What is the Social Security wage base for 2026?
It is $184,500 for 2026. The 12.4% social security part of self-employment tax applies only to the first $184,500 of net earnings; above that line only the 2.9% Medicare part continues, and it has no ceiling at all. The figure is the SSA contribution and benefit base for the year.
United States · federal · tax year 2026 · every figure from an open dataset with its source
The figures
| Figure | Amount |
|---|---|
| Social security wage base | $184,500 |
| Social security (OASDI) rate | 12.4% |
| Share of profit that counts as net earnings | 92.35% |
| Most social security tax anyone can owe for the year computed | $22,878 |
| Profit at which net earnings reach the base computed | $199,783 |
Net earnings are not profit: Schedule SE takes 92.35% of profit first. So for a self-employed person the ceiling bites at about $199,783 of profit rather than at $184,500 of profit — a gap of thousands of dollars that matters if you are planning payments around it. Once you are over the line, the most social security tax you can owe for the whole year is $22,878.
Two of those figures are our arithmetic and are marked as such in the table: the ceiling on the tax is the base times the rate, and the profit level that reaches it is the base divided by the 92.35% factor. Nobody publishes either. Wages from a job also use up the same base before self-employment income touches it, which is a calculation this page does not do.
Where these figures come from
Each row below is one line of our open dataset: the primary document the figure was read out of, the date it was read, and a link to the document itself. Nothing here was copied from a summary of a summary.
| constant | basis | source document | verified on |
|---|---|---|---|
ss_wage_base_2026 |
indexed | SSA Office of the Chief Actuary, Contribution and benefit bases, 1937-2026 | ✓ verified |
oasdi_rate |
statutory | Schedule SE (Form 1040), rev. 2025 — the latest revision published, line 10 | ✓ verified |
se_net_earnings_factor |
statutory | Schedule SE (Form 1040), rev. 2025 — the latest revision published, Part I line 4a | ✓ verified |
Work out your own
Knowing the limit is half of it. These calculators apply the same figures to your numbers, in your browser, and show the working line by line.
The whole dataset
Every figure on this page, and everything around it, as a table you can read and as CSV and JSON you can download. Public domain, no attribution required.
Nearby answers
This is a reference table, not tax advice. Verify any figure against the linked primary document before relying on it.
