Are these calculators free?

All 23 of them, with no account, no email and no paywall. They run in your browser, which means the salary or the home value you type never reaches a server — there is nothing to store and nothing to sell. The site is funded by advertising and by a paid API for businesses, not by your figures.

How accurate are they?

The arithmetic is exact: every figure comes from a deterministic engine, and a language model is only ever used to explain a number it has been handed. It never produces one. The accuracy question that actually matters is whether the rates going in are right, and there the answer is that each state's were read off that state's own department of revenue — of the 42 checked so far, 22 carried a figure that was wrong in the compiled sources most of this category relies on.

Which one should I use?

Start from your situation rather than from the name of a tax. If somebody withholds your tax for you, the income tax calculator and the paycheck calculator answer most of it. If you invoice for your own work, start with the self-employment or 1099 calculator, because the number that catches people out there is the one nobody withheld. The groups on this page are arranged that way on purpose.

Do they cover my state?

Income tax covers all 51 jurisdictions — the 50 states and DC — plus the local layer in the 3,672 city and county jurisdictions that levy one. Property tax covers all 3,143 counties with that county's own data rather than a state average. Sales tax covers 47 states and vehicle tax 46, with the rest left unpublished and the reason given.

Can I use one of these to file my return?

No, and none of them pretend otherwise. These estimate what you owe so you can plan, check a payslip, or decide whether a move or a job change makes sense. Filing means a return sent to the IRS and to your state, which is a different job done by different software — or by a professional, which is the right answer as soon as your situation has anything unusual in it.

What do they not cover?

Each page says so in its own words, which is the point. In general: the Alternative Minimum Tax, foreign income and credits, trust and estate income, most business entity elections beyond the S-corp comparison, and any state rule that could not be read in a document that state publishes. A gap that is declared is a gap you can work around; a gap that is quietly filled with a plausible number is not.

How often are the figures updated?

Per figure, not per page. Each number carries the document it came from and the date it was read, and the pages show that date rather than a generic "last updated". It matters because states change rates mid-year and sometimes backdate them: 2026 figures published in January can be wrong by June without anyone touching the page.

Is there anything for outside the United States?

Yes — income tax for 27 other countries, each on its own published rules rather than a converted US calculation, and a full Canadian section covering income, sales, property, land transfer and capital gains across all 13 provinces and territories.

2026 · 23 calculators

Every tax calculator you need for 2026

Grouped by the situation you are in rather than by the name of the tax, because nobody wakes up looking for an indirect tax calculator — they have just been handed a 1099, or they are staring at a price tag, or they are working out whether the move is worth it.

Written and edited by Pablo Ruiz QuinteroSources checked September 25, 2026Every figure in every calculator read off the authority that sets it

You are on a salary

Somebody else withholds your tax and you want to know whether the number on the payslip is right.

Income tax calculatorFederal, FICA, all 51 jurisdictions and the local layer.Open →Federal income tax calculatorThe federal figure on its own, with your real rate next to your bracket.Open →Paycheck calculatorTake-home per payday, by pay frequency and state.Open →Monthly income taxEnter what you earn a month; see what lands in the account.Open →Tax withholding estimatorWhether your W-4 is on track, and the Step 4(c) figure.Open →Bonus tax calculatorWhy a bonus looks like it was taxed at 40%.Open →2026 tax bracketsFederal bands and every state rate in one table.Open →

You work for yourself

Nobody withheld anything, and the bill arrives in one piece unless you set money aside first.

Self-employment taxThe 15.3%, the QBI deduction and quarterly payments.Open →1099 tax calculatorNobody withheld anything. What to set aside from every invoice.Open →Sole proprietor taxThe business pays nothing; you pay everything. What that costs.Open →Small business & S-corpWhether the election beats a sole proprietorship.Open →Quarterly estimated taxThe safe harbour and the four due dates.Open →

You are taxed on what you own

A house, a portfolio, a rental or a pension. These are taxed on a different clock from a salary.

Property tax calculatorAll 3,143 US counties, no parcel number needed.Open →Capital gains taxShort vs long, stacked properly on your income.Open →Rental income taxDepreciation, passive losses and recapture on sale.Open →Retirement tax401(k), IRA, pension and the Social Security rule.Open →

You are taxed on what you buy

At the till, at the dealership, or working backwards from a receipt that shows only a total.

Sales tax calculatorThe rate is the least useful number. What each state exempts is the answer.Open →Plus tax calculatorA shelf price and what you actually hand over. The answer is a range, not a number.Open →Reverse sales taxFrom a total with tax inside it back to the price. Divide, do not subtract.Open →Car tax calculatorWhat a car really costs in tax — caps, flat fees and rates set by weight.Open →

You are getting something back

A refund is not a bonus — it is your own money returned. Credits are the part that can pay out anyway.

Tax refund estimatorWhat you get back, and the credits that pay out anyway.Open →Earned Income Tax CreditWhere you sit on the curve, and what it pays.Open →Child Tax CreditWhat cuts your tax and what arrives as a refund.Open →

The order they are actually used in

This is the one thing an index can tell you that none of the pages it links to can: where you are in the sequence. Each step answers a question the one before it leaves open, and most of the confusion around personal tax comes from skipping to the last one.

1See which band you are in · 2026 tax bracketsAnd see that the band is not the rate you pay. Everything after this makes more sense once that is clear.
2Work out the year · Income tax calculatorFederal, FICA and your state on a full-year salary. This is the liability — what you owe, before anyone collects it.
3Split it across paydays · Paycheck calculatorThe same figure divided by your pay frequency, which is the form you actually meet it in.
4Check what is being collected · Tax withholding estimatorLiability and withholding are two different numbers, and the gap between them is the whole reason April is a surprise.
5See which way the gap runs · Tax refund estimatorOver-withheld and you get a refund; under-withheld and you owe. Credits land here too, and some pay out even at zero tax.

What is behind all of them

The 23 calculators are different front ends on the same set of engines and the same set of figures. That is why a state rate corrected on one page is corrected on all of them the same day, and why the coverage below is the coverage of every calculator rather than of one.

state income tax systems

The 50 states and DC, each with its own brackets, deduction, credits and retirement rules.

3,143

counties for property tax

That county's own median rate and bill, not the state average.

3,672

local income tax jurisdictions

Cities, counties and school districts in the states that permit one, plus 30 city pages.

states for sales tax

With what each one exempts, which decides the bill far more than the rate does.

states for vehicle tax

In seventeen of them the charge on a car is not called sales tax and is not that rate.

countries beyond the US

Each on its own published rules, plus a full Canadian section across 13 provinces.

Something changed? Start here

Most people do not come looking for a tax calculator. They come because something in their life moved and they want to know what it costs. This is that list, and the column on the right is the part that catches people out.

What happened	Start with	The bit that surprises people
You started a new job	Withholding estimator	The W-4 you filled in on day one decides what is collected, not what you owe. The two are different numbers and nobody reconciles them for you until April.
You moved state	Compare states	The income tax is rarely what decides it. Property tax and the price level usually move more money than the rate does, in either direction.
You started freelancing	1099 tax calculator	Self-employment tax is 15.3% on top of income tax, because you now pay both halves of what an employer used to split with you.
You got a bonus	Bonus tax calculator	It looks taxed at 40% because supplemental wages are withheld at a flat rate. That is withholding, not tax — most of the gap comes back.
You had a child	Child Tax Credit	Part of it cuts your bill and part of it is refundable, meaning it can pay out even when your tax is already zero. The two halves have different rules.
You bought a house	Property tax calculator	The rate that matters is your county’s, not your state’s, and within a state the spread between counties is usually wider than between states.
You sold shares	Capital gains tax	Long-term gains sit on top of your ordinary income rather than beside it, so the same sale can fall in two different rate bands at once.
You bought a car	Car tax calculator	In seventeen states the charge is not called sales tax and is not that rate. Some cap it, some set it by weight, and a trade-in changes the base in most.
You retired	Retirement tax	Social Security is taxed on a formula that counts other income, so drawing from a 401(k) can raise the tax on a benefit that has not changed.

Why 23 calculators and not one big one

There is an obvious alternative to this list: a single calculator that asks everything and answers everything. It is obvious, several sites have built it, and it does not work — because to answer everything it has to ask everything, and almost none of it applies to you. Forty fields to find out what a bonus will be taxed at is not a calculator, it is a form.

So each of these asks only what its own question needs. The bonus calculator asks for a bonus and a salary. The plus tax calculator asks for a price. The car tax calculator asks for a price and a state, because in seventeen states the charge on a vehicle is not the sales tax and no general tool would know that. Underneath, they share the same engines and the same figures, so the answers cannot disagree with each other.

It also means each page can be honest about its own edges. A single universal calculator has to have one disclaimer covering every case, which in practice means it covers none of them. A page that only does self-employment tax can say exactly which self-employment situations it does not handle, and that is worth more than a longer disclaimer.

The cost of splitting them is that you have to find the right one, which is what this page and the search box at the top of every page exist to solve.

Three rules that apply to every one of them

The model never produces a number. Every figure on this site comes out of a deterministic engine — rates in, arithmetic out. A language model is used to put a figure it has been handed into a sentence, and nowhere else. That boundary is the reason an AI-powered tax calculator can be trusted at all, and it is the first thing most of them give away.

Every figure carries its source and the date it was read. Not a site-wide "last updated" stamp, which tells you when somebody touched a file. The per-figure date matters because legislatures move rates mid-year and backdate them: IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32, § 3.01, Tables 1-4 sets the federal bands and was verified 2026-08-31, and each state's page carries its own date from its own department of revenue.

A figure that could not be read at source is not published. Where a rule could not be found in a document the body that sets it publishes, the page says so and the calculation says so — rather than filling the gap with something plausible. "We have not checked this" and "this does not exist" are different claims, and conflating them is how a calculator ends up confidently wrong.

What none of these will do

They will not file anything. These estimate a liability so you can plan around it, check a payslip against it, or decide whether a move pays. Filing is a return transmitted to the IRS and to your state, and that is different software.

They are not tax advice. An estimate answers "roughly what will this cost". It does not answer "what should I do", which depends on facts a form cannot see. As soon as your situation has something unusual in it — equity compensation, a business sale, two states in one year, anything involving a trust — the right move is a professional who can look at the whole thing.

They do not cover every edge. The Alternative Minimum Tax, foreign income and the credits that go with it, estate and trust income, and most entity elections beyond the S-corp comparison are all out of scope. Each page names its own gaps rather than leaving you to discover them.

If you want to see how the figures are produced before trusting any of it, that is what the methodology is for — including the log of every figure this site got wrong and had to retract.

If you are not in the United States

Everything above is US tax. These are separate calculators built on each country’s own published rules rather than a US calculation with the rates swapped out — which matters more than it sounds, because the shape of the tax differs, not just the numbers. Germany defines its income tax as a formula rather than as brackets. France applies the scale to income divided by household parts. Hong Kong runs two calculations and charges the lower. None of those survive being poured into an American template.

United KingdomIncome Tax, National Insurance, Scottish bands and the 60% trap.IndiaBoth regimes side by side, the 87A rebate cliff, surcharge and cess.AustraliaThe resident scale plus the Medicare levy the ATO table leaves out.CanadaFederal plus provincial, CPP and EI, and the Ontario surtax.NetherlandsBox 1 with both credits, and a middle band that beats the top rate.SingaporeTwelve gentle steps, and what Singapore does not tax at all.GermanyA tax defined as a formula, not brackets, plus married splitting.New ZealandFive bands, no tax-free threshold, and no general capital gains tax.IrelandTwo rates, credits off the tax, and a USC the credits never touch.South AfricaNo exempt band — a rebate that creates the R99,000 threshold.MalaysiaTen bands, a 1% entry rate, and a RM400 rebate that is a cliff.Philippines₱250,000 exempt, then straight to 20% — and no personal exemption.PakistanEight slabs, and the 9% surcharge the Finance Act 2026 removed.JapanA quick calculation table, and a 2.1% surtax charged on the tax.FranceThe barème applies to income divided by household parts.Hong KongTwo calculations, and you pay the lower of them.PortugalNine bands, defined by average rate rather than by margin.SpainTwo scales added: state plus the fifteen regional ones.SwitzerlandA federal tariff in francs, capped at 11.5% by the constitution.AustriaThresholds indexed against inflation every year, by law.ItalyThree rates, and a credit that hides the real marginal one.SwedenMostly flat and mostly municipal, despite the reputation.LuxembourgTwenty-three steps and three separate tax classes.ThailandEight bands — and two versions of the official table.JamaicaA threshold with a schedule published through 2028.MaltaSeven separate computations, and a five-euro step in the law.EthiopiaA scale replaced in 2025 that almost nobody has updated.

Canada is the exception to the one-page-per-country rule and has a section of its own: income tax in all 13 provinces and territories, plus sales tax, property tax, land transfer tax, capital gains and the registered accounts. It is the only country outside the US covered to the same depth as the US silos, and it is the one where the gap between what payroll tools show and what is actually owed turned out to be widest.

Guides, if you would rather read than calculate

A calculator answers what. These answer why, which is usually what you need before the number means anything.

How income tax is calculatedThe five steps in order, worked through on a real salary.Marginal vs effective rateTwo rates, and only one of them is what you pay.The W-4, line by lineExact entries for five common situations.How to file your returnDocuments, deadlines, routes, extensions and amending.What changed in 2026What rose, what moved mid-year, what never moves.Are tax estimators accurate?What we found auditing the category, our errors included.

Questions people ask before they start

Are these calculators free?: All 23 of them, with no account, no email and no paywall. They run in your browser, which means the salary or the home value you type never reaches a server — there is nothing to store and nothing to sell. The site is funded by advertising and by a paid API for businesses, not by your figures.
How accurate are they?: The arithmetic is exact: every figure comes from a deterministic engine, and a language model is only ever used to explain a number it has been handed. It never produces one. The accuracy question that actually matters is whether the rates going in are right, and there the answer is that each state's were read off that state's own department of revenue — of the 42 checked so far, 22 carried a figure that was wrong in the compiled sources most of this category relies on.
Which one should I use?: Start from your situation rather than from the name of a tax. If somebody withholds your tax for you, the income tax calculator and the paycheck calculator answer most of it. If you invoice for your own work, start with the self-employment or 1099 calculator, because the number that catches people out there is the one nobody withheld. The groups on this page are arranged that way on purpose.
Do they cover my state?: Income tax covers all 51 jurisdictions — the 50 states and DC — plus the local layer in the 3,672 city and county jurisdictions that levy one. Property tax covers all 3,143 counties with that county's own data rather than a state average. Sales tax covers 47 states and vehicle tax 46, with the rest left unpublished and the reason given.
Can I use one of these to file my return?: No, and none of them pretend otherwise. These estimate what you owe so you can plan, check a payslip, or decide whether a move or a job change makes sense. Filing means a return sent to the IRS and to your state, which is a different job done by different software — or by a professional, which is the right answer as soon as your situation has anything unusual in it.
What do they not cover?: Each page says so in its own words, which is the point. In general: the Alternative Minimum Tax, foreign income and credits, trust and estate income, most business entity elections beyond the S-corp comparison, and any state rule that could not be read in a document that state publishes. A gap that is declared is a gap you can work around; a gap that is quietly filled with a plausible number is not.
How often are the figures updated?: Per figure, not per page. Each number carries the document it came from and the date it was read, and the pages show that date rather than a generic "last updated". It matters because states change rates mid-year and sometimes backdate them: 2026 figures published in January can be wrong by June without anyone touching the page.
Is there anything for outside the United States?: Yes — income tax for 27 other countries, each on its own published rules rather than a converted US calculation, and a full Canadian section covering income, sales, property, land transfer and capital gains across all 13 provinces and territories.