Tax year 2026 figures. Last updated .
The short answer, in dollars
On a $100,000 profit from something you held more than a year, a single filer earning $80,000 in salary pays $15,000 in federal capital gains tax. The same $100,000 profit, on something held eleven months instead, costs that person $24,000. Same asset, same price, same buyer — a $9,000 difference created by the calendar.
That gap is the single most useful thing to know about this tax, and it is why any answer that starts with a percentage is answering a narrower question than the one you asked. The rate is not a property of the asset. It is a property of how long you held it and how much else you earned.
Two facts decide the number
How long you held it. More than one year and the gain is long-term, taxed on a preferential ladder of 0%, 15% or 20%. One year or less and it is short-term, taxed as ordinary income at rates reaching 37%. There is no partial credit and no sliding scale — the line is a single day wide.
How much you earned in total. The preferential ladder is not chosen by the size of the gain. It is chosen by your total taxable income with the gain stacked on top. A $50,000 gain can be taxed at 0% for one person and 20% for another, and the difference is entirely their other income.
Everything else — the state you live in, the 3.8% net investment income tax, whether the asset was a house or a share certificate — adjusts a number those two facts have already set.
What the same gain costs at different incomes
Take a $100,000 long-term gain and change nothing but the salary underneath it. A single filer with $30,000 of other income pays no federal capital gains tax on part of it, because the 0% band runs up to $49,450 of taxable income and their salary has not used it all. At $80,000 of salary the whole gain sits in the 15% band. Above roughly $545,500 of taxable income the gain crosses into 20%, and from $200,000 of modified AGI the 3.8% net investment income tax is riding on top of whichever band applies.
Notice what that means for the highest earners: the marginal cost of a long-term gain tops out around 23.8% federally, before any state tax. The often-quoted "capital gains are taxed at 20%" is true of the ladder and misleading about the bill.
Why a single percentage cannot answer this
A gain does not fall into one band the way a salary falls into one bracket. It is laid on top of your ordinary income and can straddle two bands at once, with part taxed at 15% and the remainder at 20%. The calculator on this site shows that split explicitly rather than averaging it into a single figure, because the average is not a rate that appears anywhere on your return.
The same is true of the net investment income tax. It applies to the lesser of your net investment income and the amount by which your modified AGI exceeds the threshold, so a taxpayer $10,000 over the line with a $400,000 gain pays 3.8% on $10,000 — not on $400,000. Any calculator that applies 3.8% to the whole gain is overstating that component by a factor of forty in that case.
The state layer, which is often the surprise
The federal number is only part of the bill. Eight states levy no individual income tax on capital gains at all. Washington charges a separate 7% excise tax on long-term gains above an indexed deduction despite having no income tax. California taxes gains as ordinary income at rates up to 12.3%, plus a 1% behavioral health surtax above $1,000,000, which is why a large California gain can cost more in state tax than a mid-sized one costs federally.
Select your state in the calculator and the figure updates. Where a state cannot be computed from a verified source, it is listed as not yet available rather than guessed — see the methodology page for what that means.
Check the number against your own figures
The example below is computed by the same engine that powers the calculator, at the moment this page was built. Every line carries the rule applied and the section of the Internal Revenue Code it comes from, so you can audit it rather than trust it.
Why this calculator asks for gross income, not taxable income
Most capital gains calculators ask for your taxable income. That is the figure the rate ceilings are measured against, so it looks like the right question — but it asks the reader to do the hardest part of the calculation before they start.
Taxable income is gross income plus the gain, less the standard or itemised deduction, with adjustments. Getting it right is a real step, and getting it wrong shifts the answer by a whole rate band. A reader who enters gross income where taxable income was expected will see a figure that is too high, and nothing on the page will tell them.
So this calculator asks for gross income and does the deduction step itself, showing it as a line in the derivation. It is one more thing to get right internally and one less thing to get wrong externally, which is the correct trade.
Two honest ways to state the same bill
Ask what rate someone paid on a gain and you can get two very different numbers, both defensible.
Divide the extra tax the sale caused by the gain and you get the cost of selling — the number that answers "what did this decision cost me". Divide the same tax by total income instead and you get a much smaller figure, because the denominator now includes salary that was taxed separately.
The second framing is common in marketing copy precisely because it flatters. On a long-term gain the two figures sit within a point of each other and the choice barely matters; on a short-term gain the gap can exceed ten points. This site states the rate against the gain, and shows both side by side in one example on the home page so you can see the difference rather than take it on trust.
Before you trust any capital gains number
Including this one. Four questions will separate a figure worth acting on from one worth ignoring.
Does it show its working? A single total with no derivation cannot be checked, and cannot be wrong in a way you would notice. Every figure on this site expands into the steps that produced it, each with the code section it came from.
Does it name the tax year? The rate structure is statutory but every threshold is indexed annually. A page quoting last year’s ceilings under this year’s heading is giving a wrong answer confidently.
Does it handle the 3.8% surtax as a "lesser of"? Applying it to the whole gain rather than to the excess over the threshold is the most common error in this category, and it can overstate that component enormously.
Does it say what it does not model? Wash sales, 1031 exchanges, the alternative minimum tax, state additions and subtractions — a calculator that lists none of its limits has probably not thought about them.
Worked example
Computed by the same engine that powers the calculator, at the moment this page was built — not typed in by hand. Open the derivation to see every rule and citation.
$100,000 long-term gain on an $80,000 salary
A single filer with $80,000 of wages sells shares held for three years at a $100,000 profit. Standard deduction, no other investment income.
- Taxable income after deduction
- $163,900
- Taxable gain
- $100,000
- Tax owed without the sale
- $8,770
- Tax the sale added
- $15,000
- Total federal tax
- $23,770
- Effective rate on the gain
- 15%
The gain sits entirely inside the 15% band, so the tax on it is a clean $15,000. Note that the salary underneath is what put it there — the same gain on a much smaller salary would be partly free of tax.
Caveats on this example (1)
- Net investment income was derived from capital gains and qualified dividends only. Interest, non-qualified dividends, rents, royalties and passive business income inside ordinaryIncome are also net investment income under IRC 1411(c) and are not counted here.
Show the working — 12 steps, each with its citation
- Net short-term capital gain or loss for the year$0
Assets held one year or less. Taxed at ordinary rates if a net gain.
- Net long-term capital gain or loss for the year$100,000
Assets held more than one year. Eligible for the 0/15/20% rates.
- Standard deduction-$16,100
Adjusted gross income of $180,000 less $16,100.
- Taxable income$163,900
The figure the rate tables and the capital gain ceilings are both measured against.
- Ordinary income taxed at 10%$1,240
$12,400 of taxable income between $0 and $12,400.
- Ordinary income taxed at 12%$4,560
$38,000 of taxable income between $12,400 and $50,400.
- Ordinary income taxed at 22%$2,970
$13,500 of taxable income between $50,400 and $63,900.
- Ordinary income stacked below the long-term gain$63,900
Long-term gain is taxed by reference to where it sits ON TOP of $63,900 of other taxable income, not from the bottom of the rate table.
- Long-term gain taxed at 15%$15,000
Gain between the $49,450 zero-rate ceiling and the $545,500 15% ceiling.
- Net investment income tax threshold$200,000
Modified AGI of $180,000 against the $200,000 threshold for a single filer. This threshold is statutory and is not adjusted for inflation.
- Net investment income tax does not apply$0
Modified AGI is $20,000 below the threshold.
- Total tax$23,770
$23,770 on $180,000 of total income, an effective rate of 13.21%.
The same $100,000, sold two months earlier
Identical filer, identical sale price, identical basis — but the shares were held eleven months rather than three years.
- Taxable income after deduction
- $163,900
- Taxable gain
- $100,000
- Tax owed without the sale
- $8,770
- Tax the sale added
- $23,164
- Total federal tax
- $31,934
- Effective rate on the gain
- 23.16%
No preferential ladder applies. The gain is stacked on the salary as ordinary income and taxed at 22% and 24%, which is where the extra $9,000 comes from.
Caveats on this example (1)
- Net investment income was derived from capital gains and qualified dividends only. Interest, non-qualified dividends, rents, royalties and passive business income inside ordinaryIncome are also net investment income under IRC 1411(c) and are not counted here.
Show the working — 12 steps, each with its citation
- Net short-term capital gain or loss for the year$100,000
Assets held one year or less. Taxed at ordinary rates if a net gain.
- Net long-term capital gain or loss for the year$0
Assets held more than one year. Eligible for the 0/15/20% rates.
- Short-term gain added to ordinary income$100,000
Short-term capital gain has no preferential rate.
- Standard deduction-$16,100
Adjusted gross income of $180,000 less $16,100.
- Taxable income$163,900
The figure the rate tables and the capital gain ceilings are both measured against.
- Ordinary income taxed at 10%$1,240
$12,400 of taxable income between $0 and $12,400.
- Ordinary income taxed at 12%$4,560
$38,000 of taxable income between $12,400 and $50,400.
- Ordinary income taxed at 22%$12,166
$55,300 of taxable income between $50,400 and $105,700.
- Ordinary income taxed at 24%$13,968
$58,200 of taxable income between $105,700 and $163,900.
- Net investment income tax threshold$200,000
Modified AGI of $180,000 against the $200,000 threshold for a single filer. This threshold is statutory and is not adjusted for inflation.
- Net investment income tax does not apply$0
Modified AGI is $20,000 below the threshold.
- Total tax$31,934
$31,934 on $180,000 of total income, an effective rate of 17.74%.
Run your own figures
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