2025-2026 tax brackets and federal income tax rates

In the U.S.’s progressive tax system, most taxpayers are subject to more than one tax rate — that is, different tax rates apply to different portions of income. You have to calculate your tax on each portion of income that falls into each tax bracket and then add up the total to get your tax bill.

For example, if your taxable income is $100,000 in 2025, some of your income will be subject to a 10% rate, some to a 12% rate and some to a 22% rate.

Read on for more on how tax brackets work, what the current tax brackets and federal income tax rates are, how to calculate your marginal and effective tax rates and how to manage your tax brackets to lower your tax bill.

Current federal tax rates and tax brackets

Tax brackets are the income range for each tax rate. They’re adjusted each year for inflation so, for example, the 2026 tax brackets are different than the 2025 brackets. However, while the income ranges for the tax brackets change from year to year, the tax rates generally don’t.

In 2025, the massive tax law known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made permanent the tax rates noted in the tables below. (Keep in mind that “permanent” is a squishy term in the world of tax — any tax law can be changed by lawmakers.) If it weren’t for the new law, federal tax rates would have reverted to the higher rates in effect before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (those rates were 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35% and 39.6%).

2026 tax brackets

Here are the 2026 income tax brackets, for taxes due April 2027, or October 2027 with an extension:

2025 tax brackets

Here are the 2025 income tax brackets, for taxes due April 2026, or October 2026 with an extension:

2024 tax brackets

Here are the 2024 income tax brackets for taxes due April 2025 (or October 2025 with an extension):

Federal tax brackets and rates: How they work

The U.S. federal tax system is progressive, which means that as your income rises, so does your tax bracket. But your tax bracket isn’t the same as your tax rate.

Let’s say you’re a single filer with $70,000 of taxable income. In 2025, you’d pay:

• 10% on your taxable income up to $11,925
• 12% on income from $11,925 to $48,475; that is, 12% on $36,550
• 22% on income over $48,475; that is, 22% on $21,525

More than half of your income would be taxed at 12% or less, even though you’re considered to be in the 22% bracket.

What is taxable income?

You pay taxes based on your taxable income, which is your adjusted gross income (AGI) minus the standard deduction or your itemized deductions (and minus the qualified business income deduction, if you’re eligible for that).

You can easily find the amount of your taxable income on any completed Form 1040 (on the 2024 version of the form, taxable income is listed on line 15).

Your tax bracket is called your marginal, or top, tax rate, while the actual tax rate you pay is often called your effective tax rate.

What is your marginal tax rate?

Your marginal tax rate is the rate at which your last dollar of income is taxed. For many Americans, the last dollar earned is taxed at a higher tax rate than the first dollar.

How to calculate your marginal tax rate

To figure out your marginal tax rate, simply look at the tax brackets above. The tax rate that applies to the bracket that matches your total taxable income is your marginal tax rate. For example, the marginal tax rate for a married-filing-jointly taxpayer with $200,000 of taxable income in 2026 is 22%.

What is your effective tax rate?

Your effective tax rate is the percentage of your annual income you pay to the IRS. Knowing your effective tax rate helps you understand your true tax liability each year. It’s a little harder to figure out than your marginal tax rate, which is simply the tax bracket that applies to your last dollar of income.

For example, if you look at the 2026 tax rates above, if you’re a single filer and your taxable income is $48,000, then your marginal tax rate is 12%. However, your effective tax rate will be lower than that, because a good chunk of your income will fall into the 10% tax bracket.

Even though your marginal rate is 12%, not all of your income is taxed at 12%. That’s why knowing your effective tax rate can give you a better sense of your actual annual tax bill. Read on to see how to calculate your effective tax rate.

How to calculate your effective tax rate

If you know your tax bill, it’s easy to calculate your effective tax rate from it: Simply divide your total tax by your taxable income and multiply it by 100. (Hint: Your total tax is on line 24 of the 2024 version of Form 1040.)

For example, if you paid $20,000 in taxes over the course of the year (including any payment you made when you filed your taxes), and your taxable income is $100,000, then your effective tax rate is 20%. That’s 20,000 divided by 100,000 times 100.

However, it’s also possible to calculate your effective tax rate using just your income and the tax rates noted in the tables above. Instead of looking at what tax bracket you fall into based on your total income, you need to steadily go through each of the tax brackets, starting with the first one.

That is, you start with the first tax bracket — make sure you’re in the column that aligns with your filing status — applying its 10% rate to your income up to the top of the income range for that bracket, then move on to the next bracket, applying the 12% rate to that portion of income, etc.

Figuring that out isn’t as hard as it may seem.

How to use tax brackets to lower taxable income

Knowing your tax bracket is a great starting point for strategies to reduce your taxes.

• For some taxpayers, knowing where they fall within a bracket can help them make smart decisions about how much money they can convert from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA before they push themselves into a higher tax bracket. Knowing that information helps them reduce their overall tax bill.
• Older taxpayers who keep an eye on their tax bracket may be able to avoid triggering higher Medicare premiums, for example by reducing how much taxable income they withdraw from their IRA in a given year.
• Knowing your current tax bracket may prompt you to maximize ways of reducing your taxable income so that you drop into a lower tax bracket.

One way to reduce your taxable income: Max out your workplace pre-tax retirement plan.

“Many individuals contribute to their employer-sponsored plan up to the company match, usually 3% to 6%,” says Tomika Bullet, tax principal at Windham Brannon in Atlanta. “Increasing your contributions to the IRS allowable maximum can be one step towards a lower tax bracket.”

Contributing to a workplace plan reduces your income even before it hits your paycheck. There is one other main way to reduce your taxable income: tax deductions (though there are other strategies as well, such as pushing income into the following year, if possible). And, while tax credits technically don’t reduce your taxable income, they can be a valuable way to trim your tax bill.

Tax deductions

Tax deductions lower the amount of your income that’s subject to taxes. You must choose between claiming the standard deduction and claiming itemized deductions. You want to pick whichever number is larger: the standard deduction or your total itemized deductions. Some examples of itemized deductions are: medical expenses, charitable contributions and state and local taxes (aka the SALT deduction).

And, because this is about taxes, there’s of course some added complexity to keep in mind: There’s another type of tax deduction, called an above-the-line deduction, that you can claim no matter whether you choose to take the standard deduction or itemize your deductions.

If you qualify for any above-the-line deductions, you can claim them and claim the standard deduction. (Wondering about that name? The “line” refers to your adjusted gross income, or AGI. Above-the-line deductions are subtracted from your income before calculating your AGI. They’re “above that line” on the Form 1040. )

Some examples of above-the-line deductions are those for student loan interest, educator expenses, traditional IRA contributions and health savings account contributions.

Itemized deductions, on the other hand, are subtracted from your AGI to arrive at your taxable income. If you have enough itemized deductions to exceed the standard deduction for your filing status, you can itemize those expenses to lower your taxable income. In 2025, the standard deduction is $15,750 for single filers and those who are married filing separately, $23,625 for head of household filers and $31,500 for married fling jointly filers.

To calculate how much a tax deduction will reduce your tax bill, simply multiply your marginal, or top, tax bracket by the amount of the deduction. For example, say you’re a single filer in the 22% tax bracket. If you claim a deduction of $1,000, that will reduce your tax bill by $220.

That calculation shows how a deduction can be more valuable to taxpayers in higher tax brackets. For example, a $3,000 deductible IRA contribution will shave $1,050 off the tax bill of someone in the 35% tax bracket, while the same $3,000 deductible IRA contribution takes $360 off the tax bill of someone in the 12% tax bracket.

Tax credits

Tax credits are a dollar-for-dollar reduction in your tax bill. If you owe $3,000 in taxes and you’re eligible for $500 in tax credits, your bill drops to $2,500. For most taxpayers, tax credits offer bigger savings than deductions.

The federal government currently gives tax credits for a wide variety of taxpayer expenses, including the cost of buying solar panels for your house (this tax credit ends after 2025) and the cost of adopting a child.

Americans can also take advantage of education tax credits, and tax credits for having a child and the cost of child care and dependent care, to name a few. Many states also offer tax credits.

2021-2023 tax brackets and rates

If you’re behind on filing your taxes from previous years (or simply want to assess your finances over time), you might want to revisit the federal income tax brackets. If you have an old tax debt that you owe to the IRS, the sooner you can file and start to make payments, the less money you’ll owe overall in interest and penalties. (Read more about what a tax levy is and how to deal with it.)

• 2023 federal income tax brackets
• 2022 federal income tax brackets
• 2021 federal income tax brackets

If you don’t owe money to the IRS, getting prior year tax returns filed as soon as possible could mean a tax refund for you. Here’s just one example of how filing an old tax return could mean more money in your pocket: In December 2024 the IRS announced it would be sending out $1,400 payments to about 1 million taxpayers who were eligible for a 2021 stimulus tax credit that they never claimed.