2026 self-employment tax calculator

How the tax is worked out

Self-employment tax starts from profit, so a dollar spent on the business never reaches it. Schedule SE takes your profit, keeps 92.35 percent, and calls the result net earnings. Under $400 of net earnings you stop there and owe none of this tax. Above that line, 12.4 percent goes to Social Security and 2.9 percent to Medicare, which is the 15.3 percent rate you see quoted. In the example above, $75,000.00 of profit becomes $69,262.50 of net earnings and $10,597.16 of tax.

Why it runs about double a paycheck's share

On a W-2 job you pay 6.2 percent for Social Security and 1.45 percent for Medicare, 7.65 percent together. Your employer pays the same amounts again, and they never show on your stub. Work for yourself and both halves are yours. The table under the calculator runs your profit both ways, so $10,597.16 compares with $5,737.50 on the example. It compares the same dollars. It cannot weigh one job offer against another, because income tax, benefits, and business costs change that answer.

If you also have a job

The $184,500 Social Security limit covers wages and self-employment earnings together, and your wages use it up first. With $150,000 of wages, $34,500 of room remains, so only that much of your side earnings pays the Social Security part. Wages at or above the limit leave no room, and you pay only the Medicare part, which has no limit. Enter your W-2 wages and the calculator does this for you.

The extra 0.9 percent Medicare tax

Additional Medicare Tax is a separate tax on Form 8959, so it has its own line above and stays out of the big figure. It applies to net earnings above $200,000 for single filers, heads of household, and surviving spouses, $250,000 on a joint return, and $125,000 on a separate return. Those amounts are not indexed for inflation. Wages lower the line first. A single filer with $150,000 of wages has $50,000 left below it. On $100,000 of net earnings, the top $50,000 is taxed, which comes to $450.00.

What the half deduction does

You can deduct 50 percent of your self-employment tax on Schedule 1, which is $5,298.58 in the example. That lowers the income your income tax is figured on. It does not lower the self-employment tax, and the Additional Medicare Tax does not count toward it. What it saves depends on your rate, which you can find on the 2026 tax brackets page.

When this tax gets paid

No employer holds this tax back, so it goes on your return and into estimated tax payments. Form 1040-ES lists four due dates for 2026: April 15, 2026, June 15, 2026, September 15, 2026, and January 15, 2027. Those payments cover income tax too, so the figure above is not your quarterly payment.

What this calculator leaves out

It does not work out income tax, state or local tax, the qualified business income deduction, estimated payment amounts, or penalties for paying late or too little. It also skips the farm and nonfarm optional methods, church employee income, ministers, and railroad pay. If your job is outside Social Security, so box 3 of your W-2 is lower than box 5, this page counts too little Social Security room and shows too little tax, so use Schedule SE itself. Two self-employed spouses each file their own Schedule SE, so run it once for each of you, then check the Additional Medicare line on Form 8959, where a joint return counts both spouses' earnings together.

This page covers tax year 2026. For take-home pay from a job, use the paycheck calculator. If you hire help, the employer payroll tax calculator shows the other side of the same taxes.