Self-Employment Tax Calculator
Estimate 2026 self-employment tax on your net profit. Get the 12.4% Social Security and 2.9% Medicare split, W-2 wage-base offset, and deductible half.
Self-Employment Tax Calculator
Tax Year
Self-Employment Profit
Schedule C line 31 or the self-employment earnings on a Schedule K-1: revenue minus deductible business expenses, not gross receipts. A negative number is a business loss.
W-2 Job (Optional)
Box 3 of a Form W-2 from a job you also held this year. These wages use up the Social Security wage base first. Leave it at 0 if you had no W-2 job.
Filing Status
Filing status only changes the threshold for the 0.9% Additional Medicare tax. It does not change the 15.3% self-employment tax itself.
Options
Figured on Form 8959, not Schedule SE, so it sits outside the self-employment tax figure above and outside the deductible half. This is the self-employment slice (Form 8959 Part II); any piece owed on W-2 wages is handled by your employer's withholding.
This is self-employment tax only, so treat it as a floor rather than a finished Form 1040-ES payment. Real quarterly payments also have to cover federal income tax and any state tax.
Estimates only, not tax or legal advice. Federal self-employment tax only.
Estimates only, not tax or legal advice. This page covers federal self-employment tax and the 0.9% Additional Medicare tax on self-employment income. It does not cover federal income tax, the qualified business income deduction, state or local tax, church employee income, the farm and non-farm optional methods, or the S corporation reasonable-salary alternative. The Additional Medicare figure assumes a single earner, so on a joint return a spouse's wages would lower the threshold room shown here. Confirm your numbers with a tax professional or the Instructions for Schedule SE (Form 1040).
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How self-employment tax is calculated in 2026
Self-employment tax is Social Security and Medicare for people who have no employer to split the bill with. The rate is 15.3%: 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare. It does not run on your whole profit. Schedule SE first multiplies net profit by 92.35%, which stands in for the employer half of FICA that a wage earner never sees, and the result is your net earnings from self-employment.
Take $60,000 of net profit with no W-2 job. Net earnings are $55,410.00. All of it fits under the $184,500 Social Security wage base, so the Social Security portion is $6,870.84 and the Medicare portion is $1,606.89. Self-employment tax comes to $8,477.73, and half of that, $4,238.87, is deductible against your income tax.
The $400 rule catches people out because it is a test on net earnings, not on profit. You need about $433.14 of profit before the tax starts. At $433.13 of profit your net earnings are $399.99 and nothing is owed. One more cent of profit pushes net earnings past $400 and the tax applies. Calculators that test raw profit against $400 get that whole band wrong.
If you also have a W-2 job, your Social Security tax is different
The $184,500 wage base applies to wages and self-employment earnings together, and Schedule SE subtracts your W-2 Social Security wages (Box 3 of the W-2) from the base before taxing anything else. W-2 wages go first; your self-employment earnings get whatever room is left.
Say you have $100,000 of profit next to $120,000 of W-2 Social Security wages. Net earnings are $92,350.00, but the wage base has only $64,500.00 of room left, so that is all that gets taxed at 12.4%, giving $7,998.00. Medicare never caps, so the 2.9% still runs on the full $92,350.00 for $2,678.15. Self-employment tax is $10,676.15. A calculator that takes only a single net income figure charges 15.3% on the whole $92,350.00, which is $14,129.55, overstating the bill by $3,453.40.
Once W-2 wages pass the base outright, the Social Security portion disappears. With $50,000 of profit alongside $190,000 of W-2 Social Security wages there is no room left, so the Social Security portion is $0.00 and the entire bill is the Medicare portion: $1,339.08 on $46,175.00 of net earnings. That works out to roughly 2.68% of profit, nowhere near 15.3%. If you are stacking a side gig on top of a day job, the second job pay calculator covers the wage side of the same picture.
The 0.9% Additional Medicare tax and the half you get to deduct
Two figures get folded into "self-employment tax" that do not belong there. The first is the Additional Medicare tax, an extra 0.9% on earnings above a threshold that depends on your filing status. Form 8959 handles it, not Schedule SE, and the result lands on a different line of Form 1040. It is also never halved for the deduction, so this page keeps it on its own row.
| Filing status | Additional Medicare threshold |
|---|---|
| Single | $200,000 |
| Married filing jointly | $250,000 |
| Head of household | $200,000 |
| Married filing separately | $125,000 |
These thresholds are written into the statute and do not move with inflation, which makes the $125,000 figure for married filing separately a trap: it triggers at half the joint amount on a single person's earnings. W-2 wages consume the threshold before your self-employment earnings do, and this page reports the self-employment slice (Form 8959 Part II). On a joint return the threshold applies to a couple's combined wages and self-employment income, and this tool models one earner.
Here is where both caps bind at once. On $250,000 of profit with no W-2 wages, filing single, net earnings are $230,875.00. Social Security stops at the wage base for $22,878.00, the 2026 maximum for any one person. Medicare keeps running and adds $6,695.38. Self-employment tax is $29,573.38, an effective 11.8% of profit, well under 15.3% because the wage base binds. Separately, $30,875.00 of those net earnings sits above the $200,000 threshold, so Additional Medicare tax is $277.88 on its own line.
The second figure is the deductible half. Half of the Social Security and Medicare portions is an above-the-line deduction on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 15, which on those same numbers is $14,786.69. It lowers the income your federal income tax is figured on. It never lowers the self-employment tax itself, and because the 0.9% has no employer-equivalent half, that piece is excluded from the deduction entirely.
Setting aside money and paying quarterly
Dividing self-employment tax by four gives a sensible per-quarter set-aside, but read it as a floor. A Form 1040-ES payment has to cover federal income tax as well, plus state tax where you owe it, so the real quarterly number is larger. Estimated payments are generally required once you expect to owe $1,000 or more for the year, and the payment schedule runs in April, June, September, and January.
All of this rests on the profit figure you type in, so it rests on knowing what you actually billed. If you sell your time, tracking hours as you work beats reconstructing them at tax time. Run the numbers with the billable hours calculator. TimeClock44 logs hours per client, so the profit you carry into Schedule C is a record instead of a guess.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about self-employment tax calculator
What is the self-employment tax rate for 2026?
15.3% in total: 12.4% for Social Security plus 2.9% for Medicare. It runs on 92.35% of your net profit, and the Social Security half stops once your W-2 Social Security wages and self-employment earnings together reach the $184,500 wage base. The Medicare half has no cap.
Do I owe self-employment tax if I made less than $400?
The $400 test applies to net earnings (profit × 92.35%), not to profit itself, so the break-even is about $433.13 of profit. At $433.13 of profit your net earnings are $399.99 and nothing is owed. One cent more of profit clears $400 and the tax applies. You may still have to file a return for other reasons.
How do W-2 wages from a regular job change my self-employment tax?
W-2 Social Security wages fill the $184,500 wage base first, and only what is left of the base is available for your self-employment earnings. On $100,000 of profit alongside $120,000 of W-2 Social Security wages, just $64,500.00 of your $92,350.00 in net earnings is taxed for Social Security, so that portion is $7,998.00. The 2.9% Medicare portion still applies to all $92,350.00. The 1099 vs W-2 calculator puts the two arrangements side by side.
Is the 0.9% Additional Medicare tax part of self-employment tax?
No. It is figured on Form 8959, not Schedule SE, and it lands on a different line of Form 1040, so this page gives it a row of its own. It also has no employer-equivalent half, so it is excluded from the deductible half. On a joint return the threshold applies to a couple's combined wages and self-employment income; this tool models one earner, so a spouse's wages would trigger the 0.9% sooner.
Can I deduct half of my self-employment tax?
Yes. Half of the Social Security and Medicare portions is an above-the-line deduction on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 15. It reduces the income your federal income tax is figured on, never the self-employment tax itself. The 0.9% Additional Medicare tax is left out of the deduction.
How much should I set aside each quarter for self-employment tax?
One quarter of the self-employment tax figure, and treat that as a floor. Form 1040-ES payments also have to cover federal income tax, plus state tax where you owe it, and quarterly payments are generally required once you expect to owe $1,000 or more for the year. The freelance rate calculator works backwards from that number to a billing rate.
Why is my effective rate lower than 15.3%?
Only 92.35% of profit counts as net earnings, and above the Social Security wage base the 12.4% half stops while the 2.9% Medicare half keeps running. A single filer with $250,000 of profit and no W-2 wages owes $29,573.38, which is 11.8% of profit.
Does a business loss cancel out self-employment tax on my other income?
A loss zeroes out self-employment tax for that business, but it does not refund Social Security or Medicare tax already withheld from a W-2 job. That side of the return is settled through payroll withholding, which the take-home paycheck calculator covers.