The full 2026 federal income tax brackets for married couples filing jointly, alongside the single-filer brackets they are compared against — because the relationship between the two columns is the whole reason this site exists.
| Rate | Single, up to | Married jointly, up to | Doubled? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | $12,400 | $24,800 | Exactly 2× |
| 12% | $50,400 | $100,800 | Exactly 2× |
| 22% | $105,700 | $211,400 | Exactly 2× |
| 24% | $201,775 | $403,550 | Exactly 2× |
| 32% | $256,225 | $512,450 | Exactly 2× |
| 35% | $640,600 | $768,700 | No |
| 37% | and above | and above | Exactly 2× |
These are brackets on taxable income — what is left after your deduction, not your salary. The 2026 standard deduction is $16,100 for a single filer, $24,150 for head of household, and $32,200 filing jointly.
Read the fourth column
Six of the seven joint thresholds are exactly twice the single one. That is not a coincidence or an approximation — it is the deliberate design of the post-2017 tables, and it is why most couples find that marrying changes their federal income tax by nothing at all.
The exception is the top rate. 37% begins at $768,700 of joint taxable income. Two single filers would not each reach it until $640,600 apiece — $1,281,200 between them. That gap is the only marriage penalty the bracket table alone can produce.
It is worth $1,982 a year to a couple earning $450,000 each, and it grows with income until both partners are fully inside the top rate, after which it settles at a constant.
Marginal, not average
A bracket is the rate on the next dollar, not on all of them. A couple with $32,200 plus $100,800 of taxable income are "in the 12% bracket", but they pay 10% on the first slice and 12% only on what is above it. Nobody pays their headline rate on their whole income.
This trips people up when they get a raise into a higher bracket and expect to take home less. You cannot: only the dollars above the threshold are taxed at the new rate.
Head of household
If you are unmarried with children, head of household is usually the status you file under, and its brackets sit between the other two. It matters here because it is the correct comparison for an unmarried couple with children — not two single returns, which is what most marriage-penalty calculators quietly assume.
Two of its bands are also worth a second look if you are copying figures from elsewhere: head of household's 24% band ends at $201,750 and its 32% band at $256,200, twenty-five dollars below the single filer's $201,775 and $256,225. A small difference, and an easy one to get wrong by assuming the tables match.
What is not in this table
Plenty, and most of it matters more than the brackets do. Credits sit outside the rate tables entirely: the Earned Income Tax Credit's phase-out threshold is not doubled for couples, which is where the largest real marriage penalties come from. The Child Tax Credit is worth $2,200 a child. Neither appears above, and both are modelled by the calculator.
These figures are for tax year 2026 — the return filed in early 2027. They come from IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 and are replaced when the IRS publishes the next year's inflation adjustments, typically late in the preceding year.
Every figure on this page is computed by the same engine as the calculator, against tax year 2026 figures from IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32. Change the inputs there to see your own numbers.