1099 tax calculator
A single filer with $75,000 of net 1099 profit owes about $15,495 in federal tax for 2026: $10,597 of self-employment tax plus $4,898 of income tax. That is 20.7% of profit, lower than the 25% to 30% most guides quote. Add a 5% state tax and it is 25.7%. Put the same profit on top of a $60,000 W-2 job and it is 29.6%.
This calculator runs the full 2026 federal return for your 1099 income: real brackets, the standard deduction, the QBI deduction, the half-SE deduction, and the extra tax your side income creates when it sits on top of a salary. It finishes with the number most people actually want, which is how much to move out of every $1,000 you invoice.
Add a W-2 job, deductions, or payments already made
Set aside in total
$15,495
Self-employment tax
$10,597
Federal income tax
$4,898
Per $1,000 invoiced
$182
Rate on net profit
20.7%
Rate on receipts
18.2%
Next $1,000 of profit
23.1% taxed
Federal, per quarter
$3,874
Line by line
Net profit (receipts minus expenses)
$75,000
Self-employment tax
Social Security $8,589 + Medicare $2,009
$10,597
Half of SE tax (deduction)
Applies to Social Security and Medicare only
−$5,299
Adjusted gross income
$69,701
Standard deduction
−$16,100
QBI deduction
20% of qualified income, capped at 20% of taxable income
−$10,720
Taxable income
Top federal bracket reached: 12%
$42,881
Federal income tax
$4,898
Federal tax attributable to 1099 income
$15,495
Total to set aside
$15,495
Setting aside $15,495 covers self-employment tax and the extra income tax this income creates. The next $1,000 of profit costs $231 in tax, so a $1,000 deductible expense saves about that much. Federal 2026 rules only; state tax is the rate you enter times net profit. Not tax advice.
See how your 1099 effective tax rate compares — anonymous, no account needed.
Who reaches for this
Wants a per-invoice number for the tax account, not a percentage that was written for someone else’s income.
Needs to know what the side income really costs, because it is taxed on top of the salary and not from the bottom of the brackets.
Gets a gross payments figure and has to work backward to profit before any tax estimate means anything.
Is comparing a new 1099 rate against an old paycheck and needs the tax gap in dollars. The employee vs. contractor calculator handles the rate comparison.
Needs the annual total first, since the four payments are a division problem that starts here.
How this 1099 tax calculator works, in order
Most quick estimators multiply your income by a rate. This one follows the same sequence as Schedule SE and Form 1040, so each line can be checked against a real return. If you want the self-employment tax mechanics on their own, the self-employment tax calculator covers them in more depth. This page answers the wider question: what does the whole tax bill look like?
Receipts minus business expenses. Everything below runs off this number, not off what clients paid you.
15.3% on 92.35% of net profit: 12.4% Social Security up to $184,500 (less any W-2 wages already taxed) plus 2.9% Medicare, plus 0.9% Additional Medicare above $200,000 single or $250,000 joint.
Half of the Social Security and Medicare tax comes off your income. The 0.9% surtax does not qualify.
Self-employed health insurance and SEP or solo 401(k) contributions reduce adjusted gross income.
$16,100 single, $32,200 joint, $24,150 head of household for 2026.
Up to 20% of qualified business income, capped at 20% of taxable income.
Each slice of taxable income is taxed at its own rate, 10% through 37%.
A flat effective rate you enter, applied to net profit.
Federal tax caused by the 1099 income, plus state tax, expressed as a share of profit and of every $1,000 invoiced.
What changed for 2026
Five things changed between the 2025 and 2026 tax years, and several popular calculators and guides still show the old ones. The most common stale figures are the $176,100 Social Security wage base (it is $184,500 for 2026) and the $600 1099-NEC reporting threshold (it is $2,000 for payments made in 2026). The table lists what this calculator uses.
The QBI change matters most for higher earners. The deduction was scheduled to disappear after 2025; the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made it permanent, widened the income range over which it phases out, and added a $400 minimum for owners with at least $1,000 of qualified income who work in the business. The bracket rates themselves did not change. Only the income thresholds moved, by about 2% to 3%.
The 1099 reporting thresholds deserve one clarification because they cause the most confusion: they decide whether a client has to send you a form, not whether you owe tax. The tax side has its own trigger, covered in the section on forms below.
The federal stack, step by step
Every line in the calculator’s breakdown maps to one of the steps below. Read them once and the output stops looking like a black box.
Net profit, not receipts
Tax applies to what is left after ordinary and necessary business expenses. A freelancer who invoiced $85,000 and spent $10,000 on software, a co-working desk and a share of her phone bill is taxed on $75,000. The same applies to a 1099-K: that form reports gross payments, including platform fees and refunded amounts, so the fees are an expense to subtract and not a reduction the form has already made.
Self-employment tax is 14.13% of profit
The 15.3% rate applies to 92.35% of net profit, which works out to 14.13% of profit itself. The 92.35% factor exists because an employer’s half of payroll tax is not part of an employee’s wages, and the law mirrors that by shaving the same 7.65% off the taxable base. Social Security (12.4%) stops at $184,500, but that cap is shared with any W-2 wages you earned in the same year, so a second job uses up room. Medicare (2.9%) has no cap, and earnings above $200,000 single or $250,000 joint (counting wages) pick up the extra 0.9%. Below $400 of net earnings from self-employment, none of this applies.
The half-SE deduction
You deduct half of the Social Security and Medicare portion from income, above the line, on Schedule 1. On $10,597 of SE tax that is $5,299. The Additional Medicare surtax is not part of the deductible half, which is why the calculator tracks it separately.
Adjustments and the standard deduction
Two deductions reduce income tax without touching self-employment tax: self-employed health insurance premiums (only if you are not eligible for an employer-subsidized plan through you or your spouse) and contributions to a SEP-IRA or solo 401(k). The standard deduction then removes $16,100 (single), $32,200 (joint) or $24,150 (head of household). Business expenses and the standard deduction stack. You do not have to choose between them.
The QBI deduction is often smaller than 20% of profit
Most articles say the QBI deduction is 20% of your business income. The full rule is that it equals 20% of qualified business income, but never more than 20% of taxable income. For the $75,000 example, qualified income is $69,701 (profit minus the half-SE deduction), and 20% of that is $13,940. Taxable income before QBI is only $53,601, because the standard deduction has already taken $16,100. Twenty percent of that is $10,720, and the lower figure wins. The deduction is $10,720, not $13,940, a $3,220 difference in deduction and about $386 of tax at the 12% bracket.
Above $201,750 of taxable income (single) or $403,500 (joint), extra limits based on employee wages and business property apply, and service businesses such as consulting, law and health care phase out entirely. This calculator assumes a solo operator with no employees and no qualified property, which means the deduction shrinks in a straight line to zero over $75,000 (single) or $150,000 (joint) above the threshold. The $400 minimum still applies. If you have employees or own significant depreciable property, use the result as a lower bound.
Brackets tax slices, not the whole amount
For a single filer in 2026 the first $12,400 of taxable income is taxed at 10%, the next slice up to $50,400 at 12%, up to $105,700 at 22%, up to $201,775 at 24%, and higher slices at 32%, 35% and 37%. Joint filers have roughly double the slice widths. Crossing into a higher bracket only raises the rate on the dollars above the line. It never reprices the income below it.
State tax
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming do not tax wage or self-employment income, so an entry of 0% is right there. Everywhere else, state rules for standard deductions, brackets and self-employment income differ enough that a single formula would mislead. Enter your state’s effective rate on business income, which is the rate you would compute from last year’s state return, and the calculator applies it to net profit. City and school-district taxes go in the same field.
A full worked example
A single freelancer, no other income, invoices $85,000 in 2026 and has $10,000 of deductible expenses. She takes the standard deduction and has no health insurance or retirement contributions to claim. Every figure below matches the calculator’s default inputs.
The bill is 20.7% of profit and 18.2% of receipts. Moving that into a tax account means setting aside $182.29 of every $1,000 she invoices. Split across four payments, the federal amount is about $3,874 a quarter.
Now vary the inputs. With a 5% state tax the total is $19,245, or 25.7% of profit and 22.6% of receipts. With $25,000 of expenses instead of $10,000, profit drops to $60,000 and the federal total to $12,037, which is $141.61 per $1,000 invoiced. With no expenses at all, profit is $85,000 and the total is $17,800, or $209.41 per $1,000. The per-invoice figure swings by 48% across those three cases even though receipts never changed, which is why tax-rate advice that starts from gross income is unreliable.
The bracket line explains the next number. Her last dollar of taxable income sits in the 12% bracket, but the next $1,000 of profit costs 23.1% in total tax: 14.13% self-employment tax, plus 12% income tax on what remains after the half-SE deduction and QBI. That is also what a $1,000 deductible expense saves her. It costs $1,000 and returns about $231.
How much to set aside from 1099 income
Guides give set-aside rules of 15% to 20% of gross, 20% to 30%, 25% to 30% and 25% to 35%. They disagree because they measure different things: some apply the rate to gross receipts, some to net profit, some assume a state tax and some do not. The table fixes one set of assumptions, single filer, standard deduction, no other income, 2026 law, and shows the rate at each level of profit.
Read across and the folk rule sorts itself out. In a no-income-tax state, 25% to 30% of profit is generous until profit passes about $150,000. With a 5% state tax, 25% is the right answer from roughly $50,000 to $75,000 of profit and 30% works at $150,000. The $300,000 row includes the QBI phase-out, which pushes the rate up faster than the brackets alone would.
Three rules of thumb follow from the data. Below $60,000 of profit with no state tax, plan for 17% to 20%. Between $60,000 and $150,000, plan for 20% to 25%. Add your state rate on top of any of them. If you have a W-2 job, skip these rules and read the next section, because they do not apply to you.
Turning the rate into a per-invoice amount
A percentage of profit is not what you can act on. What you can act on is a fraction of each payment. The conversion is one line:
Set-aside per $1,000 invoiced = $1,000 × (1 − expense share of receipts) × rate on profit. In the worked example that is $1,000 × (1 − 0.1176) × 20.66% = $182.29. If you invoice through a platform that pays out after its own fees, apply the formula to the gross amount and count the platform’s cut as an expense. Round the result up to a number you will remember, move it the day the money arrives, and keep it in an account that is not your checking. If you are still setting rates, the freelancer profitability calculator turns a target income into billable hours before taxes enter.
1099 income on top of a W-2 job
Side income does not start at the bottom of the tax brackets. It sits on top of your salary, so its first dollar is taxed at your top bracket, and its self-employment tax is added on top of that. The result is a much higher rate than the same income would carry alone.
Self-employment tax is the same in every row because it only sees the 1099 income. Income tax is what changes, from $571 to $3,439 on identical side income. The salary fills the 10% and 12% brackets first and pushes the side income into the 22% bracket. Married couples feel it less when the extra income fits inside the wide 12% bracket: a joint filer with $90,000 of W-2 wages and $40,000 of 1099 profit owes about $9,221, or 23.1%, against 15.1% ($6,050) for the same profit with no W-2 income.
The Social Security cap works in your favor
Social Security tax stops at $184,500 of combined wages and self-employment earnings. A single filer with $150,000 of W-2 wages and $60,000 of 1099 profit pays $5,934 of self-employment tax instead of the $8,478 the same profit would cost on its own, because only $34,500 of room is left under the cap. At $190,000 of wages the SE tax falls to $2,016. It is Medicare plus the 0.9% surtax alone. The income tax bill is what climbs, so the total rate lands between 26% and 28%.
Pay through your paycheck instead of quarterly
If you have a W-2 job, you can cover 1099 tax by raising withholding rather than sending quarterly payments. Step 4(c) of Form W-4 accepts an extra dollar amount per pay period. Withholding has a timing advantage: by default the IRS treats it as if it were paid evenly across the four due dates, no matter when it was actually taken out. A large extra withholding in November therefore fixes an underpayment from April.
The calculator’s optional fields do the arithmetic. Say your employer withheld $5,200 for the year on a $60,000 salary, and you earned $25,000 of side profit. The whole return owes $11,992 in federal tax ($8,459 income tax plus $3,532 self-employment tax). Your W-2 job alone owed $5,020, so the withholding covers that and $180 more. The remaining balance is $6,792. Divide it by the number of paychecks left and ask payroll to withhold that extra amount each period. The 1099 vs. W-2 guide covers the comparison from the other direction, when you are choosing between the two arrangements.
Deductions that move the number
Not every deduction is worth the same, and most guides do not say which tax a deduction reduces. That distinction is worth real money because self-employment tax is charged at 14.13% of profit while income tax on the same profit is 12% for a mid-range single filer, before QBI trims it further.
For mileage in particular, including the mid-year rate change in 2026, use the mileage deduction calculator. The savings are for a single filer at $75,000 of profit. A $1,000 business expense reduces profit, so it cuts roughly $141 of self-employment tax and $90 of income tax, about $231 in all. A $1,000 retirement contribution or health insurance premium leaves profit alone, so it saves only income tax: $96, which is 12% of $800, because the QBI deduction shrinks by $200 when taxable income falls by $1,000.
Two mistakes follow from these numbers. The first is spending money to get a deduction. A $1,000 purchase you would not otherwise make saves $231 and costs $769. The second is overlooking small recurring expenses. A business phone share, a software subscription and bank fees add up to several thousand dollars a year, and each dollar is worth 23 cents at this income level. Start tracking them monthly rather than reconstructing them in March.
Retirement contributions still matter for a different reason: the tax you avoid now returns as tax on withdrawal later, and self-employment tax is never reduced. If the choice is between a $10,000 SEP contribution and $10,000 of equipment you need anyway, the equipment lowers this year’s tax by about $2,305 and the SEP by $960.
Due dates and safe harbor
Estimated payments are due in four installments. If a due date falls on a weekend or holiday, it moves to the next business day. For the 2026 tax year all four land on weekdays.
You need to pay in if you expect to owe $1,000 or more after withholding and credits. The penalty is avoided, whatever the final bill turns out to be, if you pay in at least the smaller of 90% of this year’s tax or 100% of last year’s tax. The prior-year figure rises to 110% if last year’s adjusted gross income was above $150,000.
The choice between the two matters when income jumps. Say a single freelancer earned enough last year to owe $9,500 in total tax and expects $100,000 of profit this year, which the calculator puts at $22,365. Paying 90% of this year’s tax means $5,032 a quarter. Paying 100% of last year’s tax means $2,375 a quarter, with the remaining $12,865 due in April. Both avoid the penalty. The first keeps the April bill small. The second keeps cash in your business through the year. The safe harbor is about the penalty, not the tax. You still owe every dollar.
If income arrives unevenly, such as a large project in December, Schedule AI of Form 2210 lets you match payments to when the income was earned and avoid a penalty on early quarters. Pay through IRS Direct Pay or EFTPS, or mail a Form 1040-ES voucher. To split the annual figure into payments, model a missed installment, or use the annualized method, use the quarterly estimated tax calculator. The IRS explains the rules in its estimated taxes guide, and the self-employment tax calculator includes a safe-harbor quarterly payment line.
1099-NEC, 1099-K, and no form at all
A 1099-NEC reports payments for services from a business client. For payments made after December 31, 2025, the client must send one only when payments to you total $2,000 or more, up from $600. The threshold is scheduled to be adjusted for inflation starting in 2027. A 1099-MISC follows the same $2,000 line for rents and most other miscellaneous payments, while royalties keep their much lower threshold. A 1099-K comes from a payment processor or marketplace and applies only above $20,000 in payments and 200 transactions.
None of that touches your tax. Income is taxable from the first dollar whether or not a form exists, and self-employment tax starts at $400 of net earnings from self-employment, which is net profit of about $433. A client who paid you $1,500 in 2026 does not have to send a form, and you still report the $1,500 on Schedule C. State rules can differ from federal ones, so a lower state reporting threshold does not mean a lower state tax.
Forms also disagree with your books more often than people expect. A 1099-K reports gross payments before platform fees and refunds. A 1099-NEC may include reimbursements the client paid for your expenses. Reconcile each form against your own records before filing, and enter your totals here, not the form’s.
Common mistakes
A 25% rule on $85,000 of receipts sets aside $21,250. The actual bill at 20.7% of $75,000 profit is $15,495. The rule only works when both sides use the same base.
A rate that fit at $40,000 of profit under-saves at $120,000, because more of your income lands in the 22% bracket and self-employment tax scales with every dollar. Recalculate each time income changes by a third.
Side profit on top of a salary carried 27.9% to 30.5% in the examples above, against 16.4% alone. Using the standalone rate is the most common reason side hustlers owe money in April.
It is capped at 20% of taxable income. On $75,000 of profit that cap cuts the deduction from $13,940 to $10,720.
The $184,500 limit applies to combined wages and self-employment earnings for the year. A high W-2 salary can leave almost no room for Social Security tax on side income.
The form reports gross payments, including sales tax, shipping and platform fees. Profit comes from your records.
The four-payment rule means a large April balance can carry an underpayment penalty even when the tax itself was paid in full on time.
A $1,000 business expense saves about $231 at $75,000 of profit. You are still $769 poorer, and the money was yours before you spent it.
What this calculator can't tell you
It estimates federal tax and a flat state amount. It does not include credits such as the child tax credit, the earned income credit or education credits, so a family that qualifies for them will owe less. It does not model itemized deductions, the alternative minimum tax, capital gains or the net investment income tax.
The QBI estimate assumes a sole proprietor with no employees and no qualified property, so results above the threshold are a lower bound if you have either. Multiple businesses, depreciation timing, and special rules for service businesses can all change the final figure. If your profit is high enough that payroll tax is a large share of the bill, the entity choice tax calculator compares a sole proprietorship against an S corporation.
It is planning software, not tax advice. A CPA or enrolled agent can confirm the numbers against your actual return, and a return prepared from real records will replace anything this page estimates.
Sources
The 2026 brackets, standard deductions and QBI thresholds come from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 (announced in IR-2025-103). The $184,500 Social Security wage base is the Social Security Administration’s contribution and benefit base. The QBI extension, its wider phase-in range and the $400 minimum come from section 70105 of Public Law 119-21, and the 1099 reporting thresholds from sections 70432 and 70433 of the same law. The self-employment tax rules are on Schedule SE and the estimated payment rules are in Form 1040-ES. Every table in this guide was computed with the same engine that runs the calculator above and checked line by line against the worked example.
Frequently asked questions
There is no single rate. 1099 income pays two federal taxes: self-employment tax, which is 15.3% of 92.35% of your net profit (about 14.13% of profit, up to the $184,500 Social Security cap), and ordinary income tax at 10% to 37% on what is left after the standard deduction and the QBI deduction. For a single filer with no other income, the combined federal rate runs from about 15% of profit at $20,000 to about 27% at $200,000, before any state tax.
If $50,000 is your net profit and you file as single with no other income, the 2026 federal bill is about $9,732: $7,065 of self-employment tax and $2,667 of income tax, or 19.5% of profit. If $50,000 is your receipts before expenses, subtract the expenses first. With $10,000 of expenses, net profit is $40,000 and the bill drops to about $7,427.
Use your combined rate on profit, add your state rate, then scale it by how much of each invoice is profit. A single filer at $75,000 of profit and 12% of receipts spent on expenses should move about 18% of each invoice, or $182 per $1,000, into a tax account. With a 5% state tax, that becomes about $226 per $1,000. If you also have a W-2 job, expect 28% to 31% of the profit.
Yes. Forms are a reporting rule for the payer, not a tax threshold for you. All self-employment income is taxable from the first dollar, and self-employment tax applies once your net earnings from self-employment reach $400, which means net profit of about $433. The 1099-NEC reporting threshold rose to $2,000 for payments made in 2026, so small clients may not send a form, but the income still goes on your return.
Only if you have tax paid in. 1099 income has no withholding, so a refund needs W-2 withholding, estimated payments, or credits that exceed your total tax. Enter your W-2 wages and federal withholding in the calculator’s optional section and the federal balance updates: a positive number is what you still owe, and if withholding and payments already cover the total, nothing more is due.
The income tax brackets are identical. The difference is payroll tax. An employee pays 7.65% and the employer pays another 7.65%. A contractor pays the whole 15.3% on 92.35% of profit, then deducts half of it. Contractors also deduct business expenses that employees cannot, so a contractor with real expenses can end up with a similar total rate, and one with almost none pays noticeably more.
Generally yes, if you expect to owe $1,000 or more for the year after subtracting withholding and credits. The payments are due April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15. You avoid the underpayment penalty by paying at least 90% of this year’s tax or 100% of last year’s tax (110% if last year’s adjusted gross income was above $150,000), whichever is smaller.
It raises the rate on the 1099 income, because the side income is taxed on top of your salary. On $25,000 of profit, a single filer pays about 16.4% with no other income, 27.9% on top of a $60,000 salary, and 30.5% on top of a $100,000 salary. The W-2 wages also use up Social Security tax room, which lowers self-employment tax once combined wages and profit pass $184,500.
Business expenses, home office costs and business mileage lower both self-employment tax and income tax, so at $75,000 of profit each $1,000 saves about $231. Self-employed health insurance and SEP or solo 401(k) contributions lower income tax only, saving about $96 per $1,000. Half of your self-employment tax and the QBI deduction are applied automatically by the calculator.
It is $2,000 for payments made after December 31, 2025, so forms sent in early 2027 for 2026 work use $2,000. Forms sent in early 2026 for 2025 work still used $600. Some states keep lower thresholds. The Form 1099-K threshold is separate: $20,000 in payments and more than 200 transactions. None of these numbers changes what you owe.
The qualified business income deduction lets most sole proprietors deduct up to 20% of their net business profit, after removing the half-SE deduction, health insurance and retirement deductions. It cannot exceed 20% of your taxable income. It became permanent in 2026, with a $400 minimum and a wider phase-out range for high earners. Above $201,750 (single) or $403,500 (joint) of taxable income, limits apply.
That can be misclassification. If the client controls when, where and how you work, you can ask the IRS for a determination on Form SS-8, and Form 8919 lets you pay only the employee share of Social Security and Medicare on wages a client should have reported on a W-2. Either route has consequences for your client relationship, so weigh it before filing. Until it is resolved, the 1099 calculation here is the conservative one.
Run your own numbers above, free, or compare a contractor rate against an employee salary with the employee vs. contractor calculator.
Glossary:Estimated Tax,QBI Deduction,1099-NEC,1099 vs. W2
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