Self-Employment Tax Calculator (2026)
Enter your net profit and see what you owe in self-employment tax for 2026, broken into the Social Security and Medicare parts. It also shows the half you get to deduct, which most calculators leave out.
Revenue minus business expenses (Schedule C).
Only affects the Additional Medicare threshold.
From a job. Leave at 0 if self-employment is your only income.
That is 14.13% of your net profit — lower than the headline 15.3% because only 92.35% of profit is counted.
You can deduct $5,538.78 — half of the Social Security and Medicare portions — when working out your adjusted gross income. It reduces your income tax, not this bill.
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How to use this self employment tax calculator
- Enter your net profit — revenue minus business expenses, the figure at the bottom of Schedule C. Not your gross revenue, and not what landed in your bank account.
- Pick your filing status. It only changes the threshold for the Additional Medicare Tax, so for most people it makes no difference at all.
- If you also had a job this year, enter your W-2 wages. The Social Security cap applies to your wages and your self-employment income combined, so leaving this out overstates the bill for anyone working both.
- Read the split, not just the total. The Social Security portion stops at the wage base; the Medicare portion never does. Knowing which one you are still paying tells you what an extra dollar of profit actually costs you.
- Note the deductible half. It comes off your income before income tax is calculated — it does not reduce this bill, but it is money most people forget to claim.
How self-employment tax is actually calculated
Self-employment tax is Social Security and Medicare for people with no employer. An employee pays 7.65% and their employer quietly pays another 7.65%; when you work for yourself you are both, so the rate is 15.3% — 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare. This is separate from income tax and is owed even in years when you owe no income tax at all.
It is not charged on your whole profit. Only 92.35% of net earnings is subject to the tax, which exists to mirror the employer-side deduction an employer would have taken. That is why the effective rate on your profit works out closer to 14.1% than to 15.3%, and why a calculator that just multiplies your profit by 0.153 gives you a number that is too high.
The two halves behave differently once you earn enough. Social Security stops at the wage base — $184,500 for 2026 — while Medicare has no ceiling at all. Above that point your marginal rate on self-employment tax drops from 15.3% to 2.9%, which is a large enough cliff to be worth planning around. A further 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax applies above $200,000 (or $250,000 filing jointly), and unlike the rest of this, it is not deductible.
The wage base is shared with any W-2 job. If you earned $150,000 in wages and $60,000 in profit, the Social Security portion only applies to the gap left under the cap — not to the full profit. Calculators that omit a wages field get this wrong for everyone working two ways at once.
Example
A freelance photographer files a Schedule C showing $92,000 in revenue and $13,600 in expenses — camera gear depreciation, travel, insurance and software. That leaves $78,400 in net profit. She files as single and had no W-2 job this year.
| Net profit (Schedule C) | $78,400.00 |
|---|---|
| Earnings subject to SE tax (92.35%) | $72,402.40 |
| Social Security — 12.4% | $8,977.90 |
| Medicare — 2.9% | $2,099.67 |
| Additional Medicare — under threshold | $0.00 |
| Deductible half (reduces income tax) | $5,538.78 |
2026 self-employment tax: $11,077.57 — 14.13% of net profit.
The gap between 15.3% and the 14.13% she actually pays is the 92.35% adjustment. On $78,400 that is worth about $918 — small enough to ignore in a rough estimate, large enough to matter when you are deciding what to set aside.
She is nowhere near the $184,500 Social Security wage base, so the full 15.3% applies to every extra dollar she earns. If she doubled her profit she would cross that line, and everything above it would be taxed at 2.9% instead — the single largest rate change a sole proprietor ever experiences.
The $5,538.78 deduction is not a refund and does not reduce this $11,077.57. It comes off her income before income tax is calculated, so what it is worth depends on her bracket. In the 22% bracket it saves about $1,219 in income tax.
This figure is on top of federal income tax, and nothing has been withheld from it. That is why the money needs setting aside as it arrives rather than found in April — see the quarterly estimated tax calculator.
Limits and things to watch for
- This is federal self-employment tax only. Federal income tax, state income tax and any local tax are separate and are not calculated here.
- It assumes all of your net profit is subject to self-employment tax. Some income is not — S-corporation distributions, most rental income, and certain partnership allocations among them.
- The 92.35% adjustment and the wage base are applied as the IRS defines them for a straightforward Schedule C filer. Church employee income, farm optional methods and multi-member arrangements have their own rules on Schedule SE.
- It does not know about your spouse. If you file jointly and both have self-employment income, each of you calculates this separately on your own Schedule SE — the thresholds are per person even though the filing is joint.
- It is an estimate, not a filing. Use Schedule SE and, for anything unusual, an accountant.
Disclaimer. This calculator is general information, not tax advice. It uses published IRS and SSA figures for tax year 2026 and covers the ordinary Schedule C case. Your actual liability depends on your full situation. Confirm with a qualified accountant before relying on any figure here, and check the sources below if the last-updated date is old.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I pay self-employment tax if I already have a job?
- Yes, on your self-employment profit. Your job covers Social Security and Medicare on your wages only. The one thing your wages do affect is the Social Security cap — it applies to wages and self-employment income combined, so if your salary has already used up the $184,500 base, the Social Security portion on your profit is reduced or eliminated. Medicare still applies either way.
- Why is it 15.3% when employees pay 7.65%?
- Because an employee only sees half of it. Their employer pays a matching 7.65% that never appears on their payslip. Working for yourself you are both parties, so you pay both halves — which is also why you get to deduct half of it when calculating your income tax.
- What counts as net profit?
- Revenue minus ordinary and necessary business expenses — the bottom line of Schedule C. Not your gross revenue, and not what is left in your account after you paid yourself. Legitimate expenses you fail to claim raise this tax as well as your income tax, which is why bookkeeping pays for itself faster than most people expect.
- Do I owe this if I made a loss?
- No. Self-employment tax applies to net earnings, so a loss means no self-employment tax. You generally do not need to file Schedule SE at all if your net earnings from self-employment are under $400 for the year.
- Is this the same as my quarterly estimated payment?
- No — it is one component of it. Quarterly estimated payments cover self-employment tax and federal income tax together. Take this figure, add your estimated income tax, and divide across the four payment dates.
- What happens when I cross $184,500?
- The Social Security portion stops. Above the wage base your marginal self-employment tax rate falls from 15.3% to 2.9%, and 0.9% more is added above $200,000 (or $250,000 jointly). For a business near that line it is worth knowing which side of it a December invoice lands on.