Mississippi tax brackets

Mississippi tax brackets for 2026

Mississippi taxes income in two brackets for 2026. Married couples filing jointly use the same thresholds as single filers, though a couple may instead figure each spouse's tax separately on the same return.

Read that first line carefully: nobody pays a 0% bracket, so in practice Mississippi is a flat 4% tax with the first $10,000 of taxable income left alone. It is listed as graduated because the law writes it that way.

Taxable income is what is left after a standard deduction of $2,300 for a single filer and $4,600 for a couple and a personal exemption of $6,000 for each filer.

Mississippi taxes nothing on the first $10,000 of taxable income in 2026, then a flat 4% above it. Its personal exemption is unusually generous: $6,000 single and $12,000 married. A married couple in which both earn may file a combined return, each spouse in his or her own column with the $4,600 deduction and $12,000 exemption divided between them as they choose, so each gets the $10,000 tax-free band; joint figures here use whichever is lower for the income split given.

Where each rate starts on your actual salary

The brackets are written in taxable income, and nobody knows their taxable income by heart — everyone knows their salary. The gap between the two is whatever comes off before the rate is applied: in Mississippi, $8,300 for a single filer and $16,600 for a couple. So the schedule is read wrongly by construction, and the fix is to shift it by that amount.

The table below moves every threshold into salary terms. The first dollar of tax is owed at a gross income of $18,301 for a single filer and $36,601 for a couple.

These are wage figures, and they assume the income Mississippi starts from equals your salary with nothing taken out before it. Anything the state lets you subtract first moves every one of these lines up by the same amount — and the list is not the same in every state, which is why it is worth checking yours rather than assuming the federal one applies.

One salary through the whole calculation

Here is a single filer earning $75,000 in wages, step by step, exactly as the calculation runs.

The result: $2,268 of Mississippi income tax, an effective rate of 3.02% on the salary, with two brackets each taxing its own slice.

Every figure on this page is this same sequence run at a different salary. None of it is estimated from an average: change the brackets in the source and every number here changes with them.

What Mississippi takes at seven salaries

The rate in the schedule is not the rate you pay. Here is the 2026 Mississippi income tax at seven salaries, for a single filer and for a married couple filing jointly on the same household income, with the effective rate — tax divided by gross income — and the marginal rate measured on the next $100 rather than read off the schedule.

The marginal column barely moves — 4% everywhere above the starting point — while the effective column keeps rising toward it without ever arriving: 1.56% at $30,000, 3.27% at $100,000, 3.63% at $200,000. A flat tax is still progressive in what you actually pay, because the tax-free slice is worth the same number of dollars to everyone and so matters most to the lowest earners.

The joint figures assume two earners who split the household income evenly, because in Mississippi a married couple may figure each spouse's tax separately on the same return, each on the single schedule, and the figures here use whichever is lower. How much the split matters is set out [below](#income-split).

The table stops at $200,000 on purpose. Above roughly $250,000 some states start withdrawing deductions and exemptions, and a figure for those incomes should come from the full calculator, which asks for the details that decide it.

Take-home pay in Mississippi at seven salaries

The state income tax is one of four taxes on a paycheck. Here is what a single filer keeps once Mississippi, federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare have all come off, and what share of the combined bill Mississippi accounts for.

Mississippi's slice of the total is smallest at the bottom of the scale and grows as pay rises: 11.19% of the taxes on $30,000, 12.46% on $200,000. Over this range the Mississippi tax rises faster with pay than the federal and payroll taxes put together, so its share of the bill grows.

Three Mississippi households

Averages hide the households they are made of. Three typical ones, each with every tax on their wages:

A single filer earning $40,000: Mississippi $868, federal income tax $2,620, Social Security and Medicare $3,060 — $6,548 in all, leaving $33,452 ($2,788 a month). The state is 13.26% of what they pay.

A married couple earning $60,000 and $35,000, filing jointly: Mississippi $2,336, federal income tax $7,040, Social Security and Medicare $7,268 — $16,644 in all, leaving $78,356 ($6,530 a month). The state is 14.04% of what they pay.

A single professional earning $180,000: Mississippi $6,468, federal income tax $31,934, Social Security and Medicare $13,770 — $52,172 in all, leaving $127,828 ($10,652 a month). The state is 12.4% of what they pay.

In all three, Social Security and Medicare take more than Mississippi does. The payroll taxes have no deduction at all and start on the first dollar, which is why they are the largest tax many lower earners pay.

Mississippi income tax at every $10,000

For a salary between the seven above, here is the single-filer figure in $10,000 steps, from $20,000 to $200,000.

Between two steps the tax moves in a straight line at the marginal rate, so for $64,000 take the $60,000 figure and add 4% of the extra $4,000.

Per paycheck, and why your withholding will not match exactly

Spread over 26 biweekly paychecks, a single filer's Mississippi income tax comes to about $18 at $30,000, $49 at $50,000, $87 at $75,000, $126 at $100,000, $164 at $125,000.

On other pay schedules, the $75,000 figure of $2,268 a year works out to about $44 a week, $95 twice a month, or $189 once a month. The annual total is the same whichever way it is paid; only the slices change.

What your employer actually withholds is set by the state's withholding formula, which is built to land close to these annual figures but is not the same calculation — it works one paycheck at a time and relies on the form you filled in when you started the job. The gap between the two comes back at filing time as a refund or a bill. The Mississippi refund estimator runs that reconciliation for your own figures.

What each bracket costs in dollars

A bracket is a slice, and each full slice has a fixed price. For a single filer, the table gives what each slice costs once it is full, and the running total by the time you reach its top.

Those running totals are the fixed amount owed on everything below a given threshold. From there, only the part of your income inside your own bracket is taxed at its rate.

Moving into a higher bracket

The belief that a raise can cost you money because it "pushes you into a higher bracket" is the most common misreading of a schedule, and Mississippi's shows why it is wrong.

A single filer's 4% rate starts at $18,300 of salary. At $17,300 the Mississippi tax is $0; at $19,300 it is $40. The extra $2,000 of pay cost $40 — part at the old rate, part at the new one — and not a cent more on the income below.

Only the dollars inside a bracket pay that bracket's rate. Crossing a threshold changes the price of the next dollar, never of the ones already earned.

Three ways to misread the Mississippi schedule

Applying the rate to your salary. 4% of a $75,000 salary is $3,000; the real Mississippi tax on it is $2,268. The shortcut overstates the bill by $732, 32.28% too high, because it skips everything that comes off first and taxes every dollar at the top rate.

Confusing the effective rate with the marginal one. At $75,000 the combined effective income tax rate, federal plus Mississippi, is 13.25%; the combined marginal rate is 26%. The first says how much of the salary goes in income tax; the second what the next dollar costs. Pricing a raise or a pre-tax contribution with the first is the classic slip.

Assuming last year's figures still hold. Thresholds and rates are set per tax year; everything on this page is for 2026, from the Mississippi source checked on 2026-09-01.

What you keep from a $5,000 raise

The combined marginal rate is abstract; a raise is not. Here is where an extra $5,000 of salary goes for a single filer, with federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare all measured on the same two salaries:

From $50,000 to $55,000: Mississippi $200, federal income tax $600, Social Security and Medicare $383 — you keep $3,817, or 76.34% of the raise.

From $100,000 to $105,000: Mississippi $200, federal income tax $1,100, Social Security and Medicare $383 — you keep $3,317, or 66.34% of the raise.

Mississippi's share is 4% of the raise at $50,000 and 4% at $100,000. The federal share is the one that moves most between the two salaries, because the federal schedule has more steps.

Married filing jointly: does Mississippi penalise it?

Married couples filing jointly use exactly the same thresholds as single filers — they are not doubled. What keeps that from penalising two-earner couples is an option: Mississippi lets a married couple figure each spouse's tax separately on the same return, each on the single schedule, and pay whichever is lower. The figures below use that option where it wins.

Measured on a household earning $100,000: split evenly, two single people would pay $2,536 between them; married and filing jointly they pay $2,536. The same, to within a few dollars — no penalty and no bonus.

With the same $100,000 earned by one partner alone, a single filer would pay $3,268; the couple pays $2,936, so filing jointly with a non-earning spouse is worth $332 a year in Mississippi tax. All of it comes from the second deduction and exemption, since the rates are the same.

How the split between two incomes changes it

A joint return pools the two incomes, so a married couple on $100,000 pays $2,536 to Mississippi however the $100,000 is divided between them — as long as both of them earn. With a single earner the couple pays $2,936, because computing each spouse's tax separately needs income on both sides: one earner's income cannot be split between the two. Two unmarried partners file separately, and for them the split matters, as the table shows for four ways of dividing the same $100,000.

The more lopsided the split, the more a joint return is worth, because it lets the lower earner's unused deduction absorb part of the higher earner's income. These are Mississippi figures only; the federal return has its own, separate version of the same effect.

Mississippi and federal brackets together

Every extra dollar is taxed by both. The combined marginal income tax rate — federal plus Mississippi — is 16% at $30,000 and 28% at $200,000 for a single filer, and the table shows every step in between.

On top of that come Social Security (6.2% up to the wage base) and Medicare (1.45%, plus 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages above $200,000 for a single filer). And the deduction for state income tax on a federal return only helps if you itemise — most people take the federal standard deduction and get nothing back for the state tax they paid.

The federal brackets step up at different points from the Mississippi ones, so the combined rate changes in more places than either schedule alone. Planning a raise or a bonus around one table is how people misjudge what they will keep.

How the Mississippi rate got here

Mississippi has been stepping its rate down each year — 4.7% to 4.0% — while keeping the first $10,000 of taxable income untaxed.

The top rate year by year: 2024 at 4.7%, 2025 at 4.4%, 2026 at 4%.

So anyone comparing with last year's figures should expect them to differ: the 2025 top rate was 4.4%, not 4%, so a table from before 2026 will not match this one.

How Mississippi ranks

On a $75,000 salary, single, Mississippi takes $2,268 — the 8th lowest of the 42 jurisdictions that charge anything at that salary, with nine taking nothing at all. The middle of those 42 takes $2,802, so Mississippi is $534 below it.

The position is not fixed; it moves with the salary: 11th lowest at $50,000, 8th lowest at $75,000, 9th lowest at $150,000. Mississippi stays in roughly the same place across all three.

At that salary the range among states that charge anything runs from $182 in North Dakota to $5,055 in Oregon, which puts Mississippi 42.81% of the way from the cheapest to the dearest.

Within $250 of it at $75,000: Indiana ($2,183), Rhode Island ($2,196), Iowa ($2,198), Pennsylvania ($2,303). States that look different on paper often end up a few hundred dollars apart, because the deduction moves the bill as much as the rate does.

For 2026, 13 states tax wages at a single rate, 29 jurisdictions use brackets and 9 have no tax on wages at all, so Mississippi is formally one of the 29 with brackets, though flat in practice.

The 2026 brackets for every state are on one page, and the state income tax comparison ranks all 51 at the salary you choose.

What this page leaves out

Head of household and married filing separately. This page publishes the two schedules that were read at source, single and joint, and nothing for the other two statuses rather than a guess.

Dependents and credits. Credits for children, earned income, retirement income and the rest depend on your household, not on the brackets, and are left to the Mississippi income tax calculator.

Income that is not wages. Retirement income, capital gains and business income can be treated differently in Mississippi from a salary. Everything above is for wages.

Other tax years. Every figure here is for the 2026 tax year, the return filed in 2027. A return for an earlier year has to be worked out with that year's rates and thresholds, which is exactly where copied tables go wrong.

Where these brackets come from

Read off the Mississippi Department of Revenue's own 2026 figures, [www.dor.ms.gov](https://www.dor.ms.gov/), checked on 2026-09-01. Both the single and the joint rules were verified against that source before this page was published — a state whose joint schedule has not been read does not get a brackets page here yet, and neither does one whose rules our engine still simplifies.

Every dollar figure on this page is computed by the same engine as the Mississippi income tax calculator, from the brackets above, so the two cannot disagree. If Mississippi changes a rate or a threshold, this page changes with the data.

Questions

What are the Mississippi tax brackets for 2026?

Mississippi has two brackets for single filers in 2026: 0% up to $10,000, 4% above $10,000 of taxable income.

What is the Mississippi income tax rate for 2026?

4% on taxable income above $10,000, for single and joint filers alike — down from 4.4% in 2025.

Is Mississippi a flat tax state?

In practice, yes. The law writes it as a 0% bracket followed by 4%, which works as a flat 4% with the first $10,000 of taxable income left alone.

At what income do you start paying Mississippi income tax?

A single filer with only wage income owes the first dollar of Mississippi tax at a gross income of about $18,301, and a married couple filing jointly at about $36,601.

How much Mississippi income tax do you pay on $100,000?

A single filer earning $100,000 in wages pays about $3,268 in Mississippi income tax for 2026, an effective rate of 3.27%. A married couple filing jointly on the same household income pays about $2,536.

Is Mississippi income tax high or low?

On a $75,000 salary, single, Mississippi takes $2,268 — at the low end of the 42 jurisdictions that tax wages (8th lowest), against $2,802 for the middle one. Nine take nothing at that salary.

How much is Mississippi state tax per paycheck?

On a $75,000 salary paid every two weeks, a single filer's Mississippi income tax comes to about $87 a paycheck, or $189 a month. Actual withholding follows the state's own formula and can differ slightly; the difference is settled when you file.

What was the Mississippi tax rate in 2025?

The 2025 top rate was 4.4%. For 2026 it is 4%, so figures copied from last year's tables overstate the tax.

What is the Mississippi standard deduction for 2026?

$2,300 for a single filer and $4,600 for a married couple filing jointly, plus a personal exemption of $6,000 for each filer. It comes off before any bracket is applied.

Are Mississippi tax brackets different for married couples?

Married couples filing jointly use exactly the same thresholds as single filers — they are not doubled. What keeps that from penalising two-earner couples is an option: Mississippi lets a married couple figure each spouse's tax separately on the same return, each on the single schedule, and pay whichever is lower.