Check the latest federal tax brackets for 2024’s tax year to find the income tax brackets that apply to your tax filing status and calculate your tax obligation for the 2025 tax filing season.
What are the different 2024 tax brackets and how do they differ between federal income tax brackets and state income tax? If you're a taxpayer in the US, then you fall under one of these tax brackets to pay your federal income taxes every year. Depending on your state, you may also pay state income tax as well.
Find the up to date income tax brackets in this article and learn all about how they work and how to calculate your own taxes with these percentages.
What are Tax Brackets?
Tax brackets are the income ranges that are taxed at a specific rate in a progressive tax system. They are the different tax percentages that the IRS uses to organize how much different income categories pay in federal income taxes each year.
Each tax bracket has a set rate, with income cut-offs for the minimum and maximum amounts that fall within that bracket. Then, each taxpayer's income is divided across multiple tax brackets, so the income within each bracket’s range is taxed at that rate.
For example, if a taxpayer’s income places them in the 10%, 12%, and 22% brackets, they’ll pay 10% on the first portion of income, 12% on the next, and 22% on however much of their income exceeds the previous brackets maximum amount.
What is Marginal Tax Rate?
Your marginal tax rate is the tax rate from the highest tax bracket that applies to you. This reflects the highest rate that gets applied to the highest portion of your income. You can find your marginal tax rate by using our table below, finding your filing status, and looking down that column for the income range that your total taxable income falls under.
What is Effective Tax Rate?
Your effective tax rate is the overall tax percentage you pay across all your ranges of income. You can find your effective tax rate by taking your total taxes paid divided by your total taxable income.
State vs Federal Income Tax Brackets
Depending on which state you live in, you may have to pay both federal and state income tax. The difference between these 2 is that everyone in the US pays federal income tax, but only the people living in each state pay that state’s income tax.
Federal tax brackets are established by the federal government by the IRS and apply to all residents of the US. These brackets use a progressive income tax so the rate increases as your income increases.
State tax brackets are established by the individual states and apply only to the residents of that specific state. State income taxes vary across states and may be a progressive tax bracket, a single flat rate, or have no state income tax at all.
How Tax Brackets Work
There are 7 tax brackets that US taxpayers fall under, and each tax bracket doesn't have a name but rather a tax percentage to distinguish which bracket is which. There is a 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37% tax bracket.
Each of these tax bracket percentages come with an income range that can change depending on the tax year. But generally, the lowest income range is associated with the lowest 10% tax bracket while the highest income range is associated with the highest 37% tax bracket.
Your total taxable income is then taxed in portioned amounts according to whichever tax brackets your income falls under. Depending on your income, this could include more than one tax bracket.
2024 Federal Income Tax Brackets
There are 7 tax brackets that the IRS uses. Each one comes with its own tax rate percentage and income range for each tax filing status.
While the tax percentages remain the same, the taxable income ranges may change depending on the tax year. To see which tax percentages apply to you, find your tax filing status and then find where your total taxable income falls.
For the 2024 tax year, the single filer and married filing separately tax brackets are $0 to $11,925 at 10%, $11,925 to $48,475 at 12%, $48,475 to $103,350 at 22%, $103,350 to $197,300 at 24%, $197,300 to $250,525 at 32%, $250,525 to $626,350 at 35%, and $626,350 or more at 37%.
The married filing jointly and qualifying widow(er) tax brackets are $0 to $23,850 at 10%, $23,850 to $96,950 at 12%, $96,950 to $206,700 at 22%, $206,700 to $394,600 at 24%, $394,600 to $501,050 at 32%, $501,050 to $751,600 at 35%, and $751,600 or more at 37%.
The head of household tax brackets are $0 to $17,000 at 10%, $17,000 to $64,850 at 12%, $64,850 to $103,350 at 22%, $103,350 to $197,300 at 24%, $197,300 to $250,500 at 32%, $250,500 to $626,350 at 35%, $626,350 or more at 37%.
How to Find My Tax Brackets
Which tax brackets apply to you depends on several factors like your total income, your taxable income, what standard deductions apply to you, and what tax filing status you use to file your taxes.
- Calculate Total Income: First, calculate your total yearly income before any taxes or deductions are accounted for to get your gross income, For example, for the average American their gross income might be about $66,000.
- Find Your Tax Filing Status: Then, you’ll want to know your tax filing status. Your tax filing status might be single filer, married filing separately, married filing jointly, qualifying widow(er), or head of household depending on your marital and financial status.
- Calculate Taxable Income: Next, you’ll want to calculate your total taxable income after taxes and deductions are accounted for to get your net income. For example, $66,000 minus the standard deduction for single filers in 2025 is $51,000.
- Find Which Tax Brackets Apply: Finally, take your total taxable income amount and your tax filing status and use those two things to determine which tax brackets apply to you. Check out our 2025 tax bracket table below for an easy guide to see which tax brackets apply to you.
How to Find My Tax Brackets Example
Let’s outline a simple example of how tax brackets apply to the taxes on your income. To find your tax bracket we’ll calculate your total income, find your tax filing status, calculate your taxable income, and find which tax brackets apply to you.
1. Calculate Total Income
Workers in the US make an average of about $66,000 a year ($66,621.80 a year to be exact, based on the 2023 national average wage index).
So for this example, let’s say you have a total income of $66,000 a year.
2. Find Your Tax Filing Status
Now let’s determine your tax filing status. This will help us calculate your total tax liability and which income ranges and tax percentages apply to you specifically. Consider your marital and financial status to determine if you are a single filer, married filing separately, married filing jointly, qualifying widow(er), or head of household filer.
For this example, let’s say you are a single filer.
3. Calculate Taxable Income
To calculate taxable income you want to take your total income minus any tax deductions that may apply to you. In 2025, the standard deduction for a single filer is $15,000, so that means that a single filer who with a total income of 66k a year would have a taxable income of $51,000.
- total income = $66,000
- standard deduction = $15,000
- $66,000 - $15,000 = $51,000 total taxable income
4. Find Which Tax Brackets Apply
The tax brackets that would apply to someone with a total taxable income of $51,000 a year and is a single tax filer would be the 10%, 12%, and 22% tax brackets.
This means that the first $11,925 of the $51,000 taxable income would be taxed at 10%, their income from $11,925 to $48,475 ($36,550 total) would be taxed at 12%, and their income from $48,475 to $51,000 ($2,525 total) would be taxed at 22%.
These calculations broken down would look like this:
- $11,925 x 0.10 (10%) = $1,193 taxes paid
- $36,550 x 0.12 (12%) = $4,386 taxes paid
- $2,525 x 0.22 (22%) = $556 taxes paid
- $11,925 + $36,550 + $2,525 = $6,134 total taxes paid
In this example, your marginal tax rate (the highest tax bracket that applies to you) would be 22% and your effective tax rate (the overall tax percentage) would be 12.03%.
How to Calculate Your Effective Tax Rate
To calculate your effective tax rate you want to find the total amount of taxes you’ll pay and divide that number by your total taxable income.
Total Taxes Paid / Total Taxable Income = Effective Tax Rate
Continuing with our example, if you have a total taxable income of $51,000 and paid a total of $6,134 in taxes across the tax brackets that apply to you, then $6,134 divided by $51,000 would equal a 12.03% effective tax rate.
$6,134 / $51,000 = 12.03% effective tax rate
This example is an estimate and individual taxes will differ depending on the person. For example, some tax filers may choose to use the standard deduction while others may choose to itemize their deductions. Hopefully this example provides a simple outline for how to calculate your estimated effective tax rate according to your own personal tax situation.
The Bottom Line,
Tax brackets are one of the most important aspects of paying taxes each year. They can help you estimate how much you will owe each year and potentially how much you can expect back in a tax return. By learning what tax bracket you fall under, you can know where you stand with the IRS and have a clearer understanding of your tax obligations.
