Capital gains tax rates and brackets for 2026

Key takeaways

• Long-term rates are 0%, 15%, and 20%, and short-term rates run from 10% to 37%.
• The 0% ceiling is $49,450 for a single filer and $98,900 for married filing jointly.
• A $40,000.00 long-term gain on $30,000.00 of other taxable income is taxed $19,450.00 at 0% and $20,550.00 at 15%.
• A $100,000.00 long-term gain on $520,000.00 of other taxable income reaches 20%, with $25,500.00 at 15% and $74,500.00 at 20%.
• The web address stays on 2026, and the title and the date change when the next revenue procedure is added.

Before you start

Filing status

Filing status is single, married filing jointly, married filing separately, or head of household, and each status has its own ceilings.

Taxable income

Taxable income is income after deductions, and the brackets use that figure before the gain, not total income or adjusted gross income. For 2026 the standard deduction is $16,100.00 single, $32,200.00 married filing jointly, and $24,150.00 head of household, so wages minus that deduction, not the wages themselves, are what stack under the gain.

Tax bracket

A tax bracket is the slice of taxable income that is taxed at one rate.

What are the capital gains tax rates?

A long-term gain is taxed at 0%, 15%, or 20% in 2026, and a short-term gain is taxed at ordinary rates from 10% to 37%, with your other taxable income filling the brackets first so the gain is taxed only on the room that is left.

Single and married filing separately share a $49,450 zero-rate ceiling in 2026. Married filing jointly uses $98,900, and head of household uses $66,200. The 15% ceiling is $545,500 for single, $613,700 for married filing jointly, $306,850 for married filing separately, and $579,600 for head of household.

The start-here guide defines a capital gain, and this page keeps the ceilings.

How do gains stack on top of wages?

On a single return with $30,000.00 of taxable income before the gain, $19,450.00 of a $40,000.00 long-term gain is taxed at 0% and $20,550.00 is taxed at 15%, so federal tax on the gain is $3,082.50 and NIIT is $0.00.

On a single return with $520,000.00 of taxable income before the gain, $25,500.00 of a $100,000.00 long-term gain is taxed at 15% and $74,500.00 is taxed at 20%, so federal tax on the gain is $18,725.00 and NIIT is $3,800.00.

The low sale matches the start-here guide, with a $10,000 purchase on 15 January 2024 and a $50,000 sale on 15 June 2026, quantity 1, while the high sale buys at $100,000 and sells at $200,000 on those same dates, and room under the $545,500 single 15% ceiling is the $25,500 slice taxed at 15%.

Special rates for collectibles, home sales, and small-business stock

Collectibles have a 28% long-term federal ceiling, which is not an automatic 28% bill, and the collectibles guide is the home for that ceiling.

Unrecaptured Section 1250 gain is taxed at up to 25%, and the home sale guide covers depreciation that is not excluded.

For small-business stock, the taxable part of the gain that is not excluded is taxed at up to 28%, and the QSBS calculator carries the acquisition-date limit.

Find the bracket your gain crosses

Start with taxable income before the gain, then see which ceiling the stacked gain crosses on the table for your filing status, using the worked examples as the pattern for a low gain and a gain that reaches 20%.

When taxable income before the gain is already above the 15% ceiling, the whole long-term gain is taxed at 20%, when it sits between the 0% ceiling and the 15% ceiling, the gain is taxed at 15% until it crosses the higher ceiling, and when it sits under the 0% ceiling, the first slice of the gain is taxed at 0% until that ceiling is used up.

Net investment income tax thresholds

The net investment income tax is 3.8% when modified adjusted gross income is over $200,000 for single or head of household, $250,000 for married filing jointly, or $125,000 for married filing separately, and those thresholds are not inflation-adjusted with the brackets.

This page does not compute that tax, the NIIT guide is the home for it, and the source is Topic 559.

State tax when the federal slice is 0%

Many states tax a capital gain even when the federal slice is at 0%, the state overview is the home for those differences, and this page does not paste a 50-state table.

How the ceilings change each year

The 2026 ceilings come from Rev. Proc. 2025-32, the address of this page stays capital-gains-tax-2026, and the title and the last-verified date change when a later revenue procedure is added and the previous year moves into the short prior-year section.

No 2027 inflation procedure was published when this page was checked, Rev. Proc. 2026-32 is an accounting-method procedure rather than the inflation set, and this page does not print 2027 ceilings.

The yearly edit adds the new year to the tables, moves the year that just ended into the short prior-year section, puts the new year in the title and the description, and sets the last-verified date to that edit, while the first published date stays 18 August 2026.

Worksheets and Form 8960

The Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet in the Form 1040 instructions applies when the return has no 28% rate gain and no unrecaptured Section 1250 gain, the Schedule D Tax Worksheet applies instead when either of those is present, and this page does not fill in either worksheet.

Qualified dividends use the same 0%, 15%, and 20% rates as long-term gains, which is why that worksheet is named for them.

Form 8960 is the return for the net investment income tax, so read the NIIT guide before you complete it.

Next, use the calculate guide for the order of the math, the 0% bracket guide for who still has 0% room, and the state overview for the state layer.