Self-employment tax 2026
Calculate Social Security and Medicare taxes on business profit. Your numbers stay in this browser.
This estimates self-employment tax, not your complete income-tax bill. Optional income-tax set-asides use rates you supply.
Your estimate
Enter annual profit and wages to see the calculation.
SE tax + Additional Medicare on SE income
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| Calculation | You | Spouse |
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Your optional savings buffer
A savings target, not the amount legally due or a safe-harbor calculation. No withholding, credits, prior payments, other taxes, or income-tax deductions are reconciled.
How this works
For each person, ordinary positive profit is multiplied by 92.35%. Net earnings below $400 produce no regular SE tax here. Social Security is 12.4% of earnings up to the remaining $184,500 annual 2026 limit after that person's Social Security wages. Medicare is 2.9% without that cap. The deductible half applies only to regular SE tax; it is an income-tax adjustment, not a reduction of SE tax.
Additional Medicare is 0.9% above $250,000 for joint filers, $125,000 for married filing separately, and $200,000 for other statuses. Wage income uses the threshold first. The result separates the additional tax on wages from the amount on self-employment income. Spouses' losses do not offset the other's earnings for this additional tax. Calculations round each tax-form-style money line to cents.
Scope: ordinary U.S. self-employment under the regular method. Excludes railroad compensation, church/ministry special rules, optional farm/nonfarm methods, unreported tips, Form 8919 wages, foreign coverage agreements, community-property allocations, and worker-classification decisions. Income-tax brackets, QBI, deductions, credits, state-specific rules, filing, and payment scheduling are not computed.
Official sources and next steps
- SSA: 2026 wage base and Social Security / Medicare rates
- IRS: self-employment tax rules and Schedule SE instructions
- IRS: Additional Medicare tax and Form 8959 instructions
- IRS: estimated payments and Form 1040-ES
- IRS Tax Withholding Estimator for checking paycheck withholding alongside self-employment income
Sources checked October 12, 2026. SSA confirms the 2026 wage base; IRS general rules and latest published form instructions supply the regular-method calculation. Review the final 2026 forms before filing.