MAGI Calculator
Modified adjusted gross income — with the catch most summaries skip: each purpose defines MAGI differently. Pick what you need it for, and the form shows exactly the add-backs that purpose's IRS or SSA worksheet lists, nothing more.
Modified AGI, by purpose
Example: $95,000 AGI with a $10,000 Roth conversion, $7,000 IRA deduction and $2,500 student loan interest → $94,500 MAGI for Roth purposes.
One name, several numbers
Take $95,000 of AGI on a single filer's 2026 return. For Roth IRA purposes (Pub. 590-A, Worksheet 2-1), a $10,000 conversion inside it is subtracted and the $7,000 IRA deduction and $2,500 of student loan interest come back, giving $94,500. For Medicare IRMAA, the same person with $2,500 of tax-exempt interest has a MAGI of $97,500 — a different number, from a different statute, used against different brackets. Both figures are computed at build time by the same tested engine as the calculator above, and so is every other figure on this page. That divergence is why the purpose selector comes first.
What the calculator actually does
Every purpose starts from adjusted gross income — Form 1040 line 11, or for the traditional-IRA purpose line 11 refigured without the IRA deduction — and applies only the adjustments its own worksheet lists, in worksheet order. Choosing a purpose does two things at once: it shows the fields that worksheet uses and hides the rest, and it tells the engine which list to run. Anything entered for a different purpose is dropped from the arithmetic, not quietly added; a field left blank or set to zero produces no line at all. There is exactly one subtraction in the whole set, the Roth conversion line, and the engine refuses a conversion amount larger than the AGI it is being removed from, because a conversion is by definition already inside that AGI. Nothing in the arithmetic depends on filing status or tax year: the lists are worksheet lines, not indexed dollar amounts, so the form asks for neither.
The result box reads top to bottom: the MAGI for the chosen purpose, the starting AGI, each adjustment the engine actually applied with its sign, and one sentence on what that purpose uses the figure for. An empty adjustment list is a real answer, not a failure — it means that for this purpose your MAGI is your AGI. Four misreadings come up repeatedly: carrying a MAGI computed for one purpose into another (the table below shows how far apart they sit); entering AGI after the IRA deduction for the traditional-IRA purpose, which double-counts the very deduction the worksheet is testing; treating the untaxed Social Security field as the whole benefit rather than line 6a minus line 6b; and expecting the result to say "eligible" — it never does, because the thresholds it would need are published elsewhere and are deliberately not modeled.
One return, four purposes
Here is one single filer's 2026 return run through all four definitions at build time. AGI on line 11 is $95,000, and it includes a $10,000 Roth conversion. The return claims a $7,000 traditional IRA deduction and $2,500 of student loan interest on Schedule 1, reports $2,500 of tax-exempt interest on line 2a, and shows $4,000 of Social Security benefits on line 6a that line 6b did not tax.
| Purpose | Starting AGI | Adjustments the engine applied | MAGI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional IRA deduction | $102,000 | + Student loan interest deduction $2,500 | $104,500 |
| Roth IRA contribution | $95,000 | − Roth conversion/rollover income $10,000; + Traditional IRA deduction $7,000; + Student loan interest deduction $2,500 | $94,500 |
| ACA premium tax credit | $95,000 | + Tax-exempt interest $2,500; + Untaxed Social Security benefits $4,000 | $101,500 |
| Medicare IRMAA | $95,000 | + Tax-exempt interest $2,500 | $97,500 |
Four purposes, four numbers, one return. The traditional-IRA row starts higher than the others because Worksheet 1-1 is testing the IRA deduction itself, so it begins from AGI refigured without that deduction — $102,000 here — and then adds only the student loan interest; the conversion, the tax-exempt interest and the untaxed benefits are not on its list. The Roth row is the only one that subtracts anything and the only one that touches the IRA deduction. The ACA row is the only one that counts untaxed Social Security. The IRMAA row applies a single line. Quoting any of these as "my MAGI" without the purpose attached is a common way the figure goes wrong — the spread between the lowest and highest row here is $10,000.
The four definitions, and where each comes from
- Traditional IRA deduction — AGI (without the IRA deduction) plus the student loan interest deduction, foreign earned income/housing exclusion, foreign housing deduction, excluded savings bond interest, and excluded employer adoption benefits. IRS Pub. 590-A, Worksheet 1-1.
- Roth IRA contribution — AGI minus conversion/rollover income, plus the traditional IRA deduction and the same five add-backs. IRS Pub. 590-A, Worksheet 2-1.
- ACA premium tax credit — AGI plus tax-exempt interest, untaxed Social Security benefits, and excluded foreign earned income/housing. Instructions for Form 8962, Worksheet 1-1.
- Medicare IRMAA — AGI plus tax-exempt interest, nothing else. SSA POMS HI 01101.010, implementing § 1839(i) of the Social Security Act.
The engine's lists were verified against the 2025 editions of those worksheets — the editions it cites in its own source — and the examples on this page are labelled tax year 2026 because that is the return year this site's calculators default to. Nothing in the lists is an inflation-indexed dollar amount. When a new edition changes a worksheet line, the engine's list changes and every example here recomputes with it, or the build fails; the copy cannot drift from the tool. What is year-dependent — the phase-out ranges, credit tables and IRMAA brackets these MAGIs are compared against — is deliberately not computed, and belongs to each program's own published tables.
What an add-back is
Each add-back is an amount that appeared on the return and was then excluded from income or deducted on the way to AGI. The student loan interest deduction and the traditional IRA deduction come off on Schedule 1 (lines 21 and 20). The foreign earned income and housing exclusion (Form 2555, line 45), the foreign housing deduction (Form 2555, line 50), excluded savings bond interest (Form 8815, line 14) and excluded employer adoption benefits (Form 8839, line 30) reduce or bypass income before line 11 is reached. Tax-exempt interest is reported on line 2a and left out of AGI; the untaxed portion of Social Security is the part of line 6a that line 6b does not carry. A worksheet "adds back" by placing such an amount on top of AGI again, so the test sees income measured before that exclusion or deduction. Which items get restored is what separates the four definitions, and the pattern is not something to reason out from first principles — the IRA worksheets restore items the ACA worksheet ignores, and the ACA worksheet counts untaxed benefits the IRA worksheets never mention — which is why the engine copies each list from its controlling worksheet rather than deriving it.
What gets added back to MAGI, by purpose
What gets added back to MAGI depends entirely on the purpose — there is no single list. Each set below is the exact run of adjustment lines the engine applies for that purpose, taken from its controlling worksheet and rendered here straight from the engine, not typed by hand. A field left blank or at zero never appears, so on a real return your own list may be shorter than the full set shown.
MAGI for a traditional IRA deduction
Worksheet 1-1 starts from AGI figured without the IRA deduction and restores only amounts deducted or excluded on the way to AGI; it never adds tax-exempt interest or Social Security.
- Student loan interest deduction
- Foreign earned income/housing exclusion
- Foreign housing deduction
- Excluded savings bond interest
- Excluded adoption benefits
MAGI for a Roth IRA contribution
Worksheet 2-1 is the only list that subtracts anything — conversion and rollover income, already inside AGI — and the only one that adds the traditional IRA deduction back.
- Roth conversion/rollover income (subtracted — it is already inside AGI)
- Traditional IRA deduction
- Student loan interest deduction
- Foreign earned income/housing exclusion
- Foreign housing deduction
- Excluded savings bond interest
- Excluded adoption benefits
MAGI for the ACA premium tax credit
The Form 8962 worksheet is the only one of the four that counts the untaxed portion of Social Security benefits.
- Tax-exempt interest
- Excluded foreign earned income/housing
- Untaxed Social Security benefits
MAGI for Medicare IRMAA
The POMS list is the shortest: AGI plus tax-exempt interest, and nothing else.
- Tax-exempt interest
Three more worked examples, from the engine
Traditional IRA deduction — head of household
A head of household filer, tax year 2026, needs the MAGI that Pub. 590-A Worksheet 1-1 tests the traditional IRA deduction against. AGI figured without the IRA deduction is $82,000; the return has $1,800 of student loan interest and $1,200 of excluded savings bond interest, and the adoption-benefits field was entered as zero.
- Starting AGI (without the IRA deduction): $82,000
- + Student loan interest deduction $1,800
- + Excluded savings bond interest $1,200
- MAGI for the traditional IRA deduction: $85,000
Two adjustment lines, not three: the zero entry produced nothing, because the engine drops blank and zero fields rather than printing a zero line. The IRA deduction itself never appears — for this purpose it is what the starting AGI already leaves out.
ACA premium tax credit — married filing jointly
A married filing jointly couple, tax year 2026, checking the household-income MAGI the Form 8962 instructions use for the premium tax credit. AGI is $38,000; the return reports $600 of tax-exempt interest and $9,000 of Social Security benefits that line 6b did not tax.
- Starting AGI: $38,000
- + Tax-exempt interest $600
- + Untaxed Social Security benefits $9,000
- MAGI for the premium tax credit: $47,600
The result sits $9,600 above AGI, all of it from amounts the return excluded — the untaxed benefits alone move it by $9,000, and this is the only definition of the four that counts them. Form 8962 household income can also include dependents' MAGI; this tool computes the filer's own figure only and does not model that aggregation.
No add-backs at all — single
A single filer, tax year 2026, with AGI of $61,000: no conversion, no IRA or student loan deduction, no excluded income, no tax-exempt interest, no Social Security. Run through every purpose at build time, the engine applies no lines and returns $61,000 for all four. That is the ordinary case — for most people, MAGI equals AGI — and the calculator says so by showing no adjustment line rather than inventing one.
The fifth definition: OBBBA's uniform MAGI
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act's new deductions use a definition that is not one of the four above and that the selector does not offer: MAGI equals AGI plus foreign-income amounts excluded under IRC §§ 911, 931 and 933. For most people, MAGI equals AGI. Three of the new deductions — the senior deduction, the car-loan interest deduction and the non-itemizer charitable deduction — are claimed on Schedule 1-A and flow to Form 1040 line 13b, which sits after AGI. They are subtracted after AGI and never reduce AGI or MAGI, under this definition or any of the four above, which is why this form has no field for them and why the right description is "available whether or not you itemize", not "above the line". Each OBBBA phase-out consumes a MAGI computed without those deductions: the senior deduction begins to phase out above $150,000 of this MAGI on a joint return and $75,000 for all other filers; the car-loan interest deduction above $200,000 joint and $100,000 for all others; the SALT cap's 2026 phase-down above $505,000. Those thresholds are imported from the same sourced data file the OBBBA calculators run on, verified against the enacted statute and IRS guidance as of 2026-08-18 — an absence-of-evidence check that nothing later has amended them, not a promise about the future. The mechanics of each deduction, the amounts, and what expires when are in the guide What OBBBA changes on your 2026 tax return; the site's other explainers are collected under Guides.
Where the starting AGI comes from
AGI is Form 1040 line 11: total income, less the Schedule 1 adjustments. Your starting AGI is what the income tax math runs on after deductions — see the Take-Home Pay Calculator for how it forms from a salary, the Self-Employment Tax Calculator for the ½ SE-tax deduction that reduces it, and the Tax Bracket Calculator for where it lands you. Two boundaries matter here. First, the standard deduction is taken after AGI, so it never changes any MAGI — the brackets guide walks through that order. Second, deductions taken on the way to AGI, such as the ½ SE-tax deduction, do lower every MAGI unless a worksheet specifically adds them back — and none of the four lists above adds that one back.
What this tool deliberately leaves out
- Every threshold. IRA deduction and Roth contribution phase-out ranges, the premium-credit tables and the IRMAA brackets change annually and belong to the IRS, HealthCare.gov and SSA tables respectively; the result is the figure those tables are compared against, never a verdict.
- Filing status and tax year as inputs. The add-back lists do not vary with either, so the form does not ask; the thresholds that do vary are not computed. The examples are labelled with the three statuses this site's ordinary-income tools model — single, married filing jointly and head of household.
- Household aggregation and special cases. Dependents' MAGI for Form 8962 household income, Form 8962's dependent and Form 8814 special cases, and Pub. 590-A's note on refiguring AGI when other phase-outs interact are not modeled.
- Other modified AGIs. The net investment income tax and the OBBBA deductions each key to their own definition; neither is a selectable purpose here. The Capital Gains Tax Calculator takes a MAGI figure directly for the NIIT lesser-of rule, and the OBBBA definition is described above.
- Which return year. IRMAA is assessed against a prior-year return SSA selects from IRS data; this tool computes a MAGI from whatever return's figures you enter and does not choose the year for you.
- State rules. Federal definitions only.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the calculator make me pick a purpose?
Because "MAGI" is not one number. Each provision of the tax code defines its own modified AGI: the IRA rules add back deductions like student loan interest, the ACA premium credit adds untaxed Social Security, and Medicare IRMAA adds only tax-exempt interest. A calculator that showed a single "MAGI" would be quietly wrong for most uses — the purpose selector is the honest design.
Where do these add-back lists come from?
Each list is taken from the controlling worksheet: IRS Publication 590-A, Worksheet 1-1 (traditional IRA) and Worksheet 2-1 (Roth IRA); the IRS Instructions for Form 8962, Worksheet 1-1 (ACA premium tax credit); and the Social Security Administration’s POMS section HI 01101.010 with section 1839(i) of the Social Security Act (Medicare IRMAA). Nothing here is a blogger’s summary.
What gets added back to MAGI?
It depends on the purpose — there is no single list. The IRA definitions add back deductions and exclusions taken on the way to AGI, such as the student loan interest deduction, the foreign earned income/housing exclusion, the foreign housing deduction, excluded savings bond interest and excluded adoption benefits; the Roth list also adds the traditional IRA deduction and subtracts conversion/rollover income. The ACA premium-credit definition adds tax-exempt interest, excluded foreign earned income/housing and untaxed Social Security benefits; Medicare IRMAA adds tax-exempt interest and nothing else. The "What gets added back to MAGI, by purpose" section above lists each purpose’s exact lines, rendered straight from the engine.
Why is Roth conversion income subtracted?
Converting a traditional IRA to a Roth adds the converted amount to your AGI, but Publication 590-A’s Worksheet 2-1 removes it again for Roth contribution purposes — otherwise a conversion could artificially push you over the contribution limit. It is the only subtraction in any of these definitions, and it applies only to the Roth purpose.
Which AGI do I start from for the traditional IRA purpose?
Your AGI figured WITHOUT the IRA deduction itself — Worksheet 1-1 is testing whether you may take that deduction, so it cannot start from a number that already includes it. For every other purpose, start from your actual AGI (Form 1040, line 11).
Why does the result ignore the fields for the other purposes?
Because the engine runs exactly one worksheet at a time. Selecting a purpose shows that worksheet’s fields and hides the rest, and anything entered for a different purpose is dropped from the arithmetic rather than added. Switching the purpose re-runs the same AGI through the new list, which is a direct way to see how far the definitions diverge. Blank and zero fields never produce an adjustment line.
Does this tell me whether I can contribute, or what my premium will be?
No — deliberately. The phase-out ranges, credit tables, and IRMAA brackets change every year and belong to each program’s own published tables. This tool computes the MAGI those tables are compared against; check the current thresholds on IRS.gov (IRA phase-outs), HealthCare.gov (premium credit), or SSA.gov/Medicare (IRMAA brackets).
Does my filing status change the MAGI figure?
Not in this calculator: the add-back lists do not depend on filing status, so the form does not ask for it. What depends on status — and on the tax year — is every threshold the figure is later compared against, and those are not computed here. The worked examples are labelled single, married filing jointly and head of household only because those are the statuses this site’s ordinary-income tools model.
Do the new OBBBA deductions lower my MAGI?
No. The senior deduction, the car-loan interest deduction and the non-itemizer charitable deduction are claimed on Schedule 1-A and flow to Form 1040 line 13b, after AGI — they never reduce AGI or MAGI under any definition on this page, which is why the form has no field for them. The OBBBA phase-outs themselves use a uniform MAGI equal to AGI plus amounts excluded under IRC §§ 911, 931 and 933; for most people, that equals AGI. Verified against the statute and IRS guidance as of 2026-08-18; see the OBBBA changes guide.
What if I have none of the add-backs?
Then your MAGI is your AGI for every purpose, and the result shows no adjustment lines. The engine confirms it at build time on this page: a single filer, tax year 2026, with AGI of $61,000 and nothing else gets $61,000 for all four purposes. For most people, MAGI equals AGI.
Which year is IRMAA MAGI from?
SSA assesses IRMAA against a prior-year return it selects from IRS data, not the current year’s; this tool computes a MAGI from whatever return’s figures you enter and does not choose the year. See SSA’s POMS HI 01101.010 for the return-year rule. The other purposes use the current tax year’s figures.
Not tax advice: this tool computes the MAGI figure for the selected purpose only — it does not evaluate IRA phase-out ranges, premium-credit eligibility, or IRMAA brackets, which change annually and are published by the IRS, HealthCare.gov, and SSA respectively. Rarer worksheet refinements (such as Pub. 590-A’s note on refiguring AGI when other phaseouts interact, or Form 8962’s dependent and Form 8814 special cases) are not modeled. Consult a tax professional for your situation. Values are processed locally in your browser and never transmitted. See the methodology page and the disclaimer.