Self-Employment Tax Calculator

This self-employment tax calculator follows the same method the IRS uses on Schedule SE: it takes your net profit from freelancing, contracting, or a 1099 business, applies the 92.35% net earnings factor, then calculates Social Security and Medicare tax on that base. Unlike a flat "15.3% of profit" estimate, it correctly caps the Social Security portion at the annual wage base, adds the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax where it applies, and — if you turn on the federal estimate — layers a real 2026 bracket calculation on top so you see your full tax picture in one place.

Worked example (the defaults): $90,000 in gross 1099 revenue, $20,000 in business expenses, $5,000 in other deductions, filing single. That's a $65,000 net profit. Self-employment tax comes to $9,184.21 — $7,443.41 in Social Security tax and $1,740.80 in Medicare tax. With the federal estimate on, total tax liability (SE tax plus federal income tax) is $14,253.16, an effective rate of 21.93%, leaving $50,746.84 take-home.

Need to plan out payments across the year rather than just see the annual total? Use the Quarterly Estimated Tax Calculator — it applies the IRS safe-harbor rule to tell you exactly what to pay each quarter to avoid a penalty.

Self-employment tax replaces the FICA tax an employer would otherwise split with you. Because you're both the employer and the employee, you owe the full 15.3% combined rate: 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare, per IRS guidance on self-employment tax.

The 92.35% factor exists because, unlike an employee, you'd never have paid FICA on the employer-equivalent share of your own tax — it's a built-in adjustment under IRC §1402(a)(12). The Social Security portion stops once your combined self-employment and W-2 wages reach the year's wage base ($184,500 for 2026, per the SSA's 2026 fact sheet) — enter any W-2 wages you also earned this year and the calculator reduces the Social Security-taxable portion accordingly. Medicare tax has no cap, and if your combined earnings exceed $200,000 (single/HOH) or $250,000 (married filing jointly), an extra 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax applies to the excess.

Below $400 in net self-employment earnings, you owe no SE tax at all — the calculator reflects that threshold automatically.

Half of your base self-employment tax — the Social Security and Medicare portions, not the Additional Medicare Tax — is deductible from your gross income when you calculate federal income tax, claimed on Schedule 1, Line 15. On the $65,000 example, that's a $4,592.10 deduction, which lowers your federal taxable income before you ever get to the standard deduction.

This is exactly what the "Include Federal Income Tax Estimate" toggle models: it takes your net profit, subtracts the SE tax deduction and any SEP-IRA or Solo 401(k) contribution you enter, subtracts the 2026 standard deduction for your filing status, and runs the result through the same progressive bracket logic as the site's Federal Tax Bracket Calculator. That's what produces the combined number people searching for a calculator that handles "self employment tax with deductions" or "income tax and self employment tax" together are actually looking for — a single total tax liability, not two separate figures you have to add by hand.

A SEP-IRA or Solo 401(k) contribution is one of the most effective levers available to the self-employed: it reduces your federal taxable income dollar-for-dollar (though not your SE tax, since SE tax is calculated on net profit before retirement contributions). Add a contribution amount in the federal section to see the after-tax cost of contributing versus not.