2027 Tax Brackets (Projected): Rates, Standard Deduction and What Changes
Updated October 2026 · 6 min · Projected figures (Wolters Kluwer / CCH, cross-checked against Bloomberg Tax, Sept 2026). The IRS publishes the official 2027 amounts in October–November 2026.
Every fall, the IRS resets the dollar lines in the tax code for inflation, and every fall the projections land weeks before the official numbers do. For the 2027 tax year the forecasters agree closely: the brackets and the standard deduction are set to rise about 3.2% over 2026 — the biggest step up in three years, because inflation ticked back up through 2026. The rates themselves don't move (they stay 10% to 37%); the income lines between them do.
Two things to hold onto before the table below. First, these are projections, not law yet — the IRS publishes the official 2027 figures by Revenue Procedure in late October or early November 2026 (the 2026 numbers came out October 9, 2025). Second, the numbers apply to taxable income — your gross pay minus the standard deduction — so a bracket is never a tax on your whole salary. Here is what 2027 is on track to look like, and exactly how solid the projection is.
The projected 2027 federal brackets
The seven-rate staircase is unchanged — 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37% — but each step is projected to start a little higher. For a single filer, the 22% rate isn't projected to reach you until taxable income tops $52,025, up from $50,400 in 2026; the top 37% rate starts at $661,375, up from $640,600. Married couples filing jointly see the same shift at double the width. Because the lines move up while the rates hold, an identical salary is taxed slightly less in 2027 than in 2026.
The table reads in taxable income, not gross salary — the number left after the standard deduction and any pre-tax 401(k) or HSA contributions come out. That's the single most common misread of a bracket table: the $52,025 line for a single filer corresponds to roughly $68,600 of gross salary once the projected $16,600 deduction is added back.
| Rate | Single | Married filing jointly | Head of household |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | $0 – $12,800 | $0 – $25,600 | $0 – $18,250 |
| 12% | $12,800 – $52,025 | $25,600 – $104,050 | $18,250 – $69,650 |
| 22% | $52,025 – $109,125 | $104,050 – $218,250 | $69,650 – $109,100 |
| 24% | $109,125 – $208,325 | $218,250 – $416,650 | $109,100 – $208,300 |
| 32% | $208,325 – $264,550 | $416,650 – $529,100 | $208,300 – $264,550 |
| 35% | $264,550 – $661,375 | $529,100 – $793,650 | $264,550 – $661,350 |
| 37% | $661,375 + | $793,650 + | $661,350 + |
| Deduction | $16,600 | $33,200 | $24,950 |
Ranges are TAXABLE income (gross minus the standard deduction), not gross salary. Projected figures (Wolters Kluwer / CCH, cross-checked against Bloomberg Tax, Sept 2026). The IRS publishes the official 2027 amounts in October–November 2026.
Why the numbers rise when your salary doesn't
This annual reset exists to stop "bracket creep" — the quiet tax increase that would happen if inflation pushed your pay up while the brackets stood still, moving you into higher rates on money that isn't worth any more. Since 2018 the adjustment has used chained CPI (C-CPI-U), a slightly slower-growing inflation measure than the old CPI, which is why bracket widths grow a touch less than headline inflation. The 2027 projection runs on the inflation data through August 2026, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on September 11, 2026.
The most felt piece is the standard deduction — the slice of income taxed at 0% before any bracket applies. It's projected to rise from $16,100 to $16,600 for single filers, from $32,200 to $33,200 for married couples, and from $24,150 to $24,950 for heads of household. That $500–$1,000 of extra shelter, plus the wider bands above it, is the mechanical reason a flat paycheck owes a bit less federal tax in 2027.
Projected vs. official: how solid are these?
In a normal year, independent projections built from the chained-CPI formula match the IRS's official figures almost to the dollar, because both sides run the same published data through the same statutory rounding. The table on this page is Wolters Kluwer / CCH's full projection. Bloomberg Tax, working independently, publishes the single and married-filing-jointly brackets and the standard deductions: its brackets match Wolters Kluwer's to the dollar, and so do the single and joint deductions. For head of household, Bloomberg's arithmetic lands at $24,925 and it notes the IRS may round that to $24,950 — the figure shown here. Two independent projections agreeing that closely is a strong sign the numbers are sound.
There is one real asterisk for 2027. The 2025 government shutdown meant the October 2025 CPI reading was never published, so the projectors used an 11-month average instead of the usual 12. Nobody yet knows how the IRS will handle the missing month, so a figure or two could land a rounding step away from these projections. That's why we label this page projected and will replace it with the official Revenue Procedure numbers within hours of their release — the same day the IRS posts them.
What it means for planning your 2027 paycheck
The planning logic doesn't change with the year: your bracket (marginal rate) tells you what one more dollar — an overtime hour, a bonus, a 401(k) dollar — is taxed at, while your effective rate is the smaller share of your whole income that actually goes to the IRS. A wider 2027 staircase simply means a few more of your dollars sit on lower steps than they did in 2026. If you set your W-4 to a target, the slightly higher deduction and bands mean a hair less needs withholding to hit the same refund.
One practical note: our calculator computes your take-home on the current 2026 tax year, the figures the IRS has actually finalized. Use it now for your real paycheck, and treat this page as the preview of where the lines are headed. When the IRS publishes the 2027 Revenue Procedure, this table switches to the official numbers. The calculator moves to the 2027 tax year for paychecks dated January 1, 2027 or later — every paycheck before then is still withheld under the 2026 rules.
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The 2027 figures in this guide are inflation projections (sources above), not official IRS numbers yet; we replace them with the official figures as soon as the IRS publishes the 2027 Revenue Procedure. Our calculator stays on the 2026 tax year, which governs every paycheck dated in 2026, and moves to 2027 for paychecks from January 1, 2027. Educational information, not tax advice; consult a CPA about your situation. hello@mypaycal.org
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