Published November 2026

2027 Tax Brackets and Standard Deduction

The IRS published the 2027 inflation adjustments on November 5, 2026, in Revenue Procedure 2026-35. The figures apply to returns filed in 2028, which means most taxpayers will not touch them for over a year.

That delay is exactly why they are worth reading now. Every year-end decision about timing income, converting a retirement account, or completing a gift depends on what next year's thresholds will be, and those thresholds are now known rather than estimated.

What the release covers

Rev. Proc. 2026-35 adjusts almost seventy provisions. For individuals the ones that matter are the standard deduction, the seven rate thresholds, the alternative minimum tax exemption, the estate and gift exclusions, the child and adoption credits, the earned income credit ceiling, the foreign earned income exclusion, and a handful of payroll-adjacent limits such as health flexible spending accounts and the parking fringe.

The rates themselves did not change. All seven remain where they were, and only the income levels at which each begins have moved with inflation. That is the ordinary pattern: a taxpayer whose income rises in line with prices stays in the same bracket rather than being pushed into a higher one.

Standard deduction for 2027

The joint amount rises by the largest dollar figure, moving to $33,200 from $32,200. The single amount and the married-filing-separately amount move together to $16,600, and head of household reaches $24,925.

Because the deduction rises at every status, the first slice of 2027 income is sheltered slightly more than the equivalent slice in 2026. For a single filer the difference is small in absolute terms, but it applies before any bracket is reached, which makes it worth more than its face value to someone sitting near a threshold.

The seven brackets for 2027

Each rate begins above a taxable income figure, and taxable income is what remains after the standard or itemised deduction. That distinction matters when comparing a salary to a threshold: a single filer earning $60,000 is not in the 22% bracket on the whole amount, because the first $16,600 is removed by the deduction before any rate applies.

For a joint return every threshold is roughly double the single figure, though not exactly, which is the quiet reason some two-earner couples find a joint return produces a different total than two separate returns.

Credits, exclusions and thresholds that moved

The child tax credit rises to $2,300 per qualifying child with a refundable portion of $1,800. The release states both as increases over 2026, which is also how the 2026 amounts were confirmed: the earlier figures had been published in a document still labelled for the prior tax year, and this release settles them.

The estate basic exclusion reaches $15,480,000 and the annual gift exclusion reaches $20,000, the first increase in that figure for several years. The adoption credit maximum rises to $18,250 with $5,280 refundable. The earned income credit ceiling for a household with three or more children reaches $8,496, and the foreign earned income exclusion reaches $137,300.

On the alternative minimum tax, the exemption moves to $93,000 for an unmarried filer and $144,700 for a joint return, with the phaseout beginning considerably higher. None of these figures is estimated here; each is quoted from the release and reproduced in the table below.

Why next year's numbers matter before this year ends

Two decisions are time-sensitive once next year's thresholds are known. The first is deferral: if a bonus or a final invoice can land in either December 2026 or January 2027, the later date applies a higher standard deduction and higher bracket ceilings, so the same dollars are taxed at the same or lower rates. The second is the reverse for anyone realising a large gain, because a gain taken in 2026 may be absorbed by a bracket that will not exist at the same level next year.

A Roth conversion sits between the two. Converting in a year with lower thresholds means filling a bracket that will be slightly wider in the following year, which usually argues for waiting unless a large income year is already unavoidable.

What is still not settled

Several figures that appear in the 2027 release are deliberately left off this page because they apply to business filers rather than individuals, including the expensing limit and the sport utility vehicle ceiling. They are published and verifiable, but a household deciding about a December bonus does not need them.

The 2027 instructions for the individual schedules are not published yet. Until they are, the phaseout mechanics that sit behind several of the credits above are drawn from the prior year's instructions, and this site will not publish a percentage that has not been restated for 2027.

Questions about these changes

Calculators that apply these figures