2026 federal income tax brackets and standard deduction
Where the 2026 numbers were published
On 9 October 2025 the IRS issued news release IR-2025-103 and Revenue Procedure 2025-32, which set the inflation-adjusted items for taxable years beginning in 2026. Those returns are generally filed in 2027. The procedure also reflects amendments made by Public Law 119-21, often called the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act. The seven ordinary rates — 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37% — stay in place. What changed for 2026, besides inflation, is the dollar width of each bracket and the size of the standard deduction.
This guide restates the ordinary-income tables and the standard-deduction figures from those official documents. It does not replace the revenue procedure or the Form 1040 instructions. If a later Act of Congress changes a 2026 amount after the date of the procedure, the IRS says taxpayers should consult additional guidance. We re-checked the cited URLs on 12 November 2026.
Ordinary-income brackets by filing status
For single filers (other than surviving spouses and heads of household), 2026 taxable income is taxed as follows: 10% up to $12,400; 12% on the excess up to $50,400; 22% up to $105,700; 24% up to $201,775; 32% up to $256,225; 35% up to $640,600; and 37% above that. The procedure also prints the pre-computed tax at each threshold, which is how our tax bracket calculator is built: $1,240 at $12,400, $5,800 at $50,400, $17,966 at $105,700, and so on through $192,979.25 at $640,600 plus 37% of the excess.
Joint filers and surviving spouses use wider rungs: 10% up to $24,800; 12% up to $100,800; 22% up to $211,400; 24% up to $403,550; 32% up to $512,450; 35% up to $768,700; and 37% above $768,700. Head-of-household rungs begin at $17,700 for the end of the 10% band and $67,450 for the end of the 12% band, and they meet the single 37% threshold of $640,600 at the top. Married filing separately generally tracks the single table until the 35% band, which ends at $384,350, after which the 37% rate applies. Those tables tax ordinary taxable income only.
Standard deduction and the extra amount for age or blindness
The 2026 basic standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and for married filers filing separately, $24,150 for heads of household, and $32,200 for joint returns and surviving spouses. Revenue Procedure 2025-32, section 4.14, also sets the additional standard deduction for age 65 or blindness: $2,050 if the individual is unmarried and not a surviving spouse, and $1,650 in other cases. A single person who is 65 therefore starts at $18,150. A joint couple, both 65, starts at $35,500. Blindness can add another increment for each qualifying person.
The additional standard deduction for age is not the same as the enhanced senior deduction created for tax years 2025 through 2028 and claimed on Schedule 1-A. That senior amount is computed under a different statute, with its own income phase-out, and can be claimed whether you itemize or take the standard deduction. For a dedicated worksheet see NewDeduct. Mixing the two figures is a common source of error in homemade spreadsheets.
Taxable income is not the same as wages
People often compare a wage to a bracket and conclude they are “in the 22% bracket” on their whole salary. That skips the standard deduction (or itemized deductions) and treats a marginal rate as an effective rate. A single worker with $60,000 of wages and no adjustments has, with the basic standard deduction, $43,900 of taxable income. In 2026 that income is still in the 12% marginal band, and the tax is $5,020, an effective rate of about 11.4% on taxable income and a lower percentage of gross wages. Credits can reduce the bill further, which is why the bracket table alone is not a refund estimate.
Long-term capital gains and qualified dividends use a different schedule in section 4.03 of the same revenue procedure. For 2026 the maximum zero-rate amount is $49,450 for single filers and married filers filing separately, $66,200 for heads of household and $98,900 for joint filers. The maximum 15% amount is $545,500 for other single individuals, $613,700 on a joint return, $579,600 for heads of household and $306,850 when married filing separately. Amounts above those 15% caps are generally taxed at 20%. Our capital-gains guide explains the stacking method; the ordinary tables on this page do not apply those rates by themselves.
How to use the tables without over-reading them
Enter taxable income, not gross pay, into a bracket tool, or let the refund calculator subtract the deduction first. Compare your result with Publication 17 and the official rate schedules when the 2026 Form 1040 instructions are final. Estates and trusts have a short, much more compressed table in the same procedure; this site does not compute tax for those entities. And remember that a higher marginal rate applies only to dollars inside that band, which is why effective rates sit below marginal rates for almost every return that is not already in the top bracket on all of its taxable income.
If you are deciding between the standard deduction and itemizing, use the official 2026 amounts as the floor you have to beat, then add only expenses that the instructions actually allow. The standard versus itemize calculator and the companion guide walk through that comparison, including the age and blindness add-ons, without pretending to classify every receipt.
Dependents who file their own returns
Section 4.14(2) of Revenue Procedure 2025-32 limits the standard deduction of a person who can be claimed as a dependent by someone else. For 2026 that deduction cannot exceed the greater of $1,350 or $450 plus the person’s earned income. A teenager with $800 of wages therefore uses $1,350, not the full single-filer amount of $16,100. A student with $6,000 of wages uses $6,450. This rule is easy to miss if you copy a parent’s standard deduction onto a child’s return, and it is one reason a first job can still produce a small refund of withheld income tax even when the full adult deduction does not apply.
The kiddie tax on unearned income is a separate regime, with a $1,350 figure in section 4.02 of the same procedure. This site does not compute the kiddie tax. If a child’s unearned income is high enough that a parental election or a separate computation might apply, use the official instructions rather than a wage-oriented refund worksheet.