What Is the Federal Withholding Tax Rate and Brackets?

The federal withholding tax rate and brackets are not a single number. Your employer withholds federal income tax using seven progressive brackets — 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37% — applied to your taxable income based on your filing status, and adds a flat 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare on top of that.¹ The dollar amount taken from each paycheck depends on your earnings, your filing status, and what you put on Form W-4.

2026 Federal Income Tax Brackets

The seven rates are set by law and have been permanently extended under recent legislation. The IRS adjusts the dollar thresholds each year for inflation.² These brackets apply to taxable income, meaning what’s left after the standard deduction or itemized deductions. For 2026, the standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers, $32,200 for married couples filing jointly, and $24,150 for heads of household. Employer withholding calculations already build the standard deduction in.

Single Filers

10%: up 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%: over $640,600

Married Filing Jointly

10%: up 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%: over $768,700

Head of Household

10%: up 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%: over $640,600

How the Brackets Actually Apply to Your Paycheck

A frequent misunderstanding is that landing in a higher bracket taxes your whole income at that higher rate. It doesn’t. Each rate applies only to the slice of income that falls inside its range. The IRS calls this a marginal system.¹

Take a single filer with $80,000 in taxable income in 2026. The tax 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 $29,600 (from $50,401 to $80,000) = $6,512

That comes to $12,312 in total federal income tax. This filer sits in the 22% bracket, but the effective rate — the share of income actually paid — is about 15.4%. A raise that nudges you into the next bracket only applies the higher rate to the dollars above the threshold, never to your whole paycheck.

Social Security and Medicare Withholding

On every paycheck, your employer also withholds Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes. These are separate from the income tax brackets and fund Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security: 6.2% of wages, up to $184,500 in 2026. Once your year-to-date earnings reach that cap, Social Security tax stops for the rest of the year.³
Medicare: 1.45% of all wages, with no cap.⁴
Additional Medicare Tax: an extra 0.9% on wages above $200,000 in a calendar year. Your employer begins withholding it once your pay crosses that threshold.⁵

Your employer matches the 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare shares out of its own funds. The combined employee FICA rate is 7.65% up to the Social Security cap, so a worker earning $60,000 has roughly $4,590 withheld for FICA on top of federal income tax.

What Controls the Amount Withheld

Federal law requires employers to withhold income tax from wages.⁶ How much comes out depends on what you tell your employer on Form W-4, the Employee’s Withholding Certificate.⁷ The entries that move the number most:

Filing status. Single, Married Filing Jointly, and Head of Household each use different tax tables with different bracket thresholds.
Multiple jobs or a working spouse. Combined household income can push you into a higher bracket, and the form has a worksheet that adjusts withholding so you aren’t short at tax time.
Dependents. Claiming them lowers withholding by building in the child tax credit or the credit for other dependents.
Extra withholding. You can add a flat dollar amount per paycheck to cover income that isn’t otherwise withheld on, like freelance earnings or investment income.

Update your W-4 after any change that shifts your tax picture: marriage, a new child, a second job, a spouse leaving work. The IRS Tax Withholding Estimator is a free tool that walks through your situation and suggests specific W-4 entries.⁸

You can also claim complete exemption from federal income tax withholding if you had no tax liability in 2025 and expect none in 2026. Check the “Exempt” box on Form W-4 and skip the dependent and adjustment steps.⁷ Exemption only covers income tax; FICA is still withheld. Exempt status has to be renewed each year with a new W-4 by February 16, 2027, or your employer switches you back to default withholding.

Withholding on Bonuses and Other Supplemental Wages

Bonuses, commissions, overtime, and sick-leave payouts are treated as supplemental wages. Employers commonly withhold a flat 22% on supplemental pay up to $1 million per calendar year. Anything above $1 million from a single employer is withheld at 37%, the top individual rate, no matter what your W-4 says.⁹

An employer can also use an aggregate method: add the bonus to your most recent regular paycheck, calculate withholding on the combined amount, and subtract what was already withheld on the regular pay. That’s why a bonus check sometimes looks like it was taxed unusually hard. Any over-withholding is reconciled when you file your return.

Avoiding a Shortfall at Tax Time

If withholding falls short across the year, you’ll owe the balance plus an underpayment penalty. The penalty works like interest — for the first quarter of 2026, the IRS charges 7% per year on underpaid amounts, compounded daily, and adjusts the rate each quarter based on the federal short-term rate.¹⁰

You avoid the penalty by hitting any one of these safe harbors:¹¹

You owe less than $1,000 after withholding and credits.¹²
Your withholding and estimated payments cover at least 90% of the current year’s tax.
Your withholding and estimated payments match 100% of the prior year’s tax — or 110% if your prior-year adjusted gross income was over $150,000 ($75,000 if married filing separately).

If you have income no one is withholding on, the cleanest fixes are to add extra withholding on your W-4 or make quarterly estimated payments. Waiting until April means paying both the shortfall and the penalty.

State Withholding Is Separate

Most states also require state income tax withholding, with rates that run from about 2.5% to over 13%. A handful of states have no income tax. Your total paycheck withholding is federal income tax, FICA, and any state or local tax combined. On a pay stub, the federal income tax line is usually labeled “Federal Income Tax” or “FIT,” while Social Security and Medicare appear as their own FICA line items. When take-home pay looks lower than expected, checking each line individually is the fastest way to see what’s driving it.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Federal Income Tax Rates and Brackets
2
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026, Including Amendments From the One, Big, Beautiful Bill
3
SSA.gov. 2026 Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Fact Sheet
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 3101 – Rate of Tax
5
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 751, Social Security and Medicare Withholding Rates
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 3402 – Income Tax Collected at Source
7
Internal Revenue Service. Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Certificate (2026)
8
Internal Revenue Service. Tax Withholding Estimator
9
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15 (2026), (Circular E), Employer’s Tax Guide
10
Internal Revenue Service. Quarterly Interest Rates
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6654 – Failure by Individual to Pay Estimated Income Tax
12
Internal Revenue Service. Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Individuals Penalty