To know which federal tax bracket you are in, calculate your taxable income and match it to the IRS rate table for your filing status. Taxable income is your total income minus either the standard deduction or your itemized deductions, and it appears on line 15 of Form 1040.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 1040 – Tax and Earned Income Credit Tables The bracket you land in is the highest rate that applies to any portion of that number. For the 2026 tax year, the seven federal rates are 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%.
Your salary is not your taxable income, and those two figures are often thousands of dollars apart. Working from the wrong number is the most common reason people misidentify their bracket.
Step One: Figure Out Your Taxable Income
Start with your filing status. It sets both the bracket thresholds and the standard deduction amount you can claim. The four main statuses are Single, Married Filing Jointly, Married Filing Separately, and Head of Household. Married Filing Jointly has the widest brackets and the largest deduction. Head of Household is available to unmarried people who pay more than half the cost of maintaining a home for a qualifying dependent.
Add up your income for the year: wages, freelance earnings, interest, dividends, rental income, and anything else the IRS treats as taxable. Subtract above-the-line adjustments such as student loan interest, traditional IRA contributions, or health savings account deposits. What you have now is your adjusted gross income (AGI).
From AGI, subtract either the standard deduction or your itemized deductions, whichever is larger. For 2026, the standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and those married filing separately, $32,200 for married couples filing jointly, and $24,150 for heads of household.2Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026 The result is your taxable income. That is the number you look up in the bracket table.
2026 Federal Tax Brackets by Filing Status
The thresholds below are published in IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 and apply to income earned during the 2026 calendar year, which you file in early 2027.2Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026 If you are looking up estimated payments or planning a mid-year decision, match the table to the tax year, not the year you file.
Single Filers
- 10%: $0 to $12,400
- 12%: $12,401 to $50,400
- 22%: $50,401 to $105,700
- 24%: $105,701 to $201,775
- 32%: $201,776 to $256,225
- 35%: $256,226 to $640,600
- 37%: $640,601 and above
Married Filing Jointly
- 10%: $0 to $24,800
- 12%: $24,801 to $100,800
- 22%: $100,801 to $211,400
- 24%: $211,401 to $403,550
- 32%: $403,551 to $512,450
- 35%: $512,451 to $768,700
- 37%: $768,701 and above
Head of Household
- 10%: $0 to $17,700
- 12%: $17,701 to $67,450
- 22%: $67,451 to $105,700
- 24%: $105,701 to $201,775
- 32%: $201,776 to $256,200
- 35%: $256,201 to $640,600
- 37%: $640,601 and above
These rates were originally set by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 and made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The IRS adjusts the income thresholds for inflation each year using the Chained Consumer Price Index.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1 – Tax Imposed
Matching Your Number to a Bracket
Take the taxable income figure from line 15 of Form 1040. Find the column for your filing status above, then scan down until you hit the range that contains your number. The rate next to that range is your marginal tax bracket.
A single filer with $85,000 in taxable income lands in the 22% bracket, since the 22% range for single filers covers $50,401 to $105,700. A married couple filing jointly with $150,000 in taxable income is also in the 22% bracket, but their range runs from $100,801 to $211,400.2Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026 That wider range is one reason filing jointly often produces a lower combined tax bill than filing separately.
If your taxable income sits close to the top of a range, small changes matter. A traditional IRA contribution, an HSA deposit, or a larger itemized deduction can pull your taxable income back into the lower bracket. That does not automatically save you a lot of tax (see the marginal explanation below), but it does change your marginal rate for planning purposes.
What “Being In” a Bracket Actually Means
The single biggest misconception about tax brackets is that moving into a higher one means all your income gets taxed at the new rate. It does not. The federal system is progressive: your income is sliced into layers, and each layer is taxed at its own rate. The first dollars you earn are taxed at 10% no matter how much you make in total. The next layer is taxed at 12%. The next at 22%, and so on. Only the dollars that fall within a given range are hit with that range’s rate.
Take a single filer with $70,000 in taxable income for 2026. The tax is not 22% of $70,000. It breaks down like this:
- 10% on the first $12,400: $1,240
- 12% on the next $38,000 (from $12,401 to $50,400): $4,560
- 22% on the remaining $19,600 (from $50,401 to $70,000): $4,312
Total federal tax: $10,112. Divide by $70,000 and the effective tax rate is about 14.4%, well below the 22% marginal bracket. Your marginal bracket only tells you what rate the next dollar of income will be taxed at. It is a planning number, useful for evaluating things like a Roth conversion, a bonus, or the real value of a new deduction. It is not the rate that applies to your whole paycheck.
This distinction has practical consequences. A $1,000 deduction saves $220 if you are in the 22% bracket and $320 if you are in the 32% bracket. Turning down a raise or overtime because you think it will “push you into a higher bracket” and cost you money misreads the system: only the dollars above the threshold get the higher rate, and every dollar below still gets taxed the same way it did before.
Capital Gains Use a Different Set of Brackets
If part of your income comes from selling investments, real estate, or other assets held longer than a year, that profit is taxed at long-term capital gains rates, not the ordinary rates above. The 2026 long-term capital gains thresholds are:
- 0% on taxable income up to $49,450 (single), $98,900 (joint), or $66,200 (head of household)
- 15% on taxable income above those amounts up to $545,500 (single), $613,700 (joint), or $579,600 (head of household)
- 20% on taxable income above those thresholds
Short-term capital gains, on assets held one year or less, are taxed at your ordinary income bracket. High earners may also owe an additional 3.8% net investment income tax on investment income once modified AGI exceeds $200,000 for single filers or $250,000 for joint filers.4Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 559, Net Investment Income Tax Those thresholds are not indexed to inflation.
So a taxpayer can technically be in two brackets at once: an ordinary income bracket for wages and short-term gains, and a capital gains bracket for qualifying long-term profits. When people ask which bracket they are in, they usually mean the ordinary income one.
State Taxes Are Separate
The federal bracket is only part of your total tax picture. Most states impose their own income tax, with top marginal rates ranging from 2.5% to 13.3%. Eight states have no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. State bracket structures vary. Some use a single flat rate, some use graduated brackets with their own thresholds, and some tie directly to your federal AGI or taxable income. Your state’s department of revenue publishes the current rates and rules.
Knowing your federal bracket gives you the anchor. From there, the calculations for state tax, capital gains, and any additional taxes on high earners build on the same taxable income figure you already worked out from line 15.