2026 standard deduction by filing status
| Filing status | Standard deduction |
|---|---|
| Single | $16,100 |
| Married filing jointly | $32,200 |
| Married filing separately | $16,100 |
| Head of household | $24,150 |
Married filing separately carries the same $16,100 deduction as a single filer rather than half the joint figure. For 2026 those two happen to be the same number, and they would stop being so the moment Congress unlinked them — which is why each page reads it from the rules rather than assuming the relationship holds.
Head of household sits between the two, and has its own eligibility test that nothing on this site can check for you: it requires a qualifying person and more than half the cost of keeping up a home. Choosing it because the arithmetic looks better is how a return gets amended.
Rules reviewed through 2026-08-09. State rules layer on top of these and do not always recognise the same four statuses — a handful publish no separate-return schedule at all, in which case the estimate says so rather than guessing.