Federal Income Tax Calculator for the 2026 Tax Year
Calculate the 2026 federal income tax on a year of earnings, with the state tax worked out from that state's own brackets, the filing status, the deduction, and the effective and marginal rates side by side.
Federal income tax
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Taxable income
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Deduction applied
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Standard deduction
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Itemized deduction
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State taxable income
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State credits
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State child tax credit
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Federal tax deducted
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State income tax
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Total tax
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Effective rate
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Marginal rate
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Income after tax
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The deduction applied is the larger of the two: the standard deduction for the filing status, or the itemized deduction entered on the left. The state tax is worked out from the state you pick.
The chart fills in once there is a figure to draw.
One bar for the year, split into the part that stays with the reader and the part that goes to tax.
The figure is a tax liability, not the amount withheld from a paycheque. The federal figure does not include the federal credits or the payments already made during the year; the state figure includes the state credits the model carries.
How this is calculated
The federal brackets and the standard deduction are the 2026 figures from Rev. Proc. 2025-32, published 3 November 2025. The state tax is worked out from the 2026 brackets, the standard deduction, the personal exemption and the credits of the state you pick, taken from the Tax Foundation tables of 28 April 2026. The head of household tables, the federal income tax deduction and the state credits come from the forms of the states themselves. The payroll taxes that come out of a wage are not part of this calculation; they are in the take-home pay calculator.
The calculation starts with the gross income for the year and takes the pre-tax deductions off, because a 401(k) contribution or a health account contribution is not taxed as income.
The deduction comes next. The standard deduction for the filing status is used unless the reader enters an itemized deduction, and the larger of the two is the one that applies. The standard deduction for 2026 is $16,100 for a single filer, $32,200 for married filing jointly and $24,150 for head of household.
What is left is the taxable income, and the tax is the 2026 bracket table applied to it. Each bracket is a fixed amount of tax plus a percentage of the income above the bottom of that bracket, the way the IRS publishes it.
The two rates answer different questions. The marginal rate is the rate the next dollar of taxable income is taxed at, which is the highest bracket the income reaches. The effective rate is the total tax divided by the whole income, and it is lower because the higher brackets only touch the part of the income above them.
The state tax is worked out on its own. The state starts from the adjusted gross income, takes off its own standard deduction and personal exemption where it gives them as exclusions, applies its own brackets slice by slice, and takes off the credits it pays. The states that give the exemption or the standard deduction as a credit instead get it off the tax, which is where those credits are counted.
The table of the filing status is used. The states that publish a head of household table of their own have it here, taken from their own forms, and the states that do not publish one are worked out from the single filer table.
Three states let a taxpayer deduct the federal income tax paid: Alabama, Missouri and Oregon. Where a state does, the deduction comes off the income before the state brackets are applied, with the limit and the share each state sets.
The state credits are worked out from the age of the children, because that is what they turn on. New York pays $1,000 for a child under four and $500 for a child from four to sixteen, Minnesota pays $1,800 for a child under eighteen, and a few states pay nothing for a child who is past a certain age.
What this calculator does not do
- It does not model the federal tax credits. The federal child tax credit, the federal earned income credit and the education credits reduce the tax and are not in the calculation.
- It does not model the capital gains and ordinary income distinction, so a year with investment income is calculated at the ordinary rates.
- It does not model the senior deduction, or any deduction outside the standard and itemized amounts entered on the left.
- It does not model self-employment tax, which is charged on the net earnings of a self-employed person and has its own base and rate.
- It does not model the state and local income tax deduction that many states allow inside their itemized deductions.
- It does not model capital gains rates, the surtaxes some states charge high earners, or the taxes of city and county governments.
- It does not use the head of household table of Vermont, whose rates for 2026 are published as preliminary figures, so a Vermont head of household is worked out from the single filer table.
- It does not carry every state credit. The state earned income tax credit is there for the states that set it as a percentage of the federal credit and for the three that work it out on their own, and the child tax credit is there for the states whose credit turns on the age of the child. The credits of the other states are not in it.
Sources
- [1]IRS — Rev. Proc. 2025-32, inflation adjustments for the 2026 tax year
- [2]IRS — Tax Topic 505, Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax Payments
- [3]IRS — Tax Topic 611, Income Tax
- [4]Tax Foundation — State Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets, 2026
- [5]Tax Foundation — Facts & Figures 2026, state individual income tax rates as of 28 April 2026
Guides that go deeper
Common questions
Which deduction should I use?
The standard deduction unless the itemized deductions add up to more. The calculator shows the standard deduction for the filing status and the itemized figure side by side, so the comparison is one glance.
What is the difference between the effective and the marginal rate?
The marginal rate is the rate the next dollar of taxable income is taxed at. The effective rate is the total tax divided by the whole income, and it is lower, because the brackets above the first one only apply to the part of the income above them.
Why does the tax jump at a certain income?
That is the bracket boundary. Above it, another dollar is taxed at the next rate, so the tax rises faster than the income. The marginal rate tells you which band the income is in.
Does this include Social Security and Medicare?
No. Those are payroll taxes charged on a wage, with their own ceilings, and they are calculated in the take-home pay calculator instead.
What is the state tax figure?
The tax the state itself charges, worked out from that state's 2026 brackets, its standard deduction, its personal exemption and its credits. The state is picked from the list, and the page fills it in with the state your request comes from when the network can work that out. Change the state and the whole figure changes with it.
Can I put in my own state tax?
Yes. The field under the state takes a figure and replaces the calculated one with it. It is empty by default, and while it is empty the calculation is what the page shows.
Why does the page ask for the age of each child?
Because the state child tax credits turn on the age of the child. New York pays $1,000 for a child under four and $500 for a child from four to sixteen, Minnesota pays $1,800 for a child under eighteen, and some states pay nothing for a child who is past a certain age. The bands are the ages the states cut at, and the number of children in them is what the earned income credit counts as well.
Is this the amount I will owe?
It is the tax before credits and before the payments already made during the year. A return adds the credits, adds anything else that was not taxed through payroll, and subtracts what has already been paid.