Capital Gains Tax Calculator 2026

How to use the capital gains tax calculator

Capital gains tax depends on more than the profit itself. The same $20,000 gain can be taxed at 0%, 15%, 22% or more depending on how long you held the asset and how much other income you have. Enter four things and the calculator does the rest:

1. What you sold and how long you held it. Assets owned more than one year qualify for the lower long-term rates. Collectibles, rental property and your home each have special rules the calculator applies automatically.
2. Sale price, cost basis and selling costs. Your gain is the sale price minus what you paid (your basis) minus commissions and closing costs.
3. Your other taxable income. Long-term gains are “stacked” on top of your wages and other income, so your income decides which rate applies.
4. Filing status and year. These set the standard deduction and the 0/15/20% thresholds.

Open More options to add itemized deductions, a capital loss carryover from earlier years, or a flat state tax rate. Results update as you type and you can share or print them.

Capital gains tax rates for 2026

Long-term capital gains and qualified dividends are taxed at 0%, 15% or 20%. The rate depends on your total taxable income (including the gain), not just the gain. These are the 2026 thresholds published by the IRS:

For comparison, the 2025 thresholds (for returns being filed now) were $48,350 / $533,400 for single filers and $96,700 / $600,050 for married couples filing jointly. Select 2025 in the calculator to use them.

Short-term gains — on assets held one year or less — get no special rate. They are added to your ordinary income and taxed at your regular bracket, from 10% to 37%. See the full bracket tables on our federal income tax calculator.

How capital gains tax is calculated

The key idea is stacking. Your ordinary income fills the brackets first. Your long-term gain sits on top of it, and each slice of the gain is taxed at the rate for the layer it falls in. If your ordinary taxable income is already above the 0% threshold, every dollar of gain is taxed at 15%; if it’s below, part of the gain may be tax-free.

The 3.8% net investment income tax (NIIT) applies when modified AGI exceeds $200,000 (single or head of household), $250,000 (married filing jointly) or $125,000 (married filing separately). These thresholds are fixed by law and are not adjusted for inflation. Gain excluded under the home-sale rule is not subject to NIIT.

Worked example: long-term vs short-term

A single filer earns $70,000 in wages in 2026 and sells shares for a $20,000 profit.

• Ordinary taxable income: $70,000 − $16,100 standard deduction = $53,900. That is already above the $49,450 top of the 0% bracket.
• Held more than a year: the whole $20,000 is taxed at 15% = $3,000.
• Held a year or less: the gain is ordinary income in the 22% bracket = $4,400.
• Waiting past the one-year mark saves $1,400 in federal tax.

A higher earner sees NIIT kick in. A single filer with $180,000 of other income and a $150,000 long-term gain owes about $22,500 of regular capital gains tax plus $4,940 of NIIT, for a total of $27,440 (18.3% of the gain).

Selling your home: the $250,000 / $500,000 exclusion

Under Section 121 you can exclude up to $250,000 of gain ($500,000 if married filing jointly) on the sale of your main home if you owned it and used it as your residence for at least two of the five years before the sale, and haven’t used the exclusion in the past two years. Only the gain above the exclusion is taxable — as a long-term gain if you owned the home for more than a year.

Example: a married couple bought their home for $300,000 (including improvements) and sells it for $900,000. The $600,000 gain is reduced by the $500,000 exclusion, leaving $100,000 taxable. With $150,000 of other income, that $100,000 is taxed at 15% — about $15,000 — and their MAGI of $250,000 doesn’t exceed the NIIT threshold, so NIIT is $0.

Capital losses and the $3,000 limit

If you sell at a loss, losses first offset your capital gains for the year. If losses exceed gains, you can deduct up to $3,000 of net capital loss ($1,500 if married filing separately) against ordinary income such as wages. Anything left over carries forward indefinitely to future years, keeping its short-term or long-term character. Enter a negative result (basis higher than sale price) and the calculator shows the deduction, the tax it saves at your bracket and the amount that carries forward. Enter prior-year carryovers under More options.

Selling losing positions to offset gains is called tax-loss harvesting. Beware the wash-sale rule: if you buy the same or a substantially identical security within 30 days before or after the sale, the loss is disallowed for now and added to the basis of the new shares.

Crypto, rental property and collectibles

• Cryptocurrency is property. Selling, swapping one coin for another, or spending crypto are all taxable events, taxed under the same short- and long-term rules as stocks. Brokers report sales on Form 1099-DA starting with 2025 transactions.
• Rental real estate: the gain attributable to depreciation you claimed is “unrecaptured §1250 gain,” taxed at ordinary rates up to 25%. The rest is a regular long-term gain. Choose “Rental / investment real estate” and enter the depreciation taken. A 1031 exchange can defer the entire gain.
• Collectibles — art, antiques, coins, stamps, gold and silver bullion and many precious-metal ETFs — are taxed at ordinary rates but no more than 28% when held over a year.

How to reduce capital gains tax

1. Hold for more than a year so gains qualify for the 0/15/20% rates.
2. Use the 0% bracket. In a low-income year — between jobs, early retirement, a sabbatical — you may be able to realize gains tax-free up to the 0% threshold.
3. Harvest losses to offset gains and up to $3,000 of ordinary income.
4. Lower your taxable income with pre-tax 401(k) and HSA contributions, which can pull more of your gain into a lower rate.
5. Donate appreciated stock held over a year to charity: you avoid the gain and may deduct the full market value if you itemize.
6. Spread large sales over two tax years, or use an installment sale for real estate or a business.
7. Hold until death: heirs generally receive a stepped-up basis, wiping out the built-in gain.

Self-employed and selling business assets too? Run your full return through the federal income tax calculator, and check whether you need to make a quarterly estimated payment for the quarter of the sale — large gains are a common cause of underpayment penalties. Our quarterly taxes guide explains the safe-harbor rules.