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2027 Tax Brackets: Not Yet Announced — How They’ll Be Calculated

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Updated August 10, 2026. Quick answer. The 2027 federal income tax brackets are not officially announced yet — the IRS publishes them via Revenue Procedure in the fourth quarter of 2026, for use on 2027 tax returns filed in 2028. Bracket thresholds and the standard deduction move each year based on chained CPI (C-CPI-U) inflation indexing, a slower-growing index than the standard CPI used for some other federal figures.

What’s actually known right now

The 2027 bracket rates themselves (10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, 37%) are set by statute and are not projected to change — what moves each year is the income threshold where each rate starts to apply, along with the standard deduction. Both are recalculated annually using the C-CPI-U inflation measure from the prior year’s data, a formula that’s public but whose exact 2027 output depends on inflation data not yet fully available at the time this page was written.

Why this uses a different inflation index than Social Security

Social Security’s COLA uses CPI-W; most federal tax figures (brackets, standard deduction, retirement-plan limits) use chained CPI (C-CPI-U), which tends to grow slightly more slowly over time because it accounts for consumers substituting cheaper goods as prices shift. This is a genuinely different calculation, not just a different name for the same number — it’s part of why COLA and tax-bracket adjustments in the same year are rarely identical percentages.

Chained-CPI tax indexing against the Social Security COLA, 2012 to 2026Paired horizontal bars for each year from 2012 to 2026. The upper bar is the chained-CPI measure that adjusts the federal tax brackets, the lower bar the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. The two agree to a tenth of a point in 2 of the 15 years shown, 2014 and 2020, each 0.05 points apart; of the other 13 the tax measure is the smaller in 8 and the larger in 5. The 2027 row is drawn as an empty dashed outline because neither figure has been announced.Two federal inflation adjustments, andhow rarely they agreethe tax measure averages twelve months toAugust 31; the COLA compares one third quarterto anothereach drawn for the year it appliedtax indexing (chained CPI)Social Security COLA (CPI-W)20122.26%3.6%20132.52%1.7%20141.45%1.5%20151.40%1.7%20160.24%0.0%20170.49%0.3%20181.65%2.0%20191.99%2.8%20201.55%1.6%20211.14%1.3%20222.93%5.9%20237.26%8.7%20245.28%3.2%20252.79%2.5%20262.42%2.8%2027neither figure announced0%2%4%6%8%Chained CPI-U and CPI-W monthly index levels, U.S. Bureau ofLabor Statistics public API (series SUUR0000SA0 andCWUR0000SA0); cost-of-living adjustments as published by theSocial Security Administration. Tax measure computed under 26U.S.C. § 1(f)(4) and (f)(6)(B); COLA reproduced under 42U.S.C. § 415(i) and checked against SSA’s published series,17/17. Clear Money Guide, CC BY 4.0.
Rarely identical, and the reason is only half about the index. Over these 15 years the two adjustments matched to a tenth of a point exactly 2 times (2014 and 2020, each 0.05 points apart), and of the other 13 the tax figure was the smaller one in 8 and the larger in 5. The page above gives the index as the reason, and it is a real one: measured on the same calendar, the chained index rose more slowly than CPI-W in 12 of 15 years, by 0.31 points on average. But the two statutes also read the price data on different calendars — 26 U.S.C. § 1(f)(4) averages twelve months to August 31, while 42 U.S.C. § 415(i) compares a single third quarter to another — and holding the index constant, that calendar difference alone moved the answer by 0.58 points on average, roughly twice as much. It is what opens the two widest gaps here: in 2022 the COLA came in at 5.9% against 2.93% of tax indexing, and in 2024 the order reversed as the twelve-month average caught up a year late. Neither 2027 figure exists yet.

The rates are already settled. Only the thresholds are still moving.

That is enough to plan against. A Roth conversion, a deferred bonus or a gain taken in 2027 can be sized today against the 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37% rates the statute already fixes, without waiting for the Revenue Procedure. If you want someone to price that decision against your own income rather than a projection, this is the point to ask.

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The honest timeline

Expect the official 2027 brackets and standard deduction in a Revenue Procedure released in the final months of 2026. This page will be updated with the official figures the day they're published, rather than carrying an unverified "2027 brackets" table months in advance the way some projection sites already do.

The measuring period behind the 2027 tax brackets, and when the announcement has landedA calendar from September 2025 to the end of 2026. The twelve months the statute averages are drawn as cells: 9 filled because their index value is published, one crossed out because the Bureau of Labor Statistics published no value for October 2025, and 2 dashed because they are not yet due. Below, one row per tax year, each with a dot on the date the Internal Revenue Bulletin published that year’s inflation procedure: 14 of the 15 fall between Nov 2 and Dec 3, none in October, and one arrived inside the tax year itself.What has to happen before a 2027 bracketexiststhe twelve months 26 U.S.C. § 1(f)(6)(B)averages, and whether each one's index valueexistsOct 2025Jan 2026Apr 2026Jul 2026Oct 2026opens Sep 1, 2025closes Aug 31, 2026Oct 2025: BLS published no value for thismonth, in any of its three price indexesJul and Aug 2026: not yet due. 9 of the 12months are published.Then the announcement. Below, at a wider scale— September to mid-December only — the bulletinthat published each tax year's inflationprocedure, dated in the calendar year beforethat tax year unless the row says otherwiseSep 1Oct 1Nov 1Dec 120122013arrived Mar 4 of the tax year itself2014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026every one of these 14 fell between Nov 2 andDec 3; none in Octoberthe dashed box is September 2026: § 1(f)(6)(A)fixes the index values on the day BLS firstpublishes the August figureMonth-by-month status from the U.S. Bureau of LaborStatistics public API (chained CPI-U series SUUR0000SA0,corroborated against CPI-W and CPI-U). Publication dates readfrom the masthead of the Internal Revenue Bulletin thatcarried each of the 15 annual inflation-adjustment revenueprocedures, 2011 to 2025. Measuring period and value-fixingrule: 26 U.S.C. § 1(f)(4), (f)(6)(A) and (f)(6)(B). ClearMoney Guide, CC BY 4.0.
The quarter is right; the month is narrower than that. Of the 15 annual inflation procedures on this record, 13 were published in November — between the 2nd and the 29th — one on December 3, and none in October, so “fourth quarter” holds as a quarter while the landing zone in the record is the first four weeks of November. Twice a statute moved it. The 2013 procedure did not arrive until March 4, 2013 — inside the tax year itself — because, as it says, its figures were the ones “specified in the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.” And the 2018 figures were published on November 6, 2017 carrying a $6,500 standard deduction that a law enacted weeks later replaced; the corrected tables came out on March 5, 2018. One caveat the figure carries rather than hides: the exact day the index values are fixed cannot be shown, because BLS's release calendar refuses automated requests and no other primary source for it was read here — so September is drawn as a box, not a date.

Sources

26 U.S.C. §1 (the statutory bracket structure) and the annual inflation-indexing mechanism under 26 U.S.C. §1(f). No 2027 figures have been published by the IRS as of this page's last update.

Every projected figure above is attributed to the organization that published it and is explicitly not yet announced by the government body that sets it. This page will be updated with the official figure the day it is announced, and the projection will be struck through rather than deleted, so the record of what was projected vs. what actually happened stays visible. See the full current-numbers register for every figure this site tracks, dated and sourced. General information, not tax or legal advice.

The 2027 brackets are not announced, and no page can honestly give them yet. For the 2027 figures that are already settled, and the date this one is published, see what is knowable about your 2027.

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