2026 federal and state tax brackets

The same brackets, in salary

The tables above are in taxable income, which is what the Revenue Procedure publishes and what nobody knows off the top of their head. This is the same thing in the number you do know: gross salary, for a single filer taking the $16,100 standard deduction and nothing else. It is the difference between thinking you are in the 22% bracket and actually being in the 12% one.

A 401(k) contribution, an HSA or an itemised deduction moves the salary column down by whatever it is worth — which is the whole point of them, and why the right-hand column is a starting position rather than a verdict.

Your bracket is not your tax rate

Each rate applies only to the income inside its own band, so the rate you pay across everything you earned is always lower than the bracket you are in — and the gap grows with income. Single filer, federal income tax only, no credits.

“Graduated” is doing a lot of work in that table

29 states run graduated brackets, and the label makes them sound alike. They are not. What decides whether a graduated system is actually progressive is not how many bands it has but where the top one starts — and on that measure the spread across the country is enormous. In 10 of them the top rate arrives below $30,000 of taxable income, which means a full-time worker on almost any wage pays the top rate. Those states are flat in everything but name.

The 9 with no income tax, and what they take instead

A zero in the state column is the most quoted figure in this whole table and the most misread. No state runs on nothing. The money is collected somewhere else — usually at the till or on the house — and where it lands changes who pays it. The sales rate is the state rate before any local one; the property figure is the median effective rate across that state’s counties, which is what a house actually pays rather than a headline millage.

Questions people ask about brackets

What tax bracket am I in for 2026?

The one your last dollar of taxable income lands in — and taxable income is your salary minus your deduction, not your salary. A single filer earning $100,000 has $83,900 of taxable income after the $16,100 standard deduction, which puts them in the 22% bracket. The table on this page shows both figures, so you do not have to do that subtraction yourself.

Does being in a higher bracket mean all my income is taxed at that rate?

No, and this is the single most expensive misunderstanding in personal tax. Each rate applies only to the slice of income inside its own band. That same $100,000 single filer pays $13,170 in federal income tax — an effective rate of 13.17%, not the 22% of their bracket. A raise never leaves you worse off.

Why is my effective rate so much lower than my bracket?

Because the bands below your top one are still taxed at their own, lower rates, and the first slice — the standard deduction — is not taxed at all. The gap between the two rates widens as income rises: at $40,000 it is 5.45%, at $250,000 it is 11.48%.

Are the married brackets just double the single ones?

Up to a point, exactly. Every band is precisely twice as wide for a couple filing jointly until the 35% bracket, where the joint threshold is $768,700 instead of the $1,281,200 that doubling would give — $512,500 narrower. That is where the marriage penalty lives: two high earners reach the top rate sooner together than they would apart.

What is the difference between a tax bracket and a tax rate?

A bracket is a band of income; a rate is what applies inside it. There are seven federal brackets and seven federal rates, which is why the words get used interchangeably — but a state can have one rate and no brackets at all, and 13 of them do.

Do state brackets work the same way?

The mechanics do; the scale does not. 9 states tax no wage income at all, 13 apply a single flat rate, and 29 run graduated bands. But graduated does not mean progressive in practice: in 10 of them the top rate starts below $30,000 of taxable income, so almost every full-time worker pays it. Alabama reaches its top rate of 5% at $3,000. New York reaches its 10.90% at $25,000,000.

Do the brackets change every year?

The rates rarely move — the current seven have been in place since 2018 — but the thresholds are indexed to inflation and shift every year, along with the standard deduction. That is why a bracket table has to carry its year: a 2026 salary read against last year's table lands in the wrong band often enough to matter.

Is there anything on top of federal and state?

In 11 states a county, a city or a school district levies its own income tax on top, and it is not small — in New York City it is roughly $3,000 a year on a $100,000 salary. Payroll tax is separate again: Social Security and Medicare come out before any of this and have their own rules.

Where to go next