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Will getting married raise your taxes?

Two people's incomes, taxed as a married couple filing jointly and as two unmarried partners. The difference is the marriage penalty, or bonus, and it depends mostly on how evenly you split the earning.

Marriage penalty

$1,350 a year more

Married filing jointly in California, this couple's income and payroll taxes come to $150,636, versus $149,286 as two unmarried partners: a difference of 0.3% of their $440,000 income.

Where it comes from

  • Additional Medicare tax +$1,350

    0.9% on wages above $250K joint, versus $200K each single.

Saves married couples Costs them

Every way to file

FilingTaxvs. joint
Married filing jointly$150,636$0
Unmarried, two returns$149,286−$1,350
Married filing separately$150,636$0
  • Unmarried: They split the property tax evenly.
  • Separately: California is a community-property state, so each spouse reports half the income.
Penalty or bonus by income and split Household wages down the side, how they're split across the bottom, everything else as entered. Tap a cell to try it.
$3M$2M$1.5M$1M$750K$500K$400K$300K$250K$200K$150K$125K$100K$75K$60K$50K$40K$30K$20K50/5060/4070/3080/2090/10100/0Split of wages (higher earner / lower earner)

Closest to you: $400,000 split 50/50: +$1,803 penalty

The same couple in every state

From +$1,155 in Ohio to +$6,453 in Rhode Island. The federal part barely moves; states add their own penalty or bonus, and property taxes change what the SALT cap takes away. Select a state to see its breakdown.

About this tool

Who it's for
For couples deciding whether, or when, to get married, and their accountants.
What you can enter
Each partner's wages and capital gains, children under 17, home value, and the state you live in.
What it runs on
2026 federal, payroll and state income tax law for joint and unmarried returns, including the SALT cap, AMT, child tax credit and earned income credit. Sources and simplifications are under How this is calculated.
Who made it
Sam Wen, co-founder of Square. Free, no sign-up; it runs in your browser. Last updated .

Spot a mistake, or a rule that changed? Tell me.

Frequently asked questions

Should we get divorced on December 30th and remarry in January?

Your filing status is whatever you are on December 31, so on paper it works. The IRS saw this coming in 1976: Revenue Ruling 76-255 says a year-end divorce followed by remarriage early the next year is a sham, and the couple files as married anyway. The Boyters tried it twice, with quickie divorces in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and lost in Tax Court. The lawyers and plane tickets also cost more than most penalties.

Is it cheaper to marry a doctor or a teacher?

Tax-wise, marry someone who earns very differently from you. Joint brackets are built for one big earner and one small one, so the bonus peaks when one of you earns everything. Penalties live where two incomes are similar: at the top (two doctors hit the 37% bracket early, share one SALT cap and owe more Medicare surtax) and at the bottom (two modest paychecks lose the earned income credit). Two teachers in the middle mostly break even. Love is outside this calculator's scope.

Did Congress really give married couples the same SALT cap as one single person?

Yes. In 2026 the cap is $40,400 per return whether the return covers one person or two, and it starts shrinking at the same $505,000 of income. Two unmarried homeowners in New Jersey get two caps; marry, and you share one. Filing separately doesn't help either, because each spouse then gets half.

We're in love and on the earned income credit. Is the government against romance?

Not on purpose, but the math is brutal. A single parent earning $25,000 with one child gets about $4,250. Two such parents who marry have $50,000 between them, and the joint phase-out starts only $7,270 higher than the single one, so together they get about $3,350 for both kids instead of $8,500. Try the Working parents preset.

Should we elope to Las Vegas to save on taxes?

Where you marry doesn't matter; where you live does. Nevada has no income tax, so it adds no state penalty, but neither does any other state without one. On the map, the states that charge the most are the ones that don't double their brackets for couples. Arkansas, Delaware, DC and Virginia let spouses file separately on one state return to get around their own.

Can't we just file separately?

You can, but it's rarely cheaper. Separate returns get exactly half of every joint bracket and threshold, and lose the earned income credit (and several other breaks) entirely. It mostly makes sense when one spouse doesn't want to be on the hook for the other's return. See the table under your result.

Partly jokes. Not tax advice, and the IRS is a terrible reason to get married, or not to.

How this is calculated

The comparison

  • Married is one joint return. Unmarried is the same two people living together, each filing their own return. The penalty is the difference in what they owe, using 2026 law.
  • Unmarried partners arrange things the cheapest legal way: who claims which children, which one of them (at most one, since only one can pay more than half the household's costs) files as head of household, and who pays the property tax.
  • Federal: brackets, the standard deduction, head of household, the SALT deduction with its per-return cap and phase-out, the alternative minimum tax, the child tax credit including its refundable part, the earned income credit, the 0.9% Medicare surtax (on combined wages for a joint return) and the 3.8% net investment income tax.
  • Payroll: Social Security, Medicare and state programs are charged per person, each up to its own wage base, so they never change with marriage.
  • State income tax from the tax map's engine and data, plus the two-earner rules it doesn't cover: separate filing on one return in Arkansas, Delaware, DC and Virginia, Wisconsin's married couple credit, and Ohio's joint filing credit.
  • Married filing separately halves every joint federal amount and drops the earned income credit. Spouses must both itemize or both take the standard deduction, and in community-property states each reports half the couple's income.

Simplifications

  • Wages and long-term capital gains only, from W-2 jobs. Children are under 17 and live with both partners; childless earners are assumed old enough (25–64) for the small earned income credit.
  • State and local tax is the only itemized deduction. Sales tax is left out because marrying doesn't change what you spend, and so are local income taxes such as New York City's.
  • States' own head of household schedules aren't modeled, so unmarried parents use the single one; separate state returns use half the joint schedule in Minnesota, West Virginia and Wisconsin and the single schedule elsewhere.
  • Marriage changes more than taxes: health insurance subsidies, student loan payments, Social Security and Medicaid eligibility all have their own penalties and bonuses, none of them counted here.
  • A divorce and remarriage timed around December 31 doesn't work: the IRS treats it as a sham (Rev. Rul. 76-255).
  • This is an estimate for comparing situations, not tax advice.

Sources

State and federal data compiled 2026-09-29.