1099 & Self-Employment Tax Calculator 2026

Two taxes, one profit figure

Both taxes start from the same number: your 1099 revenue less your business expenses. Self-employment tax takes a flat 15.3% of 92.35% of that profit. It is the Social Security and Medicare an employer and an employee would split between them, and it has no standard deduction, so it starts well below the point where income tax does.

Income tax is charged on less. Half the self-employment tax comes off first, then the $16,100 standard deduction, then the § 199A deduction of up to 20%, and what remains runs through the 2026 brackets. On the example above, $75,000 of profit leaves $42,881 of taxable income, which is why its income tax of $4,898 is less than half its self-employment tax of $10,598.

The methodology page shows how self-employment tax is calculated, one Schedule SE line at a time.

Business expenses lower both taxes

The expenses field is where your Schedule C deductions go: software, equipment, supplies, a home office, fees you pay other contractors, business mileage. They come off the profit before either tax is worked out, so on the example another $1,000 of expenses would cut the total by $231.

If you drive for work, the business mileage deduction calculator works out that figure at both of the year's rates, and the total goes in the same field.

If you also have a W-2 job

Wages and 1099 profit share one Social Security wage base, $184,500 for 2026, and wages use it up first. Beside a $150,000 salary, $34,500 of it is left, so Social Security tax on the example's profit falls from $8,589 to $4,278. Once wages reach $184,500, 1099 profit owes Medicare and no Social Security tax at all.

Wages also count first toward the Additional Medicare threshold. The same salary puts $19,263 of combined earnings over it and adds $173 of Additional Medicare Tax at 0.9%.

Switch on "I also have W-2 income this year" in the calculator to include a salary. To weigh a salary against contract work instead, compare 1099 and W-2 take-home pay.

1099-NEC or 1099-K: which form you will get

A client who pays you directly reports it on Form 1099-NEC once the year's payments reach $2,000 (26 U.S.C. § 6041(a), as amended by Pub. L. 119-21 § 70433). A client who pays you through a payment app or by card does not: those payments are the app's or the card company's to report, on Form 1099-K (Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC).

An app or online marketplace files a 1099-K for you only when it paid you more than $20,000 across more than 200 payments in the year (26 U.S.C. § 6050W(e), as amended by Pub. L. 119-21 § 70432). Pub. L. 119-21 restored that threshold retroactively, so the lower one set in 2021 never took effect.

Neither form decides what you owe. Income is taxable whether or not a form arrives, so enter what you were paid, not what was reported.

Paying it through the year

The calculator splits the year's total into four payments, due April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15, 2027. How much you must pay by each date to avoid a penalty, and what Form 2210 does, is on the quarterly estimated tax calculator.