Self-Employment Tax Calculator (2026)
Self-employment tax is 15.3% on 92.35% of your net 1099 profit — 12.4% Social Security up to the $184,500 wage base, plus 2.9% Medicare with no cap. Enter your net profit to see the tax and the half you can deduct.
Social Security stops at the 2026 wage base of $184,500. This is SE tax only — federal and state income tax are separate.
How self-employment tax works
When you work for yourself, you cover both halves of Social Security and Medicare — the part an employer normally pays and the part withheld from a paycheck. Together that is 15.3%: 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare.
It is charged on 92.35% of your net profit, not the whole thing. On $80,000 of profit, the taxable base is $73,880, the tax is about $11,304, and you can deduct half of it on your 1040. Social Security caps out at the $184,500 wage base for 2026; Medicare keeps going on every dollar.
This sits on top of income tax. If you are weighing 1099 work against a salary, the contractor vs employee cost calculator shows the fully loaded picture, and the paycheck calculator estimates W-2 take-home.
Frequently asked questions
Self-employment tax is 15.3% — 12.4% for Social Security plus 2.9% for Medicare. You pay it on 92.35% of your net profit. Social Security stops at the $184,500 wage base for 2026; Medicare has no cap.
You deduct the employer-equivalent half of the tax before it is calculated, which works out to multiplying net profit by 0.9235. It is the IRS way of not taxing the part of the tax that an employer would normally cover.
Yes. You deduct half of your SE tax as an above-the-line adjustment to income on your Form 1040. It lowers your income tax, though not the SE tax itself. This calculator shows the deductible half.
No. Self-employment tax is separate from federal and state income tax. As a 1099 worker you usually owe both, and you typically pay them together through quarterly estimated taxes.