Schedule SE
2026 Self-Employment Tax Calculator
Working for yourself does not remove payroll tax; it moves the whole bill onto you. The self-employed pay both the employee and employer halves in one calculation, which is why the combined rate looks so much larger than what appears on a paycheck.
The calculation does not start from net profit directly. Schedule SE first multiplies profit by 92.35%, a factor that mirrors the way the employer half of payroll tax is excluded from an employee's taxable wages. Enter net profit and the tool applies that factor, then splits the result between the Social Security and Medicare components.
Calculator
Official 2026 figures used here
| Net profit | Subject to SE tax | Social Security 12.4% | Medicare | Total SE tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $20,000 | $18,470 | $2,290 | $536 | $2,826 |
| $60,000 | $55,410 | $6,871 | $1,607 | $8,478 |
| $100,000 | $92,350 | $11,451 | $2,678 | $14,130 |
| $200,000 | $184,700 | $22,878 | $5,356 | $28,234 |
| $300,000 | $277,050 | $22,878 | $8,728 | $31,606 |
How to read the result
The 92.35% factor is the most misunderstood step in the whole calculation. Multiplying profit by 0.9235 removes the employer-equivalent portion before rates are applied, so the self-employed are not taxed on money they never received. Skipping that step overstates the bill by roughly 7.65% of profit.
The Social Security component is capped by the same $184,500 wage base that applies to wages, but here the cap applies to the 92.35% figure rather than to profit itself. At $200,000 of profit the base is $184,700, so the 12.4% portion has effectively topped out on all but a few hundred dollars of it. Every dollar of profit above that point attracts Medicare only.
One half of the self-employment tax is deductible against income tax, and the deduction is available without itemizing. It does not reduce the self-employment tax itself; it reduces the income tax base. The two systems interact but are computed separately, which is why a single profit figure produces two different liabilities that must be tracked independently.
The $400 threshold is a genuine cutoff rather than a formality. Below it no self-employment tax is due at all, and above it the tax applies from the first dollar of the 92.35% base rather than only to the excess. Optional methods exist for very small or loss-making businesses to preserve Social Security coverage, and those are outside what this tool computes.
Questions people ask about this figure
Do I pay both halves of Social Security tax?
Yes. The 12.4% Social Security rate and the 2.9% Medicare rate each represent the combined employee and employer share. An employee pays 6.2% and 1.45% because the employer pays the other half.
Is half of self-employment tax really deductible?
Yes. One half is deductible in computing adjusted gross income, so it reduces income tax without itemized deductions. It does not reduce the self-employment tax itself.
What counts as net profit here?
Business income after ordinary and necessary expenses, before the self-employment tax deduction and before the standard deduction. It is the Schedule C bottom line, not gross receipts.
Related calculators
Every figure on this page appears in the official release listed below. The values were checked against those pages on 2026-11-14. Where a release states a threshold but does not publish a rate, this site reports the threshold and does not estimate the missing value.
- IRS: Self-employment tax — Topic no. 554
- SSA: Contribution and benefit base — SSA automatic determination table
- IRS: Additional Medicare tax — Topic no. 560