Federal income tax brackets 2026 (and 2025): every rate, every filing status

Every January I watch the same confusion repeat itself: people file a return in 2026 and assume the 2026 brackets apply to it, or they search for the rates and land on a table for the wrong filing status. So I have put the whole thing in one place — the complete federal income tax brackets for 2026 and for 2025, for every filing status, taken from the IRS’s own revenue procedures. These are the tables my tax calculator works from, and they are the foundation under every estimate you will see this year: when you open a 2026 tax calculator, mine included, these are the numbers doing the work, and any honest tax estimator 2026 edition is just these tables with a form on top.

First, the number that comes before the brackets

Brackets never touch your gross income. They tax what is left after your deduction, and for most filers that means the standard deduction. It is the slice of income the IRS lets you keep tax-free, and it differs by filing status and by year. Here are both years side by side:

Standard deductions by filing status. If your gross income is below your figure, you generally owe no federal income tax at all.

Two statuses travel in pairs through everything below: married filing separately uses the same standard deduction and the same bracket thresholds as single, and a qualifying widow(er) uses the same figures as married filing jointly. That is why each table needs only three columns to cover all five statuses.

The 2026 federal income tax brackets

These rates apply to income you earn during 2026 — the return you will file in early 2027. Each row taxes only the dollars of taxable income (gross income minus your deduction) that fall inside it.

2026 federal income tax brackets (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32). Ranges are taxable income, not gross pay.

The 2025 federal income tax brackets

These are the brackets behind the return most people file in early 2026, because that return reports 2025 income. Keep the two years separate in your head — using the wrong year’s table is the single most common estimation error I see.

2025 federal income tax brackets (IRS Rev. Proc. 2024-40, as modified). The joint thresholds are exactly double the single ones through the 24% band.

Reading a bracket table: a $150,000 joint income, walked through

Tables frighten people because they misread what a row means. A bracket is a bucket, not a verdict: each rate applies only to the slice of income inside its bucket. Let me walk a married couple earning $150,000 in 2026 through the joint column, step by step.

First the deduction: $150,000 minus the $32,200 joint standard deduction leaves $117,800 of taxable income. Now fill the buckets from the bottom. The first $24,800 is taxed at 10% — that is $2,480. The next slice, from $24,800 up to $100,800, is $76,000 taxed at 12% — $9,120. Their taxable income stops at $117,800, which is $17,000 into the 22% bucket — $3,740. Add the three slices: $2,480 + $9,120 + $3,740 = $15,340 of federal income tax.

Notice what did not happen: crossing into the 22% bracket did not tax their whole income at 22%. Their top rate — their marginal rate — is 22%, but their effective rate is $15,340 divided by $150,000, just 10.23%. Most of their dollars were taxed at 10% and 12%, and $32,200 was never taxed at all. When someone tells you they are “in the 22% bracket,” this is the arithmetic hiding behind the phrase.

What actually changed from 2025 to 2026

The IRS adjusts the brackets and the standard deduction for inflation every year, so the 2026 tables sit slightly higher than 2025 almost everywhere: the single standard deduction rose $350, from $15,750 to $16,100, and every threshold crept up by roughly 2–4%. The effect on a real paycheck is modest but real. A single filer earning $60,000 owed $5,071.50 for 2025; under the 2026 tables the same salary, unchanged, owes $5,020.00 — $51.50 less, purely from the inflation adjustment. This is deliberate policy: it stops a cost-of-living raise from pushing you into higher brackets when your actual buying power has not moved, a quiet phenomenon called bracket creep.

What these tables do not include

When I say federal taxes on this page, I mean the federal income tax only. Two other federal taxes ride on your paycheck and never appear in these tables: Social Security tax at 6.2% of wages and Medicare tax at 1.45%, withheld by your employer under their own rules. State income tax is a separate system again — some states have no income tax at all, others run their own bracket tables. And the tables assume every dollar is taxed at ordinary rates: they do not reflect tax credits, which subtract from the final bill, or the lower rates that apply to long-term capital gains. The brackets are the engine of the calculation, not the whole car.

Sources: IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (tax year 2026 brackets and standard deductions) and IRS Rev. Proc. 2024-40 as modified (tax year 2025), read at irs.gov. All worked examples recomputed bracket by bracket for this article and matched against the CalcFolk tax calculator. Figures cover federal income tax only; this is general information, not tax advice.