2026 standard deduction amounts by filing status
For income you earn in calendar year 2026 (the return you file in early 2027), the standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers, $32,200 for married filing jointly and qualifying surviving spouses, $24,150 for heads of household, and $16,100 for married filing separately. These figures come from IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32, the annual inflation-adjustment notice.
| Filing status | Base deduction | Each 65+/blind add-on |
|---|---|---|
| Single | $16,100 | $2,050 |
| Married filing jointly | $32,200 | $1,650 per spouse |
| Head of household | $24,150 | $2,050 |
| Married filing separately | $16,100 | $1,650 |
| Qualifying surviving spouse | $32,200 | $1,650 |
These amounts are up from $15,750 (single), $31,500 (joint), and $23,625 (head of household) in 2025. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) made the larger post-2017 standard deduction permanent and keeps it indexed to inflation each year, so the roughly 90% of filers who take it instead of itemizing will keep seeing it climb.
The extra deduction at 65+ and for blindness
If you are 65 or older, or blind, you get an additional standard deduction on top of the base amount. For 2026 it is $2,050 per qualifying condition if you are unmarried (single or head of household), and $1,650 per qualifying condition, per spouse, if you are married. These figures are set in IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32, up from $2,000 and $1,600 in 2025.
Age and blindness are counted independently, so the add-ons stack:
- A single filer who is 65+ gets $16,100 + $2,050 = $18,150.
- A single filer who is 65+ and blind gets $16,100 + $2,050 + $2,050 = $20,200.
- A married couple filing jointly where both spouses are 65+ gets $32,200 + $1,650 + $1,650 = $35,500.
- If one of those spouses is also blind, add another $1,650, for $37,150.
You qualify as 65+ for 2026 if you were born before January 2, 1962 (the IRS treats a January 1 birthday as turning 65 in the prior year). For blindness, the test is being totally or partly blind as defined in IRS Publication 501, generally certified vision of 20/200 or worse in the better eye with correction, or a field of vision of 20 degrees or less.
The temporary $6,000 senior deduction (2025-2028)
Separate from the age-65 add-on above, OBBBA created a new deduction of $6,000 per taxpayer age 65 or older, available for tax years 2025 through 2028. A married couple where both spouses are 65+ can deduct up to $12,000. Per the IRS, you can claim it whether you take the standard deduction or itemize, which makes it different from the regular add-on (that one is only for non-itemizers).
It phases out at higher incomes: the deduction shrinks by 6% of the amount your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) exceeds $75,000 (single or head of household) or $150,000 (married filing jointly). It disappears entirely at $175,000 single and $250,000 joint. Two more conditions: you need a Social Security number, and married taxpayers must file jointly, so married filing separately gets nothing.
Stack everything and the numbers get large. A 65-year-old single filer with MAGI under $75,000 deducts $16,100 + $2,050 + $6,000 = $24,150. A married couple, both 65+, with MAGI under $150,000 deducts $32,200 + $3,300 + $12,000 = $47,500. For many retirees that wipes out federal tax on a large share of Social Security and withdrawal income.
Note what this deduction is not: it does not eliminate tax on Social Security benefits (benefits are still taxed under the usual rules), and it is scheduled to expire after the 2028 tax year unless Congress extends it.
Standard deduction for dependents
If someone else can claim you as a dependent (a teenager with a summer job, a college student on a parent's return), your standard deduction is limited. For 2026 it is the greater of $1,350, or your earned income plus $450, capped at the regular standard deduction for your filing status ($16,100 for a single dependent).
- A dependent with no earned income (only interest or dividends) gets the $1,350 minimum.
- A dependent who earned $6,000 at a part-time job gets $6,000 + $450 = $6,450.
- A dependent who earned $20,000 hits the cap and gets the full $16,100.
The practical takeaway: a working dependent's wages up to $16,100 are effectively federal-income-tax-free in 2026, because earned income plus $450 keeps pace with their pay until the cap. Unearned income above small thresholds is a different story (the kiddie tax can apply).
Standard deduction vs. itemizing in 2026
The rule is simple: itemize only if your itemized deductions add up to more than your standard deduction. For most filers the three deductions that matter are state and local taxes (SALT), mortgage interest, and charitable gifts. OBBBA raised the SALT cap from $10,000 to $40,000 in 2025, indexed up 1% a year, so it is about $40,400 in 2026 (the cap starts phasing back down for incomes above roughly $505,000). That change alone pushed many homeowners in high-tax states back into itemizing territory.
Here is a worked example for a married couple filing jointly against the $32,200 standard deduction. Say they pay $7,000 in property tax and $6,000 in state income tax ($13,000 of SALT, well under the $40,400 cap, so all of it counts), give $2,500 to charity, and pay about $29,100 of first-year interest on a $450,000 mortgage at 6.5%. Itemized total: $44,600. That beats the standard deduction by $12,400, which at a 22% marginal rate saves about $2,728 versus taking the standard deduction.
The break-even point for that same couple: with $13,000 of SALT and $2,500 of charity locked in, they need more than $16,700 of mortgage interest before itemizing wins at all, roughly a $260,000 loan balance at 6.5%. Run your own numbers, including how the deduction shrinks as your loan amortizes, with the mortgage interest deduction calculator.
Two 2026-specific wrinkles worth knowing. First, OBBBA added a charitable deduction for non-itemizers starting in 2026 (up to $1,000 single / $2,000 joint), so a modest donation no longer requires giving up the standard deduction. Second, itemizers now face a 0.5%-of-AGI floor on charitable deductions, which slightly weakens itemizing for big givers.
Who cannot take the standard deduction
A few groups are locked out of the standard deduction entirely and must itemize (or take no deduction), per IRS Topic No. 551:
- Married filing separately when your spouse itemizes. If one spouse itemizes, the other must too, even if their itemized total is tiny. This is the trap that catches the most real people.
- Nonresident aliens and dual-status aliens for any part of the year (with limited exceptions, such as those married to a US citizen or resident who elect to be taxed as a resident, and certain students from India under treaty rules).
- Anyone filing a short-year return because of a change in their annual accounting period.
- Estates, trusts, common trust funds, and partnerships. The standard deduction is for individuals only.
If you are in the married-filing-separately situation, coordinate before either return is filed. A couple where one spouse has large deductions and the other has none often does better filing jointly, precisely because separate filing forces the low-deduction spouse to itemize near zero.
How the standard deduction interacts with tax brackets
The standard deduction comes off the top of your income before any tax bracket applies. Brackets run on taxable income, which is your adjusted gross income minus the standard (or itemized) deduction. So a single filer's first $16,100 of 2026 income is federally tax-free before the 10% bracket even starts, and a married couple's first $32,200 is.
This has two useful consequences. First, your real "tax-free plus 10%" zone is bigger than the bracket table suggests: a single filer pays 10% only from $16,100 to $28,500 of gross income (the $12,400-wide 10% bracket sits on top of the deduction). Second, the deduction is worth more the higher your bracket, since it removes income that would otherwise be taxed at your marginal rate: $16,100 deducted at 22% is worth about $3,542 of tax, versus $1,932 at 12%. The full 2026 rate tables and a slice-by-slice worked example are in our 2026 tax brackets guide.
To see the whole chain for your own numbers, income, deduction, brackets, and credits in one pass, use the federal income tax calculator. It applies the $16,100/$32,200/$24,150 amounts automatically based on your filing status.