Income Tax Calculator and Refund Estimator 2025
Estimate your 2025 federal refund or bill using our free income tax calculator. Enter your income, age and filing status to get started.
Tax details
Federal income tax breakdown
For the undefined tax year, we estimate you will get back
$0.00
5.0
NerdWallet rating- Federal: $79 to $139. Free version available for Simple Form 1040 returns only.
- State: $0 to $69 per state.
- Expert help or full service filing is available with an upgrade to Live packages for a fee.
How this federal tax calculator works
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How to fill out your tax details
Tax year: Choose the tax year for which you'd like to calculate your bill. The calculator is automatically set to 2025, which will help you estimate the bill or refund you may receive when you file your taxes in 2026. Toggling between different tax years can also help you compare how your taxes stack up year over year.
Tax filing status: Choose from one of the four tax filing statuses available (single, head of household, married filing separately or married filing jointly). Your filing status helps determine which deductions and credits you can claim.
Annual gross income: In this field, enter your estimated total household income before taxes (also known as your gross income). Include wages from W-2 work, income from 1099 work, tips, commission, and income earned from interest, dividends, investments, rental income, retirement distributions, unemployment compensation and Social Security benefits.
Age: Enter your age. Your age can have an effect on certain tax rules or deductions. For example, people 65 and older get a higher standard deduction.
Standard/itemized deductions: Select either “standard deduction” or “itemized deductions.” Most Americans claim the standard deduction, which we’ve pre-filled. If you’re not one of them, fill in the sum of your itemized deductions. (Exclude 401(k) and traditional IRA contributions.)
Taxes withheld: Enter how much your employer will withhold on your behalf or how much you plan to pay in estimated taxes for the year. If you're unsure, estimate. You will still get insights into how much you may owe.
401(k) contributions: Enter any pre-tax contributions you plan to make to your traditional 401(k) account this year. The maximum 401(k) contribution for 2025 is $23,500 (under the age of 50) and $31,000 (50 and older).
🤓 New in 2025: Thanks to changes ushered in by the Secure 2.0 Act, people ages 60, 61, 62 and 63 can make larger 401(k) catch-up contributions of up to $11,250, for a total of $34,750.
IRA contributions: Enter contributions you plan to make to a traditional IRA. The IRA contribution limit is $7,000 ($8,000 for those 50 and older). You can make a 2025 contribution until the tax filing deadline in April 2026. An important note: Contributing to a traditional IRA may not have any immediate tax benefits if your income exceeds a threshold set by the IRS and you or your spouse is also covered by a 401(k).
Other deductions: In this field, enter any other contribution you plan to make throughout the year not accounted for elsewhere (e.g., HSA or student loan deduction).
Tax credits: Enter how much you expect to claim in tax credits on your return. Common tax credits include the child tax credit, the child and dependent care credit, the earned income credit, the EV credit, and the American opportunity credit.
About this income tax calculator
This estimator takes your gross income and then subtracts applicable deductions and adjustments, such as 401(k) contributions, HSA contributions, and your standard or itemized deductions. This, among other factors, determines your taxable income, or the amount of income subject to tax.
Then, we apply the appropriate tax bracket and rate(s) based on your filing status to calculate what amount in taxes the government expects you to pay. The calculator also takes into account tax credits, which can further reduce your bill.
If you have a simple tax situation and have filled out your W-4 correctly, taxes already withheld from your paychecks might cover that bill for the year. Likewise, if you’re a freelancer or a taxpayer who must pay estimated taxes, payments you made during the year might also cover your bill.
If it turns out that your tax withholding, payments, or any credits you qualify for did not cover your liability, you may need to pay the rest at tax time. If you’ve paid too much, you’ll get a refund.
This estimator assumes:
A standard deduction, but you may change to itemized deductions in the “deductions” section.
Tax credit amounts entered are assumed to be nonrefundable. Although a handful of credits can result in a refund of the overage, we do not account for this in our calculations.
The rules for whether a traditional IRA contribution is tax-deductible are complex, so this calculator assumes your IRA contributions are not tax-deductible if you already contribute to a 401(k).
Numbers entered in the “withheld” field include taxes withheld by your employer and/or any estimated taxes you have paid.
Note that this calculator does not take into account state income taxes, another type of income tax you may have to account for when filing your tax return.
Still need to file?
How tax refunds work
When you file your taxes, you may either get a tax bill or a tax refund. When you receive a refund, this generally means that you overpaid your taxes throughout the previous year and the government is now reimbursing you for that overpayment. This can happen, for example, when your W-4 isn't optimized, leading your employer to withhold too much from your paycheck.
The estimated wait time for the IRS to process your tax return and refund is 21 days for e-filed returns. The wait time can increase if you file by paper. Your refund may also be delayed if the IRS finds an error on your return that needs to be corrected.
IRS acceptance time:
E-filed returns: 24 to 48 hours.
Paper returns: four weeks.
Estimated refund time:
E-filed returns: 21 days.
Paper returns: four-plus weeks.
You can find the status or your tax return and refund directly on the IRS website. Most state websites also have tools for tracking down your state refund.
» Next step: Learn how to track the status of your tax refund
Good to know: The United States taxes income progressively. Generally speaking, this means that your income is divided into portions called brackets, and each portion is taxed at a specific rate. High earners pay more in taxes, as portions of their income are subject to higher tax rates.