2026 SALT Cap Calculator: What's Your State and Local Tax Deduction Limit?
For 2026 the state-and-local-tax deduction is capped at $40,400 — phased down by 30% of the MAGI excess over $505,000, but never below a $10,000 floor. This matters only if you itemize: if you take the standard deduction, the cap never touches your return.
Your 2026 SALT cap
Example: married filing jointly, $550,000 MAGI, $45,000 SALT paid → cap $26,900, so $18,100 of it is lost. Not sure of your MAGI? For most people it equals AGI — the MAGI Calculator walks through the add-backs.
The SALT cap is one of five deductions the One Big Beautiful Bill Act rewrote for tax year 2026. For how it fits alongside the others — the senior deduction, car-loan interest, the standard-deduction increase, and the charitable rules — see the guide What OBBBA Changes on Your 2026 Tax Return; the rest of the site's explainers are collected under Guides. This page documents the mechanism this one tool runs: what the cap is, how the phase-down shrinks it, where it stops, and how to read the three numbers the calculator returns. Every figure below is read from a sourced data file or computed at build time by the same tested engine as the calculator above — none is typed in by hand.
The $40,400 cap, the phase-down, and the floor
Three moving parts, all written directly into the statute (IRC §164(b)(7), added by P.L. 119-21 §70120 — these are hardcoded statutory dollar amounts, not IRS inflation adjustments):
- The cap: $40,400 of state and local income (or sales) tax plus property tax is deductible in 2026 — up from $40,000 in 2025.
- The phase-down: above $505,000 of MAGI, the cap shrinks by 30¢ per extra dollar. At $550,000 MAGI (married filing jointly), the $45,000 excess takes $13,500 off the cap, leaving $26,900 — so a filer who paid $45,000 deducts $26,900 and loses $18,100.
- The floor: the phase-down stops at $10,000 — high earners never lose the SALT deduction entirely. At $700,000 MAGI the cap is exactly $10,000, and it stays there for any income above roughly $606,333.
If you paid less than your cap, you simply deduct what you paid: at $520,000 MAGI the cap is $35,900, but a filer who paid $8,000 deducts $8,000. Every figure in this section is computed at build time by the same tested engine as the calculator above.
The phase-down begins the dollar past the threshold and tightens gradually. Just over it — $515,000 MAGI, married filing jointly — the $10,000 of excess takes only $3,000 off the cap, leaving $37,400; the reduction grows a flat 30¢ for every additional dollar until the floor halts it. The cap and threshold are the same for single, head of household, and married filing jointly: at $550,000 MAGI a single filer reaches the identical $26,900 cap a joint filer does. Only married filing separately, covered next, carries different figures.
One distinction the engine is careful about: being capped is not the same as being phased down. Below the threshold there is no phase-down at all — the status the engine reports is "none" — yet the cap still binds a filer who paid more than it. At $400,000 MAGI the full $40,400 cap applies, but a filer who paid $45,000 still deducts only $40,400 and loses $4,600 to the cap. The phase-down status moves to "partial" once MAGI clears the threshold and to "floored" once the reduction would have driven the cap below $10,000; the calculator labels the result accordingly so the two mechanisms are never confused.
Reading the result: three numbers, not one
The calculator returns three figures that are easy to run together. The applicable cap is the ceiling the statute allows your return this year — $40,400 before any phase-down, less the 30% of MAGI excess, never below the $10,000 floor. The allowed deduction is the smaller of that cap and the SALT you actually paid, because a deduction can never exceed what you spent. The amount lost to the cap is whatever you paid above the applicable cap — zero when you paid less than the cap, positive when you paid more. In the $550,000 example the three read $26,900, $26,900, and $18,100: the cap and the allowed deduction coincide only because the $45,000 paid exceeded the cap. The most common misreading of this page is treating a high income as a total loss of the deduction; the floor is exactly the guard against that, and the status label tells you which regime you are in.
The MAGI the phase-down runs on
The phase-down is driven by modified adjusted gross income, and the OBBBA deductions use one uniform definition of it: AGI plus the amounts excluded under IRC §§ 911, 931, and 933 — for most people, MAGI equals AGI. The calculator takes that figure as you enter it and never recomputes it from the deduction, which is why a SALT result never feeds back into its own input. The MAGI Calculator walks through the add-backs if you need to pin the number down. A negative MAGI is accepted here rather than refused, because AGI can be negative and a negative figure simply means there is no excess over the threshold and so no phase-down.
Married filing separately: halve AFTER the floor
MFS filers get half of everything — but the order of operations matters. The engine first runs the phase-down on the full $40,400 cap using the halved $252,500 threshold, then applies the $10,000 floor, and only then divides by two. That produces a $20,200 starting cap and an effective $5,000 floor (reached at roughly $353,833 of MAGI). Worked through: at $300,000 MAGI, the phase-down leaves $26,150 on the full-cap scale, and halving gives a $13,075 cap — so of $25,000 paid, $13,075 is deductible. Halving the threshold arithmetic twice, or halving before the floor, gives a different (wrong) number.
2025, 2026, and the 2030 cliff
| Year | Cap | Phase-down threshold (MAGI) |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $40,000 | $500,000 |
| 2026 | $40,400 | $505,000 |
| 2027–2029 | The cap and threshold rise about 1% per year through 2029; exact 2028–2029 dollar amounts have no statutory rounding rule — awaiting IRS guidance. | |
| 2030+ | $10,000 flat | No phase-down — the cliff written into the original OBBBA design |
The cap and threshold rise about 1% per year through 2029; exact 2028–2029 dollar amounts have no statutory rounding rule — awaiting IRS guidance.
The 2025 and 2026 dollar figures and the 2030 reversion are read from the sourced data file, whose figures were last checked against the enacted statute and the Internal Revenue Code on 2026-08-18. That check is absence-of-evidence: it records that no later amendment had been found as of that date, not that the figures are final. The 2027–2029 amounts are deliberately omitted because the statute gives them no rounding rule; confirm consequential numbers against IRS.gov.
What this calculator does not model
The number this page produces is the 2026 federal SALT cap and the deduction it allows against the SALT you enter — nothing more. Left out, deliberately rather than approximated:
- The itemize-versus-standard decision. SALT is a Schedule A itemized deduction, so the cap changes your tax only when your total itemized deductions exceed the standard deduction for your status. The tool reports your cap; it does not decide whether itemizing wins.
- The rest of Schedule A. Mortgage interest, charitable gifts, and other itemized lines are not added in; only the SALT line is capped here.
- The alternative minimum tax and the net investment income tax. Both have their own rules and are not computed, so the allowed deduction here is the regular-tax figure only.
- Tax credits. Credits are a separate layer of the return and are not modeled.
- State and local returns. This site models US federal tax only; the cap governs what the federal return allows, not what any state return does with the same taxes.
Treat the result as a planning estimate of the federal SALT cap, not a filing figure. The methodology page sets out the engine's boundaries in full.
This only matters if you itemize
The SALT deduction lives on Schedule A, so your applicable cap is irrelevant unless your total itemized deductions beat the 2026 standard deduction for your filing status. Two companion tools: the MAGI Calculator pins down the income figure the phase-down runs on (for most people MAGI equals AGI), and if you financed a new car, the Car Loan Interest Deduction Calculator covers the other big new OBBBA deduction — one you can take whether or not you itemize.
Frequently asked questions
Do high earners lose the SALT deduction entirely in 2026?
No — that is the most common misreading. The 30% phase-down stops at a $10,000 floor, so the cap never goes below $10,000 no matter how high your income is. The cap reaches the floor at roughly $606,333 of MAGI (about $353,833 married filing separately); above that it is simply $10,000 — the pre-OBBBA cap — not zero.
How does the SALT cap work for married filing separately?
Everything is halved, but in a specific order: the phase-down runs on the full $40,400 cap using the halved $252,500 MAGI threshold, the $10,000 floor applies, and only THEN is the result divided by two. That yields a $20,200 starting cap and an effective $5,000 floor. Halving before flooring — or halving the arithmetic twice — gives the wrong answer.
What happens to the SALT cap after 2026?
The cap and threshold rise about 1% per year through 2029; exact 2028–2029 dollar amounts have no statutory rounding rule — awaiting IRS guidance. Then comes the cliff: from 2030 on, the statute reverts to a flat $10,000 cap with no phase-down. That reversion is written into the original OBBBA text (IRC §164(b)(7)(A)), not a prediction about future legislation.
Does the SALT cap matter if I take the standard deduction?
No. State and local taxes are an itemized deduction on Schedule A, so the cap only affects you if your total itemized deductions beat your standard deduction ($32,200 married filing jointly / $16,100 single in 2026). If you take the standard deduction, your SALT bill does not touch your federal return at all — check the standard deduction first.
What counts as SALT for the cap?
The deduction combines two things: state and local tax — either income tax OR general sales tax, whichever you claim, but not both — plus property tax. The calculator takes the single total you enter in the "state and local taxes paid" field and measures it against your $40,400 applicable cap; it does not break the figure into its parts or decide which state-tax choice is larger for you. Federal scope only: no state return is modeled.
Is the cap the same for single, head of household, and married filing jointly?
Yes. The $40,400 cap and the $505,000 phase-down threshold are identical for single, head of household, and married filing jointly — at $550,000 MAGI a single filer lands on the same $26,900 cap as a joint filer. Married filing separately is the only status that differs: its figures are halved, producing the $20,200 starting cap and $5,000 effective floor described above.
Is the phase-down applied to what I paid or to the cap?
To the cap, never to what you paid. The 30% phase-down shrinks the $40,400 applicable cap as MAGI rises; your deduction is then the smaller of that reduced cap and the SALT you actually paid. At $550,000 MAGI the cap falls to $26,900, so a filer who paid $45,000 deducts $26,900 and the remaining $18,100 is lost to the cap. A filer at the same MAGI who paid less than the cap simply deducts what they paid.
Does using the SALT deduction change my AGI or MAGI?
No. SALT is a from-AGI itemized deduction on Schedule A: it can reduce taxable income when you itemize, but it sits below AGI and never changes AGI or the MAGI the phase-down runs on. The calculator echoes the MAGI you enter and never recomputes it, so the cap it reports is a function of the income figure you supply, not of the deduction itself.
Not tax advice: an educational estimate of the 2026 federal SALT cap only (tax year 2026, returns filed 2027) — no state tax, AMT, or NIIT modeling, and no judgment about whether itemizing beats your standard deduction. Figures come from IRC §164(b)(7) as added by P.L. 119-21 §70120; consult a tax professional or IRS.gov for your situation. Values are processed locally in your browser and never transmitted. See the methodology page.