Tax Return Calculator — Estimate Your 2026 Federal Refund or Amount Owed
Will the IRS owe you, or will you owe the IRS? Enter your income, deductions and credits for 2026 — or switch back to 2025 — and this estimator walks the official IRS brackets step by step to your refund or amount owed, including the refundable credits, capital-gains rates and self-employment tax.
Your return
Advanced options — deductions, income details, dependents, credits & payments
Deductions, investment and business income, dependents, credits and payments are included at their default values — open Advanced options to change them.
🔒 All calculations happen in your browser — no data leaves your device.
Your estimate
Where the income goes
Your AGI split three ways: the deduction that is never taxed, and the taxable income stacked through the brackets it actually passes through — each slice taxed only at its own rate, with dividends and long-term gains riding on top at their 0%, 15% and 20% rates.
- A federal return is a chain of subtractions: AGI minus the larger of the standard or itemized deduction gives taxable income, taxed slice by slice through the brackets of the year you pick — 2026 by default, 2025 one switch away.
- Credits work the way the real return works: the child tax credit ($2,200 per child under 17) and the $500 other-dependent credit first reduce tax toward $0, then the child credit’s unused part can still come back as the refundable additional child tax credit, and the earned income credit is modelled on top.
- At the defaults the 2026 estimate is a $9,160.00 refund: $13,000.00 withheld against $3,840.00 of tax after credits. The same figures under 2025 rules give $9,057.00.
Keep exploring
Three companion tools for the rest of your tax picture.
How it works
Three steps from income to refund.
Add up your income
Gross income plus other income, minus adjustments, gives your adjusted gross income — the figure the whole return is built on.
Subtract the deduction
The calculator takes the larger of the standard deduction for your filing status and year — including the extra amounts for age 65 and blindness — and your itemized deductions. The new 2025–2028 deductions — for qualified tips, overtime premium pay, car-loan interest and seniors — come off in the same step, leaving taxable income.
Apply brackets, credits, payments
Taxable income is taxed slice by slice through that year’s brackets (dividends and long-term gains at their preferential rates), self-employment tax is added if you entered business income, credits reduce the bill, and what you already paid — including refundable credits — is compared against it.
The math behind the return
A federal return is a chain of subtractions. AGI = gross income + other income + interest + dividends + capital gains + business income − adjustments − half of any self-employment tax. Taxable income = max(0, AGI − deduction − new-law deductions), where the deduction is the larger of the standard deduction for your status and year — including the extra amounts for age 65 and blindness — and your itemized total, and the new-law deductions are the 2025–2028 Schedule 1-A amounts for tips, overtime, car-loan interest and seniors. Tax is then computed by filling the year’s brackets in order: each slice of ordinary income is taxed at that bracket’s rate, and only the top slice pays the top rate, while qualified dividends and long-term capital gains stacked on top are taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% depending on where they land. Nonrefundable credits — the child tax credit of $2,200 per child under 17 (phased out by $50 for every $1,000 of AGI over $400,000 for joint filers or $200,000 for everyone else), $500 per other dependent, plus any credits you enter — reduce the tax but not below $0; the child credit’s unused part is then tested as the refundable additional child tax credit (15% of earned income over $2,500, up to $1,700 per child). Self-employment tax is added to the bill and the refundable credits — the additional child tax credit and the earned income credit — are added to your payments. Finally, refund = withholding + estimated payments + refundable credits − total tax; a negative result is the amount you still owe.
Worked examples:
| Return | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Married Filing Jointly · $110,000 gross · $5,000 adjustments · 2 children · $13,000 withheld (2025) | AGI $105,000 − $31,500 standard deduction = $73,500 taxable · $23,850 at 10% ($2,385.00) + $49,650 at 12% ($5,958.00) = $8,343.00 · minus $4,400.00 child tax credit = $3,943.00 · $13,000.00 paid − $3,943.00 | Refund $9,057.00 |
| Married Filing Jointly · $110,000 gross · $5,000 adjustments · 2 children · $13,000 withheld (2026) | AGI $105,000 − $32,200 standard deduction = $72,800 taxable · $24,800 at 10% ($2,480.00) + $48,000 at 12% ($5,760.00) = $8,240.00 · minus $4,400.00 child tax credit = $3,840.00 · $13,000.00 paid − $3,840.00 | Refund $9,160.00 |
| Single · $64,225 gross · no adjustments or credits · $6,000 withheld (2025) | AGI $64,225 − $15,750 standard deduction = $48,475 taxable — exactly the top of the 12% band · $11,925 at 10% ($1,192.50) + $36,550 at 12% ($4,386.00) = $5,578.50 · $6,000.00 paid − $5,578.50 | Refund $421.50 |
Two lessons hide in those rows. First, the joint filers’ top slice is taxed at 12%, yet their effective rate after credits is just 3.49% of gross income in 2026 (3.58% in 2025) — the marginal rate is almost never the rate you actually pay. Second, the single filer’s taxable income lands exactly on a bracket edge: one more dollar of income would be taxed at 22%, but not one cent of the existing $48,475 changes rate.
Go deeper
The two ideas that decide most refunds.
The brackets are steps, not a single flat rate applied to everything:
- Only the slice inside a bracket pays that bracket’s rate. In the default 2026 return above, the first $24,800 of taxable income is taxed at 10% ($2,480.00) and only the remaining $48,000 at 12% ($5,760.00) — total $8,240.00, not 12% of everything.
- Your marginal rate is the rate on your next dollar, while your effective rate is the average across all dollars. The default filers have a 12% marginal rate but a 3.49% effective rate after credits in 2026.
- Crossing a bracket edge changes nothing retroactively. Earning $1 over the 12% ceiling taxes that $1 at 22% — the dollars below keep their lower rates.
- Standard deductions: for 2026 — $16,100 Single, $32,200 Married Filing Jointly or Qualifying Surviving Spouse, $24,150 Head of Household, $16,100 Married Filing Separately; for 2025 — $15,750, $31,500, $23,625 and $15,750. Filing separately uses its own table, identical to Single except the 35% band ends at $384,350 in 2026 ($375,800 in 2025). Being 65 or older, or blind, adds $1,650 per condition in 2026 ($2,050 if you file Single or Head of Household); the 2025 amounts are $1,600 and $2,000.
For 2026 and 2025 alike the child tax credit is worth up to $2,200 for each child under 17 — but four details shape what you actually get:
- Phase-out: the credit shrinks by $50 for every $1,000 (or part of $1,000) of AGI above $400,000 for joint filers, or $200,000 for other statuses. An AGI $5,000 over the threshold means 5 steps and $250 less credit.
- Nonrefundable part first: the credit first reduces your income tax, down to $0 but no further. Two children give the default filers a $4,400 credit against $8,240 of tax in 2026, leaving $3,840.
- The refundable ACTC, now modelled: whatever part of the credit your tax could not absorb can still be refunded through the additional child tax credit — 15% of earned income above $2,500, up to $1,700 per child. (The alternative formula for families with three or more children, based on payroll taxes paid, is not modelled.)
- The earned income credit is separate: it has its own qualifying-children count in Advanced options and phases out on its own schedule — up to $8,231 for 2026 with three or more qualifying children — and it is refundable in full.
- Other dependents: a $500 nonrefundable credit covers dependents who miss the child tax credit rules, with no phase-out applied in this model.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act added four deductions for tax years 2025 through 2028, claimed on the new Schedule 1-A. They come off after AGI — in the same step as the standard or itemized deduction — whether or not you itemize, and they never change your AGI, so the credit phase-outs that run off AGI are untouched. Enter them under Advanced options; the senior amount is worked out automatically from the age-65 boxes.
- Tips — up to $25,000 per return: qualified tips are cash or charged tips, paid voluntarily, in an occupation on the IRS tipped-occupations list. The deduction shrinks by $100 for every $1,000 of income over $150,000 ($300,000 on a joint return) and is gone by $400,000 ($550,000 joint). Married filing separately cannot claim it.
- Overtime — up to $12,500 ($25,000 joint): only the premium part of overtime pay counts — the extra half of time-and-a-half that the Fair Labor Standards Act requires. If your pay statement shows the full time-and-a-half amount, a third of it is the premium. Same phase-out steps as tips, and married filing separately cannot claim it.
- Car-loan interest — up to $10,000: interest on a loan taken out after 2024 to buy a new car, minivan, van, SUV, pickup truck or motorcycle for personal use, where the vehicle had its final assembly in the United States and the loan is secured by it. Tick the eligibility box under Advanced options only if your car and loan meet those tests — a lease, or a car assembled outside the US, does not count. The deduction shrinks by $200 for every $1,000 of income over $100,000 ($200,000 joint); married filing separately can claim this one.
- Seniors — $6,000 per person aged 65 or older: up to $12,000 on a joint return when both spouses qualify. It shrinks by 6% of income over $75,000 ($150,000 joint) and is gone by $175,000 ($250,000 joint). Married filing separately cannot claim it. It is separate from, and stacks with, the extra standard-deduction amount for age 65.
- Worked example: a single filer in 2026 with $58,000 of wages, $12,000 of qualified tips, $4,000 of overtime premium and $1,800 of qualifying car-loan interest deducts $17,800 on top of the standard deduction — taxable income falls from $41,900 to $24,100 and the tax from $4,780.00 to $2,644.00, a saving of $2,136.00.
One simplification: the phase-outs on a real Schedule 1-A run off modified AGI, which adds back certain foreign-income exclusions. This estimator has no such exclusions, so it uses your AGI — the same figure for the returns it models.
The return in order: income, adjustments, deductions, credits, payments
Five steps, always in this order. Mixing up the order is how most return errors happen.
A federal return runs as a pipeline, and each step feeds the next. First, add up all income — wages, self-employment, interest, dividends, rent, gains — to get total income. Second, subtract adjustments (such as deductible retirement contributions and student-loan interest) to reach adjusted gross income. Third, subtract the standard deduction or itemised deductions to reach taxable income, which is the figure the brackets price. Fourth, apply the brackets, then subtract non-refundable credits, then refundable credits, to reach the tax itself. Fifth, subtract everything already paid — withholding and estimated payments — to reach the refund or the amount owed.
The order matters because each step has its own limits. A deduction reduces taxable income, so it is worth your marginal rate — a $1,000 deduction at 22% saves $220. A non-refundable credit reduces the tax itself dollar for dollar, but only down to zero. A refundable credit can take the tax below zero and produce a refund. Two returns with the same gross income can therefore end with very different bills, and the pipeline is where the difference lives.
Forms in plain English: 1040, W-2, 1099, and schedules
Each form is one input to the pipeline. Knowing which is which prevents the commonest omissions.
Form 1040 is the return itself — the document that carries the pipeline from income to refund or amount owed. Form W-2 reports wages and withholding from each employer; its figures go on the 1040, and its withholding counts as tax already paid. Forms 1099 report income that arrived without an employer: interest (1099-INT), dividends (1099-DIV), freelance and contract payments (1099-NEC), and payment-app income (1099-K), among others. Schedules sit between the forms and the 1040: Schedule 1 for extra income and adjustments, Schedule 2 for extra taxes, Schedule 3 for extra credits and payments, and Schedules A, C, D and E for itemised deductions, business income, gains and rental income.
Two cautions follow. First, the IRS receives copies of W-2s and 1099s too, so a form you forget is usually a form the IRS already has — the mismatch surfaces later, with interest. Second, some phrases mean different things abroad: in India, for example, “professional tax” is a state levy on employment, unrelated to the US federal return. This calculator models the US federal return only, and foreign levies with the same name are outside its scope.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers about your 2026 and 2025 federal returns.
How is my federal tax refund calculated?
Start with your total income — wages, other ordinary income, interest, dividends, capital gains and business income — subtract adjustments (including half of any self-employment tax) to reach adjusted gross income, then subtract the larger of the standard or itemized deduction, plus any of the new 2025–2028 deductions you qualify for — tips, overtime premium pay, car-loan interest and the senior deduction. Tax what remains slice by slice, with qualified dividends and long-term gains at their 0%, 15% and 20% rates, subtract nonrefundable credits, and add any self-employment tax. Compare the result with what you already paid — withholding, estimated payments and the refundable credits — and the difference is your refund or the amount you owe. The estimator covers the 2026 and 2025 tax years.
What is the standard deduction for 2026 and 2025?
For 2026 the standard deduction is $16,100 for Single and Married Filing Separately, $32,200 for Married Filing Jointly and Qualifying Surviving Spouse, and $24,150 for Head of Household. For 2025 it is $15,750, $31,500 and $23,625 respectively. Filers who are 65 or older or blind get an extra amount per condition: $1,650 in 2026, or $2,050 for Single and Head of Household filers; $1,600 and $2,000 in 2025.
How much is the child tax credit in 2026?
The child tax credit is $2,200 for each child under 17 in both 2026 and 2025. It phases out by $50 for every $1,000 of AGI over $400,000 for joint filers or $200,000 for other statuses. The part your tax cannot absorb can come back as the refundable additional child tax credit — 15% of earned income above $2,500, up to $1,700 per child — and this estimator models both parts.
What are the 2026 federal income tax brackets?
The seven rates are 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%. For joint filers in 2026, taxable income is taxed at 10% up to $24,800, 12% up to $100,800, 22% up to $211,400, 24% up to $403,550, 32% up to $512,450 and 35% up to $768,700, with 37% above that. For single filers the 12% band ends at $50,400 and the 22% band at $105,700. Pick the 2025 tax year in the calculator to run the same estimate under the 2025 bands.
Should I take the standard deduction or itemize?
Whichever is larger — that is the whole decision. Add up itemizable expenses such as mortgage interest, state and local taxes within their cap, and charitable gifts. If the total beats the standard deduction for your status ($32,200 for joint filers in 2026, $31,500 in 2025), itemizing wins; otherwise the standard deduction does. This calculator automatically uses the larger of the amount you enter and the standard deduction.
Does this estimate include state taxes? What is still left out?
State and local taxes are not included — this is a federal estimate only. It does include self-employment tax, the earned income credit, the refundable additional child tax credit, the preferential rates on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains, and the 2025–2028 deductions for tips, overtime, car-loan interest and seniors. It still leaves out payroll tax on wages, the alternative minimum tax, the net investment income tax and smaller rules such as the dependent standard-deduction limit, so a real return can differ.
What is the filing deadline?
For most individuals, 15 April following the tax year — 15 April 2027 for the 2026 tax year. If that date falls on a weekend or a holiday in the District of Columbia, the deadline moves to the next business day. You can file Form 4868 for an automatic six-month extension to file, but an extension to file is not an extension to pay: any tax you expect to owe should still be paid by the April deadline, or interest — and sometimes penalties — will accrue on the unpaid amount.
What happens if I miss a form, such as a 1099?
File an amended return on Form 1040-X as soon as you notice, rather than waiting for the IRS to write. The IRS matches the forms it receives against the returns filed, and a missing 1099 usually produces a notice proposing extra tax, interest and sometimes an accuracy penalty. An amended return filed promptly, with the extra tax paid, limits the interest and shows the omission was corrected voluntarily. Keep the corrected figures and the original forms together — if the same form is missed two years running, the pattern looks deliberate even when it was not.
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Disclaimer
This calculator is an estimate for information only, built on the 2026 federal figures published in IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 and the 2025 figures in Rev. Proc. 2024-40 as modified by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with Social Security wage bases from the SSA (figures checked October 2026) — it is not tax advice and not a filed return. It models the standard deduction including the extra amounts for age 65 and blindness, the child tax credit with its refundable additional child tax credit (main formula), the earned income credit, preferential rates on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains, the 2025–2028 Schedule 1-A deductions for tips, overtime premium pay, car-loan interest and seniors (their phase-outs run off AGI here — this estimate has no foreign-income exclusions to add back), and self-employment tax. It excludes state and local tax, payroll tax on wages, the AMT, the net investment income tax, the additional child tax credit’s alternative formula for larger families and dozens of smaller rules; the earned income credit, in particular, is estimated with the statutory phase-in and phase-out percentages rather than the IRS’s $50-increment tables. Individual circumstances can change the answer. Check your figures with IRS publications or a qualified tax professional before relying on them.