Self-Employment Tax Calculator

Self-employment tax is 15.3% of 92.35% of your net self-employment earnings: 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare. In practice that is about 14.13% of your net profit until you reach the Social Security wage base, which for 2026 is $184,500 of taxable base. $50,000 of net earnings means $7,064.78 of self-employment tax. $100,000 means $14,129.55. Half of what you pay is deductible against income tax.

That is the calculation, and it sits on top of income tax, not in place of it. The rest of this guide works it through line by line, gives the tax on common incomes, shows what changes above the wage base, sets out the quarterly estimated tax schedule, and gives you a method for deciding how much of each payment to put aside. Figures are for the 2026 tax year and cover US federal tax only.

What is self-employment tax?

Self-employment tax is how people who work for themselves pay into Social Security and Medicare. Employees pay the same two taxes through payroll under FICA, the Federal Insurance Contributions Act: half comes out of their paycheck and their employer pays the other half. When you run your own business there is no employer paying the second half, so you pay both, under the Self-Employment Contributions Act.

The combined rate is 15.3%:

• 12.4% for Social Security, on your taxable base up to the wage base
• 2.9% for Medicare, on all of your taxable base, with no cap

It applies to the net profit of freelancers, independent contractors, sole proprietors and most single-member LLC owners who have not elected to be taxed as a corporation. It is worked out on Schedule SE and paid with your Form 1040.

It is also completely separate from income tax. Self-employment tax gets no standard deduction, so a freelancer whose profit is too small to owe any income tax can still owe self-employment tax.

How is self-employment tax calculated?

Three steps, using the same constants the Self-Employment Tax Calculator uses.

Step 1. Find your net self-employment earnings. This is your business income minus your deductible business expenses, the profit figure from Schedule C for most freelancers. It is profit, not revenue.

Step 2. Multiply by 92.35%. The result is your taxable base.

Step 3. Apply both rates to the base. 12.4% on the base up to $184,500, and 2.9% on all of it.

SE tax = (taxable base, capped at $184,500) × 12.4% + (taxable base) × 2.9% taxable base = net earnings × 92.35%

Worked through at $50,000 of net earnings:

• Taxable base: $50,000 × 0.9235 = $46,175.00
• Social Security: $46,175 × 12.4% = $5,725.70
• Medicare: $46,175 × 2.9% = $1,339.08
• Total self-employment tax: $5,725.70 + $1,339.08 = $7,064.78
• Deductible half: $7,064.78 ÷ 2 = $3,532.39

Those are exactly the five lines the calculator returns for $50,000. Spread over four quarterly payments, the self-employment tax alone is about $1,766 a quarter, before any income tax.

Why is it 92.35% and not 100%?

An employee is never taxed on their employer's half of FICA, because that half is a cost of the business and never counts as the employee's wages. The 92.35% factor gives the self-employed the same treatment. Half of 15.3% is 7.65%, and 100% minus 7.65% is 92.35%. In effect, you are not charged self-employment tax on the employer-equivalent half of the tax itself.

Multiply the two together and you get the rate that actually lands on your profit: 15.3% × 92.35% = 14.13%. So below the wage base, every $1,000 of profit carries about $141.30 of self-employment tax. That is the most useful single number in this guide for quick mental math.

Is there a minimum before you owe it?

Yes. Schedule SE tells you to stop if your taxable base, the 92.35% figure, comes to less than $400, because no self-employment tax is due. $400 ÷ 0.9235 is a net profit of about $433. This is a long-standing statutory rule, but confirm it with the IRS instructions for Schedule SE for your year. The calculator does not apply this floor: enter $400 and it will still show $56.52.

Self-employment tax table: $20,000 to $200,000 of net earnings

Every row below comes straight from the calculator's constants: 92.35% taxable base, 12.4% Social Security up to $184,500, 2.9% Medicare. The last column is total self-employment tax as a share of net earnings.

Net earnings	Taxable base (92.35%)	Social Security (12.4%)	Medicare (2.9%)	Total SE tax	Deductible half	Share of net
$20,000	$18,470.00	$2,290.28	$535.63	$2,825.91	$1,412.96	14.13%
$40,000	$36,940.00	$4,580.56	$1,071.26	$5,651.82	$2,825.91	14.13%
$60,000	$55,410.00	$6,870.84	$1,606.89	$8,477.73	$4,238.87	14.13%
$80,000	$73,880.00	$9,161.12	$2,142.52	$11,303.64	$5,651.82	14.13%
$100,000	$92,350.00	$11,451.40	$2,678.15	$14,129.55	$7,064.78	14.13%
$150,000	$138,525.00	$17,177.10	$4,017.23	$21,194.33	$10,597.17	14.13%
$200,000	$184,700.00	$22,878.00	$5,356.30	$28,234.30	$14,117.15	14.12%

Two things stand out. First, below the wage base the tax is a flat 14.13% of profit, so doubling your profit exactly doubles the tax: $40,000 costs $5,651.82 and $80,000 costs $11,303.64. Second, the $200,000 row is the first where the cap bites. Its taxable base of $184,700 is $200 over the $184,500 wage base, so Social Security is charged on $184,500 only. That saves $200 × 12.4% = $24.80, which is why the share drops to 14.12%.

Self-employment tax on common incomes

Self-employment tax on $10,000

$10,000 of net profit gives a taxable base of $9,235, Social Security of $1,145.14 and Medicare of $267.82, for $1,412.96 of self-employment tax. The deductible half is $706.48. At this level many single filers owe little or no federal income tax after the standard deduction, so the self-employment tax can be most of the bill.

Self-employment tax on $25,000

$25,000 of net profit means a taxable base of $23,087.50 and $3,532.39 of self-employment tax: $2,862.85 for Social Security and $669.54 for Medicare. That is about $883 a quarter before income tax, and $1,766.20 of it is deductible.

Self-employment tax on $30,000

$30,000 of net profit gives $4,238.87 of self-employment tax on a taxable base of $27,705. Social Security is $3,435.42 and Medicare $803.45. The deductible half is $2,119.44.

Self-employment tax on $50,000

$50,000 of net profit gives $7,064.78, worked through step by step above. Half, $3,532.39, comes off your income before income tax is calculated.

Self-employment tax on $75,000

$75,000 of net profit means a taxable base of $69,262.50, Social Security of $8,588.55 and Medicare of $2,008.61, for $10,597.16 in total. That is about $2,649 a quarter for the self-employment tax alone. The deductible half is $5,298.58.

Self-employment tax on $120,000

$120,000 of net profit gives a taxable base of $110,820 and $16,955.46 of self-employment tax: $13,741.68 for Social Security and $3,213.78 for Medicare. The deductible half is $8,477.73, and the quarterly share of the self-employment tax is about $4,239.

What happens above the $184,500 Social Security wage base?

The wage base caps the taxable base, not your profit. Working backwards, $184,500 ÷ 0.9235 = $199,783.43 of net earnings is the point where Social Security stops. Above it, Social Security stays fixed at 12.4% × $184,500 = $22,878, and only the 2.9% Medicare charge keeps growing. Each extra $1,000 of profit then adds $923.50 × 2.9% = $26.78 of self-employment tax instead of $141.30.

The calculator also adds a 0.9% charge to its Medicare line once the taxable base passes $200,000, which happens at $200,000 ÷ 0.9235 = $216,567.41 of net earnings. That is the Additional Medicare Tax, covered in its own section below, and it is shown separately here so you can see how much of the total it is.

Net earnings	Taxable base	Social Security	Medicare line in the calculator	Of which the 0.9% extra	Calculator total	Share of net
$199,783.43	$184,500.00	$22,878.00	$5,350.50	$0.00	$28,228.50	14.13%
$216,567.41	$200,000.00	$22,878.00	$5,800.00	$0.00	$28,678.00	13.24%
$250,000	$230,875.00	$22,878.00	$6,973.25	$277.88	$29,851.25	11.94%
$300,000	$277,050.00	$22,878.00	$8,727.90	$693.45	$31,605.90	10.54%

The share keeps falling as income rises because the largest part of the tax, Social Security, has stopped growing.

If you also have a W-2 job

The $184,500 wage base is shared between wages and self-employment income. Social Security wages from a job use up the cap first, and Schedule SE only charges the 12.4% on whatever room is left. Medicare is still charged on the whole taxable base.

Take $120,000 of Social Security wages from a job plus $100,000 of freelance profit. The freelance taxable base is $92,350, but only $184,500 − $120,000 = $64,500 of cap remains. Social Security is $64,500 × 12.4% = $7,998.00, Medicare is $92,350 × 2.9% = $2,678.15, and the self-employment tax is $10,676.15. The calculator only asks for net self-employment income and assumes no wages, so it would show $14,129.55. If you have wages as well, treat the calculator's Social Security figure as the most you could owe and confirm the exact amount on Schedule SE.

Why do freelancers pay both halves of FICA?

Because Social Security and Medicare are funded by a tax on work that is split evenly between the worker and whoever pays them. When you are the worker and the business at once, both halves are yours.

Here is what that looks like on the same $60,000 figure. An employee on a $60,000 salary has 6.2% withheld for Social Security, $3,720, and 1.45% for Medicare, $870, a total of $4,590. The employer pays another $4,590 on top. Together that is $9,180 paid into the system on that job. A freelancer with $60,000 of net profit pays $8,477.73 in self-employment tax.

The freelancer pays a bit less than the combined total because of the 92.35% factor. The employer's $4,590 was never part of the employee's $60,000, while the freelancer's $60,000 of profit has to cover everything. The factor strips out the employer-equivalent half so the two situations are taxed on a comparable base.

What the comparison really shows is that the employee never sees half of the tax. It is paid on their behalf, out of money that never reaches their salary. That is why a freelance rate that matches a salary dollar for dollar leaves the freelancer worse off.

FICA tax vs self-employment tax

If you came here looking for a FICA tax calculator, the answer depends on how you are paid. For self-employment income, the Self-Employment Tax Calculator is the FICA-equivalent calculation. For a salary, the Take-Home Pay Calculator shows the employee's Social Security and Medicare withholding alongside federal income tax and an optional state rate.

	Employee	Employer	Self-employed
Social Security	6.2%	6.2%	12.4%
Medicare	1.45%	1.45%	2.9%
Combined	7.65%	7.65%	15.3%
Charged on	Wages	Wages	92.35% of net earnings
Social Security cap, 2026	$184,500 of wages	$184,500 of wages	$184,500 of taxable base
How it is paid	Withheld from each paycheck	Paid by the employer	Schedule SE, through estimated payments
Deductible?	No	As a business expense	Half, against income tax

Is half of self-employment tax deductible?

Yes. You deduct half of your self-employment tax as an adjustment to income on your Form 1040, whether or not you itemize. It lowers the income that income tax is charged on. It does not lower the self-employment tax itself, and it does not reduce the profit figure that self-employment tax is worked out from, since the 92.35% factor already does that job.

The deduction is worth half of your self-employment tax multiplied by your marginal income tax rate, not the full amount. On $60,000 of net profit the deductible half is $4,238.87. If that income is taxed at 12% at the margin, the deduction saves $4,238.87 × 12% = $508.66 of income tax. At 22% it saves $932.55.

What lowers self-employment tax, and what does not

Business expenses lower it. Anything that is a genuine deductible expense of the business reduces net profit, so below the wage base each $1,000 of expenses saves about $141.30 of self-employment tax plus income tax at your marginal rate. Spending money only to get a deduction still leaves you poorer, since the tax saved is a fraction of the amount spent.

Retirement contributions and self-employed health insurance generally do not. Contributions to your own retirement plan and the self-employed health insurance deduction are taken as adjustments to income, not as business expenses against your profit. They reduce income tax but leave self-employment tax where it was. Confirm how they apply to you with the IRS or a tax professional.

An S corporation election changes the base. Owners who elect S corporation status pay themselves a reasonable salary, which carries payroll tax, and take the rest of the profit as distributions, which do not. That can cut the total, but it brings payroll, extra filings and costs of its own, and the salary has to be defensible. It is a decision to make with an accountant, not from a table.

Quarterly estimated taxes for the self-employed

No employer withholds tax from freelance income, so the IRS expects you to pay during the year through estimated tax payments. Each payment covers income tax and self-employment tax together. As a general rule you need to make them if you expect to owe at least $1,000 in federal tax for the year after withholding and credits. Confirm that threshold and your own position with IRS Publication 505.

Quarterly estimated tax due dates

Payment	Covers income earned	Usual due date	For the 2026 tax year
1st	January 1 to March 31	April 15	Wednesday, April 15, 2026
2nd	April 1 to May 31	June 15	Monday, June 15, 2026
3rd	June 1 to August 31	September 15	Tuesday, September 15, 2026
4th	September 1 to December 31	January 15 of the next year	Friday, January 15, 2027

Two caveats. When a due date falls on a weekend or a legal holiday, it moves to the next business day. January 15, 2028, for example, is a Saturday, so the final payment for 2027 moves later. The IRS can also postpone deadlines for people in declared disaster areas. Check the dates on IRS.gov or the Form 1040-ES instructions before you pay.

Notice that the "quarters" are not equal. The second payment covers only two months and the fourth covers four. If you budget by calendar quarter, June comes around faster than you expect.

How the safe harbor rules work

The underpayment penalty is not a charge for owing money when you file. It is worked out payment by payment, for each installment that was too small or too late, for the number of days it was short, at an interest rate the IRS sets and adjusts every quarter. Each required installment is generally a quarter of the total you needed to pay for the year.

The safe harbor rules tell you what that total is. Generally, you avoid the penalty if your on-time payments plus any withholding reach the smaller of:

• 90% of the tax on this year's return, or
• 100% of the tax on last year's return, rising to 110% if last year's adjusted gross income was more than $150,000 (a lower income threshold applies if you are married filing separately)

The prior-year test generally requires that last year's return covered a full 12 months. Confirm the current percentages and thresholds with the IRS in Publication 505 and the Form 2210 instructions before relying on them.

For a freelancer whose income is growing, the prior-year test is the easiest to use because the number is already known. If the total tax on last year's return was $12,989.07, four payments of $3,247.27 meet the 100% test. You will still owe whatever extra this year's higher income creates when you file, so keep putting money aside for it, but the payments themselves will not trigger a penalty.

What if your freelance income is uneven?

Equal quarterly payments assume income arrives evenly. If most of yours lands late in the year, the annualized income installment method lets you base each payment on the income you had actually earned by the end of that period, so smaller early payments are not penalized. You claim it by attaching Schedule AI of Form 2210 to your return. It takes more record keeping, and it is worth confirming the details with the IRS instructions.

If you or your spouse, when filing jointly, also have a job, there is a simpler lever. Federal income tax withheld from wages is generally treated as paid evenly through the year, whenever it was actually withheld. Raising your withholding on a new Form W-4 later in the year can cover a shortfall in earlier quarters in a way a late estimated payment cannot. Confirm how this applies to your situation with the IRS.

How to pay estimated tax

You can pay through IRS Direct Pay, the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, your IRS online account, or by mail using the Form 1040-ES payment vouchers. States with an income tax generally run their own estimated payment system with their own dates, so check your state revenue department separately.

How much should I set aside for taxes as a freelancer?

There is no single correct percentage. The right figure depends on your profit, filing status, deductions, other income and state. What you can do is work out your own rate in six steps, then reuse it on every payment.

1. Estimate this year's net profit. Start from last year's profit and adjust for what you realistically expect. Revisit it every quarter.
2. Work out the self-employment tax. Use the calculator, or take 14.13% of profit if you are below the wage base.
3. Estimate federal income tax. Take your profit, subtract half of the self-employment tax, subtract your standard deduction or itemized deductions and any other adjustments, then apply the tax brackets for your filing status.
4. Add state and local income tax at your own state's rate.
5. Divide the total by your profit. That percentage is your set-aside rate.
6. Apply that rate to the profit part of every payment you receive, move it to a separate account the same day, and make your quarterly payments from there.

Freelancer tax estimation, worked through

The table below follows steps 2 to 5 for a single filer with no other income, using the 2026 single standard deduction of $16,100 and the 2026 single brackets built into the Take-Home Pay Calculator: 10% up to $12,400 of taxable income, 12% up to $50,400, 22% up to $105,700 and 24% up to $201,775. It excludes the qualified business income deduction, tax credits and state tax. If you qualify for that deduction your income tax will be lower than shown, so for most freelancers these figures sit on the cautious side. Confirm the current figures with the IRS.

Net profit	SE tax	Half deducted	Taxable income	Federal income tax	Total federal tax	Share of profit	Per quarter
$30,000	$4,238.87	$2,119.44	$11,780.56	$1,178.06	$5,416.93	18.1%	$1,354.23
$60,000	$8,477.73	$4,238.87	$39,661.13	$4,511.34	$12,989.07	21.6%	$3,247.27
$100,000	$14,129.55	$7,064.78	$76,835.22	$11,615.75	$25,745.30	25.7%	$6,436.33
$150,000	$21,194.33	$10,597.17	$123,302.83	$22,190.68	$43,385.01	28.9%	$10,846.25

Taking the $60,000 row step by step: $60,000 − $4,238.87 − $16,100 = $39,661.13 of taxable income. The first $12,400 is taxed at 10%, $1,240. The remaining $27,261.13 is taxed at 12%, $3,271.34. Income tax is $4,511.34, and adding the $8,477.73 of self-employment tax gives $12,989.07, or 21.6% of profit.

The share of profit moves from 18.1% to 28.9% across these four incomes, before any state tax. That spread is why a flat percentage borrowed from someone else can leave you well short or holding far more cash than you need.

Set aside at your marginal rate on anything extra

Your set-aside rate is an average. The tax on each extra dollar is higher. At $60,000 of profit, an extra $1,000 adds $141.30 of self-employment tax, and the $929.35 that remains after deducting half of that is taxed at 12%, another $111.52. That is about $253 per extra $1,000, or 25.3%, against an average of 21.6%. At $100,000 the same extra $1,000 lands in the 22% bracket and costs about $346. If a good quarter pushes you past your estimate, set aside the marginal rate on the excess, not the average.

Turning the rate into a per-payment habit

Say your set-aside rate works out at 21.6% federal and a client pays you $2,500 for a job that cost $250 in direct expenses. The profit in that payment is $2,250, so you move $2,250 × 21.6% = $486 into your tax account, plus your state's rate on the same $2,250. Setting aside on the profit rather than the full $2,500 stops you over-saving on expense-heavy work, and setting aside something on every payment stops you under-saving in a busy month.

Once you know your combined rate, you can price with it. The Freelance Rate Calculator takes the take-home income you want, a single tax rate, your business expenses, billable hours and weeks off, and works back to the hourly, day and weekly rate you need to charge. Enter the share of profit you worked out here, plus your state rate, as its tax rate.

Additional Medicare Tax for the self-employed

The Additional Medicare Tax is an extra 0.9% Medicare tax on earnings above a threshold. The Self-Employment Tax Calculator uses a threshold of $200,000 of taxable base. The real IRS threshold depends on your filing status, and wages and self-employment income are combined when testing against it, so someone with a salary can cross it with far less freelance income. Confirm the threshold that applies to you with the IRS.

Three points about how it works on a tax return, each worth confirming with the IRS instructions for Form 8959:

• It is not part of self-employment tax on Schedule SE. It is worked out separately on Form 8959.
• None of it is deductible. The deductible half applies only to self-employment tax proper.
• Wages count toward the threshold first, which reduces how much self-employment income can be earned before the 0.9% starts.

The calculator keeps things to one input, so it folds the 0.9% into its Medicare line and its total once the taxable base passes $200,000, and its deductible half is half of that total. At $250,000 of net earnings it shows a total of $29,851.25 and a deductible half of $14,925.63. Split out the IRS way, and assuming $200,000 is your threshold and you have no wages, that is self-employment tax of $29,573.38, a deductible half of $14,786.69, and $277.88 of Additional Medicare Tax that is not deductible. Below $216,567.41 of net earnings none of this applies and the calculator's figures match Schedule SE.

What the Self-Employment Tax Calculator does not include

The calculator takes one number, your net self-employment income, and returns the taxable base, Social Security, Medicare, total self-employment tax and the deductible half. It deliberately leaves out:

• Income tax, federal or state. That is a separate and usually larger bill.
• W-2 wages that share the Social Security wage base with your self-employment income.
• The $400 floor below which no self-employment tax is due.
• Filing-status thresholds for the Additional Medicare Tax, and the rule that it is not deductible.
• The optional methods on Schedule SE that some people with low or farm income can use.
• Partnership, S corporation and other entity rules, and any deduction or credit that works on the income tax side.

Use it for the self-employment tax figure, then build the rest of your estimate around it using the method above.

Common mistakes

Setting aside a percentage of revenue instead of profit. Tax is charged on profit. A designer billing $80,000 with $15,000 of software, equipment and subcontractor costs owes self-employment tax on $65,000, not $80,000.

Charging 15.3% on the whole profit. At $80,000, 15.3% is $12,240.00, but the real self-employment tax is $11,303.64. The $936.36 gap is the 92.35% factor. Use 14.13% below the wage base.

Assuming no income tax means no tax at all. A single filer with $16,000 of profit and no other income owes no federal income tax after the $16,100 standard deduction, but still owes $2,260.72 of self-employment tax.

Deducting all of the self-employment tax. Only half is deductible, and only against income tax.

Expecting retirement contributions to cut self-employment tax. They reduce income tax, not self-employment tax.

Treating the estimated tax periods as calendar quarters. The second payment covers only April and May and is due June 15.

Ignoring wages from a job. If you are both employed and self-employed, your wages use up the Social Security wage base first. Estimating as if they did not can mean overpaying through the year.

Using someone else's percentage. The share of profit in the worked example runs from 18.1% to 28.9% for one filing status before state tax. Work out your own.

The bottom line

Self-employment tax is 15.3% on 92.35% of your net profit, which comes to 14.13% of profit until the taxable base reaches $184,500 in 2026, after which only the 2.9% Medicare charge keeps growing. Half of it is deductible against income tax. It is due on top of income tax and paid through quarterly estimated payments, which the safe harbor rules let you base on this year's or last year's tax. Put the self-employment figure through the Self-Employment Tax Calculator, add your income and state tax to get your own set-aside rate, move that share of every payment somewhere you will not spend it, and confirm the current IRS thresholds and dates before you file.

Related calculators

• Freelance Rate Calculator: the rate to charge once tax, expenses and time off are counted
• Take-Home Pay Calculator: employee Social Security, Medicare and income tax on a salary, for comparing a job with freelancing
• Salary to Hourly Calculator: put a salaried offer and a freelance rate on the same basis
• Profit Margin Calculator: see how much of each sale is profit before tax
• Retirement Calculator: plan the savings no employer is contributing to