Self-Employment Tax Calculator

Self-Employment Tax Calculator

Self-employment tax is 15.3% of your net earnings from self-employment — 12.4% for Social Security plus 2.9% for Medicare. You pay it on 92.35% of your net profit, not the full amount. The calculator above applies the 2026 figures instantly for any profit level, filing status, and any W-2 wages you already earned. All numbers on this page are for the 2026 US tax year and are sourced from the IRS and SSA. Estimates — confirm with your tax professional.

This calculator is for US self-employment tax only. Sole proprietors, single-member LLCs, freelancers, independent contractors, and side-hustlers all report SE tax on Schedule SE. If most of your deductible spend lives in receipts and email you never get around to logging, your net profit — and therefore your SE tax — ends up overstated. A Schedule C expense tracker keeps that number honest.

How self-employment tax is calculated

Self-employment tax replaces the Social Security and Medicare taxes an employer would normally split with you. Because you are both the employer and the employee, you pay both halves. Here is the 2026 math, step by step (source: IRS Schedule SE instructions and SSA):

1. Start with net profit. Your gross self-employment income minus your deductible business expenses.
2. Multiply by 92.35%. You only pay SE tax on 92.35% of net profit — this is the "net earnings from self-employment" step that approximates the employer-side FICA an employee never pays tax on.
3. Apply 12.4% for Social Security on net earnings up to the annual wage base of $184,500 for 2026 (source: SSA 2026 COLA announcement). Earnings above the wage base are not subject to the Social Security portion.
4. Apply 2.9% for Medicare on all net earnings — Medicare has no wage cap.
5. Add them together for your total self-employment tax (12.4% + 2.9% = 15.3% up to the wage base).

The 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax. High earners pay an extra 0.9% Medicare surtax on wages and self-employment income above a statutory threshold: $200,000 for Single or Head of Household, $250,000 for Married filing jointly, and $125,000 for Married filing separately. These thresholds are set by law and are not adjusted for inflation. This surtax is reported on Form 8959 and is separate from your regular SE tax — the calculator shows it as its own line when it applies, and it is not folded into the 15.3% figure or the deductible half. Source: IRS, Topic on Additional Medicare Tax. Estimates — confirm with your tax professional.

How business expenses lower your self-employment tax

Here is the lever most people miss: SE tax is calculated on net profit, not gross income. Every legitimate business expense you capture reduces the profit figure — which lowers both your income tax and your self-employment tax. A deduction is worth more to a self-employed person than to a W-2 employee for exactly this reason.

Worked example. Say you earned $60,000 gross this year and captured $12,000 of legitimate business expenses:

Capturing that $12,000 of spend cuts the SE tax base from $60,000 to $48,000 — roughly $1,696 less SE tax, before you even count the income-tax savings. (Figures rounded; the exact amount depends on your full return. Estimates — confirm with your tax professional.)

This is where ExpenseBot fits. It performs automatic spend capture — pulling deductible expenses straight from your receipts and Gmail into a categorized Google Sheet — so the net-profit number you feed a calculator like this one reflects what you actually spent, not a guess you cobbled together in April. It is not an invoicing suite, and it is not about forecasting; it is about making sure no deductible dollar goes uncounted. See the Schedule C expense tracker and the mileage calculator for two of the biggest deduction categories, plus the home office deduction calculator if you work from home.

The deduction for half your SE tax

After you calculate SE tax, the IRS lets you deduct one-half of it as an above-the-line deduction on your income-tax return. Important nuance: this deduction lowers your income tax, not the SE tax itself — you still owe the full 15.3%, but half of it reduces the income your income tax is calculated on. It is an adjustment to income, so you get it whether or not you itemize. Source: IRS.

The calculator surfaces this as the “Deductible half” line in the results panel. For example, if your estimated SE tax is $6,782, you could deduct about $3,391 against your income for income-tax purposes. Estimates — confirm with your tax professional.

Quarterly estimated payments

Self-employment tax is not withheld from a paycheck the way it is for W-2 employees — you pay it yourself through quarterly estimated tax payments spread across the year (generally due in April, June, September, and January). Your quarterly payments cover both your income tax and your SE tax together. Source: IRS.

Because nothing is withheld for you, the single most useful habit is to set money aside from every payment as it comes in — many self-employed people park a fixed percentage of each deposit in a separate account so the quarterly bill never comes as a surprise. Keeping your expenses captured throughout the year does double duty here: it keeps your net-profit estimate accurate, so the amount you set aside each quarter is closer to what you will actually owe. Estimates — confirm with your tax professional.

Related tools and guides

• Schedule C Expense Tracker — capture every deductible expense so your net profit (and your SE tax) is accurate.
• Mileage Calculator — one of the largest deductions freelancers miss; figure it at the current IRS rate.
• Home Office Deduction Calculator — estimate your home office write-off if you work from home.

Frequently Asked Questions