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Marginal Tax Rate Calculator
See the tax rate on your next dollar of income. Enter your taxable income and filing status, then press Calculate to view your marginal rate, effective rate and the tax owed in each bracket.
Written by TopicDrill Editorial Team·Updated June 2026
Tax paid in each bracket
Marginal rate 22%Advertisement
How the marginal tax rate calculator works
A progressive tax system slices your income into bands and taxes each band at its own rate. This tool walks up the brackets for your filing status, taxes only the income that lands in each band, and adds the pieces together to get your total tax. The highest band you reach sets your marginal rate, while the average across all your income is your effective rate.
The bar chart breaks the bill down band by band, so you can see how the lower brackets cost relatively little and most of the tax tends to come from the middle bands once income climbs.
A quick example
A single filer with 85,000 dollars of taxable income reaches the 22 percent bracket, so their marginal rate is 22 percent. Yet the first chunks of income were taxed at 10 and 12 percent, which pulls the effective rate down to roughly 17 percent. The next dollar earned is taxed at 22 percent, not the whole 85,000 dollars.
Things to keep in mind
This estimate uses federal brackets and taxable income only, so it leaves out state tax, payroll tax, credits and the standard deduction. For the official current brackets and rules, check the IRS at IRS.gov. To see how pre-tax retirement contributions can lower the income these brackets apply to, try our future value calculator.
Frequently asked questions
What is a marginal tax rate?
Your marginal tax rate is the rate applied to your last dollar of taxable income, in other words the rate on the next dollar you earn. In a progressive system only the income that falls inside the top bracket you reach is taxed at that rate, not your whole income.
How is the marginal rate different from the effective rate?
The marginal rate is the rate on your highest band of income, while the effective rate is your total tax divided by your total taxable income. The effective rate is always lower than the marginal rate because the first bands of income are taxed at lower rates.
Does earning more push all my income into a higher bracket?
No. Only the portion of income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate. Moving into a new bracket raises the rate on the extra income only, so a raise always leaves you with more after-tax money than before.
Which brackets does this calculator use?
It uses illustrative 2024 federal ordinary-income brackets for single, married filing jointly and head of household. It works from taxable income, meaning income after deductions, and does not include state taxes, payroll taxes or credits, so treat the result as an estimate.
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