Self-Employment Tax Calculator 2026

Enter your expected profit for 2026 to see your self-employment tax: Social Security, Medicare and, at higher incomes, the extra 0.9% Medicare tax. The figures come from the 2026 IRS forms.

How would you like to enter your income?

Income minus business expenses for the year. If you filed a Schedule C last year, line 31 is a good starting point.

A W-2 job changes how self-employment tax is figured, so this tool will not show a number.

Your estimate appears here as soon as you enter your income.

This is an estimate for planning, not tax advice. It follows the 2026 IRS forms listed on this page and can differ from your return. Talk to a tax professional about your situation. The numbers you type stay in your browser. Nothing is sent or stored.

How it's calculated

  1. Multiply your profit by 92.35% to get your net earnings from self-employment (Schedule SE, line 4a).
  2. If your net earnings are under $400, no self-employment tax is owed (Schedule SE, line 4c).
  3. Social Security: 12.4% of your net earnings, up to $184,500 for 2026.
  4. Medicare: 2.9% of all of your net earnings.
  5. Extra Medicare tax: 0.9% of net earnings above $200,000 for single filers and heads of household, $250,000 for married filing jointly, or $125,000 for married filing separately (Form 8959).
  6. You can deduct half of the self-employment tax when you figure your income tax. The extra Medicare tax is not part of that deduction.

Sources, all from the IRS:

Figures last reviewed on .

A worked example

Someone filing as single with $80,000 of profit for the year:

Worked example of the self-employment tax calculation
Profit$80,000
Net earnings (92.35% of profit)$73,880
Social Security (12.4%)On net earnings up to $184,500.$9,161
Medicare (2.9%)$2,143
Self-employment tax$11,304
Deductible half of self-employment taxLowers your income tax. It does not include the extra Medicare tax.$5,652

Keep this up to date as you earn

Moninsight sorts every transaction into a tax category as it arrives, marks likely deductions, and shows an estimate of your tax on what you've earned so far.

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What this estimate leaves out

  • W-2 wages. They share the $184,500 Social Security limit and the extra Medicare tax threshold with self-employment income, so a visitor with a W-2 job sees an explanation instead of a number.
  • Income tax and estimated tax payments. This tool estimates self-employment tax only.
  • The optional methods for figuring net earnings, and church employee income. Both have their own rules.
  • More than one business. Several income sources are added together and treated as one business.
  • Rounding. Amounts are worked out exactly and shown in whole dollars, so they can differ from your return by a dollar or two.

Self-employment tax questions

Short answers to what people ask most

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