IRS 2027 inflation adjustments are out: every figure, checked

The IRS released the official 2027 inflation adjustments on Thursday, November 5, 2026, in Revenue Procedure 2026-35. This page had carried the projected figures since September, worked out from the statute and the published price index with both possible treatments of the missing October 2025 index shown side by side. Almost every figure came out exactly as projected, in the eleven-month column. The revenue procedure also settled the two questions this page had left open, and it shows a change of method that nobody had flagged in advance. Five figures differ from our projection, and each difference is explained below.

What Rev. Proc. 2026-35 settled

October 2025 was left out. The IRS averaged the eleven monthly index values that exist and did not estimate the missing one. Every figure that depended on that choice matches the eleven-month column below: the top of the 37 percent bracket for joint filers is $793,650 (the imputed reading gave $792,650), the 0 percent capital gains band ends at $102,100 (not $101,950), the foreign earned income exclusion is $137,300 (not $137,100) and the adoption credit is $18,250 (not $18,220). The IRS made the same choice as the Department of Health and Human Services, which left October out of the 2026 poverty guidelines, and the opposite one to Treasury, which estimated October 2025 at 325.604 for its inflation-protected securities.

The 2025 divisor is the revised one. Since the 2025 tax law, a few amounts start from a 2025 base: the $15 million estate and gift exclusion, the $1 million AMT exemption phase-out threshold and the section 1202 caps on small business stock gains. Their 2027 value is the base multiplied by the 2026 window average divided by the 2025 one, and the chained index that BLS publishes is revised after its first release. The IRS divided by the revised 2025 average, 177.206, not the 177.11 it had used to set the 2026 figures. That gives an estate exclusion of $15,480,000 (we had shown $15,490,000 as central, inside a $15.46 to $15.49 million range) and an AMT phase-out threshold of $1,031,900 for joint filers and $515,950 for everyone else (we had projected $1,032,400 and $516,200). The section 1202 caps, indexed for the first time, become $15,480,000 and $77,390,000.

The increase is rounded, not the total. The Code’s indexing clauses round the increase. For the standard deduction, section 63(c)(7)(B)(ii) reads: “If any increase under this clause is not a multiple of $50, such increase shall be rounded to the next lowest multiple of $50.” For the long-term care limits, section 213(d)(10)(B)(ii) says the same with $10. When the base is a round number, rounding the increase and rounding the total give the same answer. When it is not, they differ, and Rev. Proc. 2026-35 applies the text literally where Rev. Proc. 2025-32 rounded the total. Three 2027 figures show it:

Figure	Statutory base	Unrounded 2027	Increase, rounded	Official 2027	Rounding the total
Head-of-household standard deduction	$23,625	$24,969	$1,344 → $1,300	$24,925	$24,950
Long-term care premium limit, ages 41–50	$375	$943.65	$568.65 → $570	$945	$940
Long-term care per diem limit	$175	$440.37	$265.37 → $270	$445	$440

The 2026 figures show the old method: $24,150, $930 and $430, where rounding the increase would have produced $24,125, $935 and $435. Every other amount in the tables below starts from a base that is already a multiple of its rounding step, which is why the change does not touch them.

The scorecard. Of the figures this page projected and the revenue procedure prints, all but five are exact to the dollar: the twelve bracket thresholds for joint and single filers, the single and joint standard deduction, the FSA cap and carryover, the gift exclusions, the capital gains bands, the foreign earned income exclusion (which cleared its $100 step by $8.80), the transit limit, the child tax credit, the earned income credit maximums, the adoption credit, the QBI thresholds, the section 179 limits, the trust brackets, the exit tax thresholds, the excess business loss limit, the QSEHRA caps, the $5,400 educational assistance exclusion and the $2,100 information-return threshold. The five misses are the head-of-household deduction and the two long-term care figures (rounding method), and the estate exclusion and AMT phase-out (divisor). The retirement-plan limits, the Roth and IRA ranges and the Medicare IRMAA tiers are not in the revenue procedure; they remain projections until the IRS notice and the CMS announcement.

The rest of this page keeps the analysis as it stood before the release, with the official figure added next to each projection.

How the projection was built

The Bureau of Labor Statistics published the August 2026 Consumer Price Index on Friday, September 11, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. For most people it was one more inflation headline. For a specific list of 2027 tax numbers it was the closing bell: the law defines the inflation adjustment as an average of twelve monthly index values ending in August, and August was the twelfth. With that figure in the database, the 2027 tax brackets, the standard deduction, the health FSA cap, the annual gift exclusion, the estate exemption and the Medicare IRMAA thresholds are no longer forecasts. They are arithmetic waiting for the IRS and the Social Security Administration to type them up, which they will do sometime between mid-October and November.

The chained index came in at 185.739, up 0.31 percent from July and the first monthly rise since May. That single reading did what this page said it would do on September 6: it lifted most bracket thresholds one $50 step above the flat-August projection, pushed two IRMAA tiers over their rounding lines, and left the gift exclusion, the FSA cap and the single standard deduction exactly where they were already headed. One ambiguity survives the release, because one of the twelve months does not exist at all: the government was shut when it should have been measured, and nobody in Washington has said how the gap will be handled. This page tracks all of it, with the statute, the data, and a check that the method reproduces the 2026 figures the IRS actually published.

The statute picks the window, not the IRS

The core rule is in 26 U.S.C. §1(f). Paragraph (3) defines the cost-of-living adjustment as the percentage by which “the C-CPI-U for the preceding calendar year” exceeds the index for a base year, and paragraph (6) defines that measure precisely: “The C-CPI-U for any calendar year is the average of the C-CPI-U as of the close of the 12-month period ending on August 31 of such calendar year.” For tax year 2027 the preceding calendar year is 2026, so the window runs from September 2025 through August 2026. The index is the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, BLS series SUUR0000SA0, which the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act substituted for the regular CPI-U in 2018 because it grows a little more slowly.

Each dollar amount then has its own base year and its own rounding rule, and the differences matter at the margin:

Item	Statute	Base year substituted	Rounding
Bracket thresholds where the 22 % bracket and higher end	§1(j)(3)(B)(i)	2017	Down to $50 ($25 single and MFS)
Top of the 10 % and 12 % brackets	§1(j)(3)(B)(i), as amended by OBBBA	2016	Down to $50 ($25 single and MFS)
Standard deduction ($15,750 single, $23,625 HoH; joint is double the single figure)	§63(c)(7)	2024	Increase down to $50
Health FSA salary-reduction cap ($2,500)	§125(i)	2012	Down to $50
Annual gift exclusion ($10,000)	§2503(b)(2)	1997	Down to $1,000
Estate and gift basic exclusion ($15,000,000)	§2010(c)(3)(B)	2025	Nearest $10,000
Roth IRA and IRA deduction phase-out ranges	§408A(c)(3)(D), §219(g)(8)	2005	Nearest $1,000
Medicare IRMAA thresholds ($85,000 / $107,000 / $133,500 / $160,000)	42 U.S.C. §1395r(i)(5)	12 months ending August 2018, regular CPI-U	Nearest $1,000

Two footnotes to that table. First, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act gave the 10 percent and 12 percent brackets an extra year of inflation by moving their base year back to 2016 while leaving the higher brackets on 2017; that is why the top of the 12 percent bracket grew faster than the rest in the 2026 tables. Second, for base years before 2017 the statute splices the old CPI-U series onto the chained one: §1(f)(3)(B) multiplies the base-year CPI by the ratio of the 2016 chained index to the 2016 regular index, which works out to 0.5698. That is how a 1997 base, a 2005 base and a 2012 base can be compared with a 2026 chained-index reading.

Equally important is what is not in this window. The 401(k) deferral limit uses the third-quarter average of the regular CPI-U under §415(d), and the September print of October 14 closed that window; our 2027 401(k) and IRA projection shows the result, a 401(k) limit of $25,500 determined by a third-quarter average of 335.279 against a threshold of 334.67. The IRA contribution limit is not on that clock; it follows the August window of this page, and projects to $7,500. The Social Security COLA uses the third-quarter CPI-W, tracked on the 2027 COLA page, and the figures the SSA indexes to wages rather than prices, from the quarter of coverage to the earnings test, have their own 2027 Social Security figures tracker. The 2027 HSA limits were published by the IRS in May, because §223(g) uses a twelve-month period ending in March. This page covers the September-to-August family only, and one member of that family that is easy to miss: the Roth IRA and IRA deduction phase-out ranges share the window and the base-year splice, so the August print settled them too. They have their own page, the 2027 Roth IRA and IRA deduction phase-outs, which runs the same check against the 2026 figures.

Checking the method against the 2026 numbers

A projection method is worth exactly as much as its ability to reproduce a number that is already public. Rev. Proc. 2025-32, released October 9, 2025, set the 2026 figures. Running the statute on the September 2024 to August 2025 window reproduces every one of them, with one instructive wrinkle.

The chained-index values BLS publishes today for that window average 177.206. Using that figure, the 2026 bracket thresholds come out one $50 step too high in most cases. Using 177.11 instead, every threshold in the revenue procedure appears exactly, across all three filing-status tables:

2026, married filing jointly	Rev. Proc. 2025-32	Method, window average 177.11
10 % bracket ends	$24,800	$24,800
12 % bracket ends	$100,800	$100,800
22 % bracket ends	$211,400	$211,400
24 % bracket ends	$403,550	$403,550
32 % bracket ends	$512,450	$512,450
35 % bracket ends	$768,700	$768,700
Standard deduction (single / joint / HoH)	$16,100 / $32,200 / $24,150	$16,100 / $32,200 / $24,150
Health FSA cap	$3,400	$3,400
Annual gift exclusion	$19,000	$19,000

The reason for the wrinkle is that BLS revises the chained index for roughly a year after first publication, and the IRS evidently uses whatever values are in hand when it writes the revenue procedure in September. The values it used in September 2025 were about 0.05 percent lower than the revised ones the database shows now. The lesson for 2027 is that the IRS will use the “initial” and “interim” values BLS published through September 11, not the finals that will replace them next February, and those are the values this page uses. The single-filer table, with its $25 rounding, and the head-of-household table reproduce the same way.

The IRMAA check is cleaner because the regular CPI-U is not revised. The twelve months ending August 2025 average 319.205, the August 2018 base window averages 249.280, and applying that ratio to $85,000, $107,000, $133,500 and $160,000 and rounding to the nearest $1,000 gives $109,000, $137,000, $171,000 and $205,000, which are exactly the 2026 thresholds CMS announced on November 19, 2025.

The data: twelve months, eleven values

Here is the closed 2027 window, from the BLS public API, series SUUR0000SA0 for the chained index and CUUR0000SA0 for the regular one:

Month	C-CPI-U	CPI-U (NSA)
September 2025	180.373	324.800
October 2025	not published	not published
November 2025	179.889	324.122
December 2025	179.775	324.054
January 2026	180.409	325.252
February 2026	181.258	326.785
March 2026	183.193	330.213
April 2026	184.680	333.020
May 2026	185.771	335.123
June 2026	185.172	333.952
July 2026	185.162	333.918
August 2026	185.739	334.980
Eleven-month average	182.8565	329.6563

The eleven published chained values average 182.8565, which is 1.3446 times the 2016 base window (135.993) and 1.3228 times the 2017 base window (138.237). Those two factors, applied to the dollar amounts written into §1(j)(2) in 2017, produce the 2027 brackets. The window runs 3.24 percent above the 177.11 that set the 2026 numbers, noticeably more than the 2.4 percent that separated 2026 from 2025.

Notice how little and how much August did. Because it was one of eleven months, a rise of 0.31 percent moved the window average by only 0.03 percent, from the 182.804 a flat month would have produced to 182.857. But so many thresholds were sitting within a single rounding step of the line that 0.03 percent was enough: four of the six joint bracket tops moved up one step from the projection this page carried a week ago, the second and third IRMAA tiers crossed to the next $1,000, and the estate exemption gained $20,000. What August could not do, and did not, was move the gift exclusion, the FSA cap or the single standard deduction, each of which needed a monthly swing several times larger.

The month that never happened

The government shutdown of October and November 2025 stopped price collection between October 1 and November 12. BLS resumed with the November index and has said it will not publish an October 2025 CPI. The public data series simply skips from September to November, for the chained index and the regular one alike.

The statute, though, says “the average of the C-CPI-U as of the close of the 12-month period ending on August 31.” It does not say what to do when one of the twelve is missing, and neither the IRS nor the Social Security Administration has issued guidance. The Treasury faced the same problem first, for inflation-protected securities, and on November 26, 2025 it invoked the index-contingency clause in its offering circular and announced an October 2025 figure of 325.604 for the regular CPI-U, adding that it “will not replace this index number even if BLS subsequently reports actual CPI for October 2025.” That number binds Treasury’s bond payments. It does not bind the IRS. A second agency has since gone the other way. When the Department of Health and Human Services updated the poverty guidelines in January 2026, it averaged only the eleven available months of 2025 and left October out, a choice it states on its poverty guidelines page and in its computation table (a 2025 CPI-U average of 321.943). So the two federal precedents point in opposite directions, and neither settles what the IRS will do (how that eleven-month choice carries into the 2027 poverty guidelines).

Two readings are defensible. One is to average the eleven months that exist. The other is to fill the gap with an estimate, as Treasury did; for the chained index the natural estimate is the midpoint of September and November, 180.131. Because October 2025 sat well below the spring and summer readings, including it pulls the average down, from 182.8565 to 182.6293, and the regular CPI-U window from 329.656 to 329.319. That is a difference of 0.12 percent, and here is what 0.12 percent does on the closed window:

2027 figure	Eleven-month average	October imputed	Official (Rev. Proc. 2026-35)
Top of 37 % bracket, joint	$793,650	$792,650	$793,650
Top of 12 % bracket, joint	$104,050	$103,900	$104,050
Top of 10 % bracket, joint	$25,600	$25,550	$25,600
Head-of-household standard deduction	$24,950	$24,900	$24,925 (new rounding method)
Estate exemption	$15,490,000	$15,470,000	$15,480,000 (revised 2025 divisor)
Second IRMAA tier, single	$142,000	$141,000	CMS, not yet published
Third IRMAA tier, single	$177,000	$176,000	CMS, not yet published
Fourth IRMAA tier, single	$212,000	$211,000	CMS, not yet published
Roth IRA phase-out starts, joint	$250,000	$249,000	IRS notice, not yet published
Gift exclusion, FSA cap, single standard deduction, first IRMAA tier	unchanged	unchanged	$20,000, $3,500, $16,600 as projected; IRMAA pending

The gap is not large in dollar terms, but it is systematic: every bracket threshold moves down by one step under the imputed reading, and the highest thresholds move by several. The revenue procedure matched the eleven-month column on every bracket threshold, which tells us how the IRS read the statute. The Medicare IRMAA tiers are set by the Social Security Administration and CMS, so the IRS choice does not bind them, though it is the most direct precedent they have.

What August settled

With the window closed, the test for each figure is no longer what the next month might do but simply which side of a rounding line the final average landed on, and by how much.

The annual gift exclusion goes to $20,000. The unrounded 2027 figure is $20,119, against a rounding floor of $20,000; the imputed reading gives $20,094. The 2026 figure had been stuck at $19,000 because the unrounded amount was about $19,490, just short of the line, and rounding down erased almost $500 of accumulated inflation. That backlog is what makes 2027 the year it finally clears, and no treatment of October can undo it. For married couples using gift splitting, $40,000 per recipient; our Form 709 gift-splitting guide covers the filing side.

The health FSA cap goes to $3,500, and the carryover to $700. Unrounded, $3,516; floor, $3,500. The $3,550 step would have needed a window average above 184.6, which was never within reach. The carryover maximum is 20 percent of the cap under Notice 2020-33, so $700. Rev. Proc. 2026-35, section 3.16, confirms both: $3,500 and $700. The FSA limit page has the plan-year details.

The standard deduction: $16,600 single, $33,200 joint, and a head-of-household figure that depends on October. The 2024 base is 173.016, so the factor is 1.0569 and the unrounded single amount is $16,646, about $4 short of the $16,650 step. Moving up would have required an August chained index of 186.245; it printed 185.739. The joint figure is fixed by statute at twice the single one. The head-of-household number is $24,950 on the eleven-month average (unrounded $24,969) and $24,900 with October imputed (unrounded $24,938), so it is the one standard-deduction figure that waits for the revenue procedure. Official: $24,925. The IRS used the eleven-month average but rounded the $1,344 increase down to $1,300 instead of rounding the total, as explained at the top of this page.

The IRMAA tiers, and thirty-one cents. The regular CPI-U window averages 329.656, the factor over the 2018 base is 1.32243, and the four indexed thresholds come out at $112,407, $141,500, $176,545 and $211,589 before rounding, which is $112,000, $142,000, $177,000 and $212,000 after it. The second tier deserves a closer look: $107,000 times the factor is $141,500.31. It rounds up to $142,000 by thirty-one cents on a threshold of a hundred and forty-two thousand dollars. Had the August CPI-U printed 334.97 instead of 334.98, the tier would have stayed at $141,000. Under the October-imputed reading it does stay there, at $141,355 unrounded, and the third and fourth tiers drop to $176,000 and $211,000 as well. The first tier, $112,000 single and $224,000 joint, is safe under either reading and is the one that matters to the most people, since it is where the surcharge begins. The $500,000 single and $750,000 joint tier is not indexed at all until 2028. Our IRMAA projection page puts the surcharge amounts against these thresholds and flags the second tier as the number to check when CMS publishes in November.

Every bracket threshold. On the eleven-month average the joint table reads $25,600, $104,050, $218,250, $416,650, $529,100 and $793,650 for the tops of the 10 through 35 percent brackets; the single-filer table reads $12,800, $52,025, $109,125, $208,325, $264,550 and $661,375. Compared with the flat-August projection published here on September 6, the 12, 22, 24, 32 and 35 percent joint thresholds each moved up one or more $50 steps and the 10 percent threshold held at $25,600. The brackets and standard deduction page carries all three filing-status tables with both October readings side by side.

The estate exemption. $15,000,000 times the ratio of the 2026 window to the 2025 window, rounded to the nearest $10,000. Two things remain unsettled rather than three: the October treatment, and whether the IRS divides by the 2025 average it used last year (177.11) or the revised figure BLS shows now (177.206). Eleven months over 177.11 gives $15,486,685, or $15,490,000; over 177.206, $15,478,310, or $15,480,000. The imputed window gives $15,470,000 and $15,460,000 on the same two divisors. It is a $30,000 range on a $15 million number, which is to say it does not change anyone’s planning. Official: $15,480,000, the eleven-month window over the revised 177.206. The estate and gift page explains why the sunset that would have mattered never came.

The AMT. The alternative minimum tax exemption ($109,400 joint and $70,300 single in 2017 dollars) and its phase-out threshold are indexed the same way, and 2027 is the first year the new $1,000,000 phase-out threshold moves: it is multiplied by the ratio of the 2026 window to the 2025 window and rounded to $100. The method reproduces the four 2026 AMT figures on the draft Form 6251 exactly; for 2027 it gives an exemption of $144,700 joint and $93,000 single and a phase-out starting at $1,032,400 joint and $516,200 for everyone else (eleven-month reading). Official (Rev. Proc. 2026-35, section 3.11): exemptions $144,700 and $93,000 as projected, but the phase-out starts at $1,031,900 joint and $515,950 for everyone else, because the IRS divided by the revised 2025 index (177.206) rather than 177.11. Both readings and the line-by-line form are in Form 6251 2026 draft: the AMT exemption now phases out at $500,000.

The 2027 tables as they stand

The official figures from Rev. Proc. 2026-35 are now in the third column. Items the revenue procedure does not cover (Medicare IRMAA, the Roth ranges, the 401(k) and IRA limits) keep their projection and say where the official number will come from.

Item	2026 (official)	2027	Status
Standard deduction, single and MFS	$16,100	$16,600	Official, as projected
Standard deduction, joint	$32,200	$33,200	Official, as projected
Standard deduction, head of household	$24,150	$24,925	Official; we projected $24,950 (rounding method)
Health FSA cap / carryover	$3,400 / $680	$3,500 / $700	Official, as projected
Annual gift exclusion	$19,000	$20,000	Official, as projected
Estate and gift exemption	$15,000,000	$15,480,000	Official; we projected $15,490,000 in a $15.46 to $15.49 million range (divisor)
IRMAA tier 1, single / joint	$109,000 / $218,000	$112,000 / $224,000	Projected; CMS in November
IRMAA tier 2, single / joint	$137,000 / $274,000	$142,000 / $284,000 ($141,000 / $282,000 if October imputed)	Projected, on the line; CMS in November
IRMAA tier 3, single / joint	$171,000 / $342,000	$177,000 / $354,000 ($176,000 / $352,000 if October imputed)	Projected; CMS in November
IRMAA tier 4, single / joint	$205,000 / $410,000	$212,000 / $424,000 ($211,000 / $422,000 if October imputed)	Projected; CMS in November
IRMAA top tier, single / joint	$500,000 / $750,000	$500,000 / $750,000	Fixed by statute
Roth IRA phase-out, single	$153,000 to $168,000	$158,000 to $173,000	Projected; IRS notice
Roth IRA phase-out, joint	$242,000 to $252,000	$250,000 to $260,000 ($249,000 to $259,000 if October imputed)	Projected; IRS notice
HSA, self-only / family	$4,400 / $8,750	$4,500 / $9,000	Official (Rev. Proc. 2026-24)
401(k) deferral / catch-up 50+ / IRA	$24,500 / $8,000 / $7,500	$25,500 / $8,500 / $7,500	401(k) and catch-up determined by the Q3 CPI average (335.279); IRA projected under §1(f)(3) (August window, 2007 base, rounded down to $500), unchanged; IRS notice
Social Security COLA	2.8 %	3.6 %	Official (SSA, October 14)

The joint bracket tops, against the 2026 official table:

Bracket ends	2026 (official)	2027, eleven-month average	2027, October imputed	2027 official
10 %	$24,800	$25,600	$25,550	$25,600
12 %	$100,800	$104,050	$103,900	$104,050
22 %	$211,400	$218,250	$217,950	$218,250
24 %	$403,550	$416,650	$416,150	$416,650
32 %	$512,450	$529,100	$528,450	$529,100
35 %	$768,700	$793,650	$792,650	$793,650

And the single-filer tops, where the statute rounds to $25 rather than $50:

Bracket ends	2027, eleven-month average	2027, October imputed	2027 official
10 %	$12,800	$12,775	$12,800
12 %	$52,025	$51,950	$52,025
22 %	$109,125	$108,975	$109,125
24 %	$208,325	$208,075	$208,325
32 %	$264,550	$264,225	$264,550
35 %	$661,375	$660,550	$661,375

For heads of household the official tops are $18,250, $69,650, $109,100, $208,300, $264,550 and $661,350; for married filing separately they match the single table up to the 32 percent bracket, and the 35 percent bracket ends at $396,825. The brackets and standard deduction page has all four filing statuses.

More figures on the same clock

The same window drives a longer list of amounts that the revenue procedure prints further down its pages. Each has its own base year and its own rounding rule in the Code. Before trusting the arithmetic, we checked it against the 2026 edition. The first eighteen 2026 figures from Rev. Proc. 2025-32 that went into the table below are all reproduced by a single window average between 177.1105 and 177.1135, the same 177.11 that passes the bracket check earlier on this page, and every row added since was checked against its own 2026 figure on its dedicated page before it went in. The 2027 results, with the official figure in the last column. Every row the revenue procedure covers matches the eleven-month projection except long-term care, in bold, where the new rounding of the increase moves two of the six amounts by $5:

Item	Statute (base year, rounding)	2026 (official)	2027, eleven-month average	2027, October imputed	2027 official (Rev. Proc. 2026-35)
Long-term capital gains 0 % rate, joint / single / HoH (single is half the joint figure)	§1(j)(5) (2017, down to $50)	$98,900 / $49,450 / $66,200	$102,100 / $51,050 / $68,350	$101,950 / $50,975 / $68,300	$102,100 / $51,050 / $68,350 (§3.03)
Long-term capital gains 15 % rate ends, joint / single / HoH	§1(j)(5) (2017, down to $50)	$613,700 / $545,500 / $579,600	$633,600 / $563,200 / $598,400	$632,800 / $562,500 / $597,650	$633,600 / $563,200 / $598,400 (§3.03)
Foreign earned income exclusion	§911(b)(2)(D) (2004, down to $100)	$132,900	$137,300	$137,100	$137,300 (§3.41)
Transit and parking fringe, per month	§132(f)(6) (1997, down to $5)	$340	$350	$350	$350 (§3.18)
Dependent standard deduction floor / earned-income add-on (kiddie tax bands follow the floor)	§63(c)(5) (1987 and 1997, down to $50)	$1,350 / $450	$1,400 / $500	$1,400 / $500	$1,400 / $500 (§3.15)
Additional standard deduction, aged or blind (married / unmarried)	§63(f) (1987, down to $50)	$1,650 / $2,050	$1,700 / $2,100	$1,700 / $2,100	$1,700 / $2,100 (§3.15)
Adoption credit maximum / phase-out start	§23(h) (2001, nearest $10)	$17,670 / $265,080	$18,250 / $273,680	$18,220 / $273,340	$18,250 / $273,680 (§3.04)
Gifts to a non-citizen spouse	§2523(i) (1997, down to $1,000)	$194,000	$201,000	$200,000	$201,000 (§3.46)
Educator expense deduction	§62(d)(3) (2014, nearest $50)	$350	$350	$350	$350 (§3.13)
Savings bond interest exclusion for education, phase-out start, single / joint	§135(b)(2) (1989, nearest $50)	$101,800 / $152,650	$105,100 / $157,600	$104,950 / $157,400	$105,100 / $157,600 (§3.19)
Qualified charitable distribution limit / one-time split-interest limit	§408(d)(8)(G) (2022, nearest $1,000)	$111,000 / $55,000	$114,000 / $57,000	$114,000 / $57,000	Not in the Rev. Proc.; IRS notice
Information-return threshold (Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC, backup withholding)	§6041(h) (2025, increase to nearest $100)	$2,000 (first year, not indexed)	$2,100	$2,100	$2,100 (§3.52)
Employer educational assistance exclusion (tuition and student loan payments combined)	§127(d) (2025, increase to nearest $50)	$5,250 (unchanged since 1986, not indexed)	$5,400	$5,400	$5,400 (§3.17)
Qualified long-term care distribution cap (details)	§401(a)(39)(B)(ii) (2023, increase to nearest $100)	$2,600 (Notice 2026-33)	$2,700	$2,700	Not in the Rev. Proc.; IRS notice
Child tax credit per child / refundable maximum	§24(i) (2024 and 2017, increase down to $100)	$2,200 / $1,700	$2,300 / $1,800	$2,300 / $1,800	$2,300 / $1,800 (§3.05)
ABLE account annual contribution limit	§529A(b)(2)(B)(i) through §2503(b) (1996, down to $1,000)	$20,000	$20,000	$20,000	$20,000 (§3.36)
Saver’s Credit AGI limits, joint, 50 % / 20 % / 10 % (ABLE contributions only from 2027)	§25B(b)(3) (2005, increase to nearest $500)	$48,500 / $52,500 / $80,500	$50,000 / $54,000 / $83,000	$50,000 / $54,000 / $83,000	Not in the Rev. Proc.; IRS notice
Earned income credit, maximum with 1 / 2 / 3+ children / none	§32(j) (1995, nearest $10 on the underlying amounts)	$4,427 / $7,316 / $8,231 / $664	$4,573 / $7,552 / $8,496 / $685	$4,566 / $7,544 / $8,487 / $685	$4,573 / $7,552 / $8,496 / $685 (§3.06)
Earned income credit, investment income limit	§32(j) (2020, down to $50)	$12,200	$12,600	$12,600	$12,600 (§3.06)
Student loan interest deduction, phase-out start single / joint	§221(f) (2001, down to $5,000)	$85,000 / $175,000	$90,000 / $180,000	$90,000 / $180,000	$90,000 / $180,000 (§3.31)
Adoption credit, refundable portion	§23(h)(3) (2024, nearest $10)	$5,120	$5,280	$5,280	$5,280 (§3.04)
QBI deduction threshold, single / joint	§199A(e)(2) (2017, down to $50; joint = 2 × single)	$201,750 / $403,500	$208,300 / $416,600	$208,050 / $416,100	$208,300 / $416,600 (§3.28)
QBI minimum deduction / active QBI needed	§199A(i)(3) (2025, increase to nearest $5)	$400 / $1,000	$415 / $1,030	$410 / $1,030	$415 / $1,030 (§3.28)
Section 179 dollar limitation / phase-out threshold / SUV cost cap	§179(b)(6) (2024 for the first two, 2017 for the SUV cap; nearest $10,000, SUV nearest $100)	$2,560,000 / $4,090,000 / $32,000	$2,640,000 / $4,230,000 / $33,100	$2,640,000 / $4,220,000 / $33,000	$2,640,000 / $4,230,000 / $33,100 (§3.26)
Dependent care assistance exclusion (dependent care FSA; half that for married filing separately)	§129(a)(2)(A) (not indexed)	$7,500	$7,500	$7,500	$7,500 (not indexed; not in the Rev. Proc.)
Estates and trusts: 10 % bracket ends / 37 % bracket begins (the NIIT threshold follows the second)	§1(j)(2)(E) and (j)(3)(B) (2016 for the first since the 2025 law, 2017 for the second; down to $50)	$3,300 / $16,000	$3,400 / $16,500	$3,400 / $16,500	$3,400 / $16,500 (§3.01)
Estates and trusts: 35 % bracket begins	§1(j)(3)(B) (2017, down to $50)	$11,700	$12,100	$12,050	$12,100 (§3.01)
Estates and trusts: capital gains 0 % ends / 15 % ends	§1(j)(5) (2017, down to $50)	$3,300 / $16,250	$3,400 / $16,750	$3,400 / $16,750	$3,400 / $16,750 (§3.03)
Estates and trusts: AMT exemption / phase-out start	§55(d)(3) (2011, nearest $100)	$31,400 / $104,800	$32,500 / $108,200	$32,400 / $108,100	$32,500 / $108,200 (§3.11)
AMT exemption add-on for a child subject to the kiddie tax	§59(j)(2) (1997, nearest $50)	$9,750	$10,050	$10,050	$10,050 (§3.12)
Covered expatriate: average annual net income tax test / exit tax exclusion	§877(a)(2) (2003) and §877A(a)(3) (2007), nearest $1,000	$211,000 / $910,000	$218,000 / $940,000	$217,000 / $939,000	$218,000 / $940,000 (§3.39, §3.40)
Excess business loss threshold, single / joint	§461(l)(3)(C) (2024 since the 2025 law, nearest $1,000; joint = 2 × single)	$256,000 / $512,000	$264,000 / $528,000	$264,000 / $528,000	$264,000 / $528,000 (§3.33)
SIMPLE plan additional employer nonelective contribution, maximum per employee	§408(p)(2)(G) (2023, nearest $100)	$5,300	$5,400	$5,400	Not in the Rev. Proc.; IRS notice
QSEHRA maximum, self-only / family	§9831(d)(2)(D)(ii) (2015, amount down to $50)	$6,450 / $13,100	$6,700 / $13,550	$6,700 / $13,500	$6,700 / $13,550 (§3.68)
Long-term care premium limits by age (40 or less / 41–50 / 51–60 / 61–70 / over 70) and per diem; indexed to the August medical-care CPI, so October plays no role	§213(d)(10), §7702B(d)(4) (August 1996; increase to nearest $10)	$500 / $930 / $1,860 / $4,960 / $6,200; $430	$500 / $940 / $1,890 / $5,030 / $6,290; $440	Same	$500 / $945 / $1,890 / $5,030 / $6,290; $445 (§3.29, §3.67)

Several of these have their own pages, now updated with the official figures. The foreign earned income exclusion had one of the thinnest margins on this site: the unrounded eleven-month figure was $137,308.85, only $8.85 above its step, and the official figure is $137,300 (foreign earned income exclusion 2027 and the 2026 draft Form 2555). The transit and parking limit is $350 a month for each benefit, which employees can use for their 2027 elections now (commuter benefits 2027). The joint 0 % capital gains band clears $100,000 for the first time, at $102,100 (2027 capital gains thresholds). The new $2,000 threshold for Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC, first used for 2026 payments, is $2,100 for payments made in 2027 (Form 1099-NEC for 2026 and 2027). The $5,250 cap on tax-free employer tuition and student loan payments, unchanged since 1986, rises for the first time to $5,400 (educational assistance limit 2027). The child tax credit is $2,300 per child with $1,800 refundable (child tax credit 2027), and the ABLE limit stays at $20,000 (ABLE limits 2027). The earned income credit was the table where the October question moved nearly every cell, by $10 to $30; the official table follows the eleven-month reading (EITC 2027 table). The adoption credit is $18,250 with $5,280 refundable (adoption credit 2027 and the 2026 Form 8839), and the student loan interest phase-out starts at $90,000 single and $180,000 joint (student loan interest deduction 2027). The annual gift exclusion clears $20,000 by about $119 (gift tax annual exclusion 2027), and the QBI thresholds are $208,300 and $416,600, with a $415 minimum deduction (QBI deduction 2027).

Some rows sit outside the revenue procedure. The qualified charitable distribution limit, the qualified long-term care distribution cap, the SIMPLE nonelective cap and the Saver’s Credit income limits appear in the IRS retirement-plan notice, which had not been published on November 8; their projections stand (2027 QCD limit, SIMPLE IRA limits 2027). The SALT cap needs no index: it is 101 % of the 2026 cap by statute, $40,804 with the phase-down from $510,050, and the revenue procedure does not list it (SALT cap 2027). The dependent care FSA exclusion has no inflation clause and stays at $7,500 while the health FSA cap rises (dependent care FSA limit 2027).

The business and estate rows are official too. The section 179 limit is $2,640,000, with the phase-out at $4,230,000 and the SUV cap at $33,100 (section 179 limit 2027); the excess business loss threshold is $264,000, or $528,000 on a joint return (excess business loss limit 2027); trusts and estates reach the 37 % bracket at $16,500 (trust and estate tax brackets 2027); the kiddie tax amount is $1,400, which puts the threshold at $2,800 (kiddie tax 2027); the QSEHRA caps are $6,700 self-only and $13,550 family (QSEHRA limits 2027); and the exit tax thresholds are $218,000 and $940,000 (exit tax 2027). The long-term care premium limits were the row we had called final in October because they run on the August medical-care index; the index was final, but the rounding was not, and two of the six amounts came out $5 higher (long-term care premium limits 2027). The Roth catch-up wage threshold, which runs on the third-quarter CPI-U like the 401(k) limits, is $155,000, determined by the closed average and awaiting the IRS notice (Roth catch-up wage threshold 2027).

A few figures in Rev. Proc. 2026-35 were not on this page at all: the gross income limit for a qualifying relative is $5,500, the threshold for reporting gifts from foreign persons is $21,240.31, and a federal tax debt must exceed $68,000 before it can lead to passport revocation or denial.

The calendar from here

• Friday, September 11, 8:30 a.m. ET. August CPI, published. The twelve-month window closed for everything in the tables above; this page was updated with the final averages and each item marked as decided or October-dependent.
• October 14. September CPI, published. It closed the third-quarter windows: the COLA, the 401(k) and IRA contribution limits, and the November I bond rate. The SSA announced the COLA at 3.6 percent the same morning; the IRS still has to confirm the plan limits in its annual notice.
• Thursday, November 5. The IRS released Rev. Proc. 2026-35 with the 2027 brackets, standard deduction, FSA cap, gift exclusion and estate exemption, almost four weeks later than the October 9 release in 2025. It matched the eleven-month column, with the five exceptions explained at the top of this page.
• November. The IRS notice on retirement plan limits, including the Roth and IRA phase-out ranges (November 13 in 2025), and the CMS announcement of 2027 Part B premiums and IRMAA thresholds (November 14 in 2025, in the Federal Register on November 19). The second IRMAA tier is the line to read first, and the IRS choice on October is the best guide to it.

A closing note on what this page is for. Sites that publish “2027 tax brackets” in June are guessing at an inflation rate and multiplying; the numbers here were the statute applied to the published index, checked against the last revenue procedure, with the one genuine ambiguity, October 2025, shown both ways rather than hidden inside a single figure. We said the official documents should match one of the two columns to the dollar and that any discrepancy would be the story. The revenue procedure matched the eleven-month column, and the discrepancies, five figures moved by a rounding method and a revised index, are explained at the top of this page.

Published September 6, 2026. Updated September 13, 2026, with the August 2026 index that closed the window; October 24, 2026, with the September CPI that closed the retirement-plan limits and the COLA; and November 8, 2026, with the official figures from Rev. Proc. 2026-35. Next update: the IRS retirement-plan notice and the CMS Part B announcement.

Correction, November 11, 2026: An earlier version of this page projected the 2027 IRA contribution limit at $8,000 using the third-quarter CPI average. The IRA limit is indexed under section 1(f)(3) instead, on the same August window as the tax brackets, and that method points to $7,500.

Sources

• Rev. Proc. 2026-35, 2027 inflation-adjusted items (sections 3.01–3.68) — irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-26-35.pdf
• IRS news release IR-2026-133, November 5, 2026 — irs.gov/newsroom
• Rev. Proc. 2025-32, 2026 inflation-adjusted items (the control set for the method) — irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-25-32.pdf
• 26 U.S.C. § 1(f) (cost-of-living adjustment and the C-CPI-U window) — law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/1
• 26 U.S.C. § 63(c)(7) (standard deduction indexing and rounding of the increase) — law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/63
• 26 U.S.C. § 213(d)(10) (long-term care premium limits and rounding) — law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/213
• Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025 federal government shutdown impact on the CPI — bls.gov
• Treasury, October 2025 CPI-U index announcement for inflation-protected securities (November 26, 2025) — treasurydirect.gov
• HHS ASPE, poverty guidelines — aspe.hhs.gov