2026 Federal Tax Brackets Explorer
Your income is not taxed at one rate. It is sliced — the first chunk at 10%, the next at 12%, and so on. Enter your income to watch the 2026 brackets slice it up, dollar by dollar.
Your inputs
Your income, slice by slice
Bracket-by-bracket breakdown
| Slice of taxable income | Rate | Income in slice | Tax |
|---|
How marginal brackets actually work
Think of the brackets as a staircase of buckets. The first bucket holds your first $12,400 of taxable income (single, 2026) and every dollar in it is taxed at 10%. Only when that bucket is full do dollars spill into the 12% bucket, then the 22% bucket, and so on. Your marginal rate is simply the rate of the last bucket your income reaches — the tax on your next dollar. Your effective rate is the blend: total tax ÷ total income. It is always lower than your marginal rate, because most of your dollars sat in cheap buckets.
Two things happen before the slicing starts. First, the standard deduction — $16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly, $24,150 head of household in 2026 — comes straight off the top and is never taxed at all. Second, remember these thresholds are for taxable income: a single filer's dollars don't reach the 22% bracket until gross pay passes roughly $66,500, and the 24% bracket doesn't begin until gross pay passes roughly $121,800 ($105,700 of taxable income + the $16,100 deduction).
The "a raise made me poorer" myth
It cannot happen with federal income tax — the math forbids it. Suppose you're $500 below the top of the 12% bracket and get a $1,000 raise. The first $500 is taxed at 12% ($60); only the second $500 spills into the 22% bracket ($110). You keep $830 of the raise. The higher rate never reaches back and re-taxes the dollars below the threshold. Anyone who "turned down a raise for tax reasons" gave up real money to a misunderstanding. (Payroll taxes and benefit cliffs are separate issues — but the bracket itself never takes more than the slice it applies to.)
The 2026 federal brackets
Rates and thresholds below are taxable-income ranges for 2026 (IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32):
| Rate | Single | Married filing jointly | Head of household |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | $0 – $12,400 | $0 – $24,800 | $0 – $17,700 |
| 12% | $12,400 – $50,400 | $24,800 – $100,800 | $17,700 – $67,450 |
| 22% | $50,400 – $105,700 | $100,800 – $211,400 | $67,450 – $105,700 |
| 24% | $105,700 – $201,775 | $211,400 – $403,550 | $105,700 – $201,750 |
| 32% | $201,775 – $256,225 | $403,550 – $512,450 | $201,750 – $256,200 |
| 35% | $256,225 – $640,600 | $512,450 – $768,700 | $256,200 – $640,600 |
| 37% | Over $640,600 | Over $768,700 | Over $640,600 |
Worked example
$100,000 gross, single filer, 2026. Taxable income = $100,000 − $16,100 = $83,900. The slices: 10% on the first $12,400 = $1,240; 12% on the next $38,000 = $4,560; 22% on the remaining $33,500 = $7,370. Total federal tax: $13,170. Marginal rate 22%, but the effective rate is just 13.17% of gross (15.7% of taxable income). That gap between 22% and 13.17% is the whole point of this page.
Caveats worth knowing
- FICA is separate. Social Security (6.2% up to the $184,500 wage base) and Medicare (1.45%, plus 0.9% at high incomes) come out on top of income tax. The take-home calculator combines everything.
- No credits or extra deductions. Child tax credits, itemized deductions, pre-tax 401(k) and HSA contributions all lower the real bill — this explorer isolates the bracket mechanics on purpose.
- Capital gains have their own schedule. Long-term gains are taxed at 0%/15%/20% — the brackets here are for ordinary income (wages, salary, interest).
- Thresholds adjust yearly. These are the 2026 figures; the IRS re-indexes them for inflation each year.
Brackets and standard deductions: IRS 2026 inflation adjustments (Revenue Procedure 2025-32).