starts above $545,500 single, $613,700 joint and $579,600 head of household. Everything in between is taxed at 15%.

Short-term gains, from assets held a year or less, are taxed as ordinary income using the brackets in this guide. High earners may also owe the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax on investment income above $200,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($250,000 joint).

How brackets affect your paycheck withholding

Employers use the same brackets to withhold federal income tax from each paycheck. The IRS percentage method annualizes your pay for the period, subtracts an allowance based on your W-4 filing status, applies the annual brackets and divides back down. When the brackets and standard deduction rise each January, withholding drops slightly for the same pay, so many people see a small increase in take-home pay in the first check of the year.

Because withholding tables assume each paycheck is typical, irregular income such as a large bonus or a week of heavy overtime can be withheld at a higher marginal rate than you'll actually owe. The difference comes back at filing time.

A short history of the seven brackets

The current seven rates of 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37% were introduced by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for 2018, replacing a schedule that ran from 10% to 39.6%. Those rates were scheduled to expire after 2025. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, made them permanent, kept the larger standard deduction, and added temporary deductions for tips, overtime, car loan interest and seniors for 2025 through 2028.

The thresholds are adjusted every year for inflation using the chained consumer price index, which tends to rise a little more slowly than the standard CPI. That means the brackets keep pace with prices but not always with wages, so workers whose pay rises faster than inflation drift gradually into higher brackets over time.

State income tax brackets

State income taxes have their own brackets, deductions and filing statuses, and they rarely match the federal ones. Nine states don't tax wages at all. About a dozen, including Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Utah, use a single flat rate. The rest use graduated brackets, from two brackets in some states to ten in California, where the top rate reaches 13.3% on income over $1 million including a mental health surcharge.

Most graduated states have far narrower brackets than the federal schedule, so moderate incomes often reach the state's top rate. New Jersey and New York have rates above 10% only for very high incomes, while states like Georgia and Arizona have moved to a flat rate in recent years. Our state paycheck calculators list each state's 2026 brackets and standard deduction.

Brackets aren't your whole tax bill

Federal income tax is only one of the taxes on wages. Social Security and Medicare take 7.65% of wages with no standard deduction, and most states add their own income tax with separate brackets. Long-term capital gains and qualified dividends use a separate set of 0%, 15% and 20% rates, stacked on top of ordinary income. Our income tax calculator adds all of these for wage income, and our guide to how much tax you'll pay walks through the full calculation.