What Changed for 2026: Thirteen States Cut, One Raised, Thirty-Seven Stood Still

Thirteen of the fifty-one US income tax jurisdictions cut their top marginal rate for tax year 2026. One raised it. Thirty-seven left it exactly where it was, and nine of those have no personal income tax to move. Run a $65,000 single filer through both years and the median state bill falls from $2,198 to $2,088.

That is a quieter year than the one before it. Across the longer 2022–2026 window, twenty states cut, most of them before 2025. What 2026 adds is smaller in count and more interesting in shape: four of the thirteen cuts came with fewer brackets, the single increase is the largest one-year rate move in either direction, and the state that moved a filer's bill furthest is not the one at the top of the table.

The one that went up

Maine raised its top rate from 7.15% to 9.15%, +2.00 percentage points.

It did not touch a bracket to do it. Maine Revenue Services' 2026 schedule still runs three bands for a single filer, and prints each as a formula: 5.8% of Maine taxable income below $27,400, then $1,589 plus 6.75% of the excess to $64,850, then $4,117 plus 7.15% above that. What the schedule adds is Note 1, a surcharge of 2% on Maine taxable income "greater than $1,000,000 if filing single, $750,000 if married filing separate; or $1,500,000 if married filing jointly or head of household." Stack that 2 points on the 7.15% band and the top marginal rate is 9.15%.

No tax bill carried it. The surcharge arrived inside LD 2212, the supplemental budget for the fiscal years ending June 30, 2026 and June 30, 2027, signed on April 10, 2026 and chaptered as Public Law c. 650. It applies to tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2026, so it became law for a tax year already three months old.

For anyone under a million dollars, then, Maine's rates for 2026 are Maine's rates for 2025. A single filer with $200,000 of Maine taxable income faces the same 7.15% at the margin in both years, and pays slightly less in 2026 than in 2025, because the band tops and the standard deduction indexed upward. Maine's own schedule shows its work on that: the bracket dollars are multiplied by a cost-of-living adjustment of 1.303 at the low end and 1.298 at the high end, while the standard deduction and the $5,300 personal exemption move by 1.279, all under 36 M.R.S. §5403. The surcharge thresholds do not index until 2027, which is the detail that decides whether this stays a millionaire's surcharge or drifts down over a decade.

The thirteen that cut

Ranked by the size of the cut, in percentage points.

Now rank the same thirteen by dollars, and the order changes. South Carolina tops the table on points and saves our $65,000 filer $319. Montana, three rows down at −0.25, saves that filer $341 — more than any other state on the list. The reason is not in the column: HB 337 moved the top of Montana's 4.7% band from $21,100 to $47,500, so a middle income that used to cross into the upper rate at $21,100 now sits almost entirely below it. The points column misleads in the other direction too: Kentucky's flat cut to 3.50% is worth $312 on two-thirds of South Carolina's points, and Georgia's to 4.99% is worth $256 on a quarter of them.

At the small end, Indiana and Utah each trimmed five hundredths of a point. Indiana's schedule is one flat rate over a $1,000 exemption, so that cut is worth exactly $32 a year to the same filer. Both are real rate cuts. Neither is visible on a return.

Ohio's cut reaches nobody under $100,000

Ohio's −0.38 is the fifth-largest cut in the table and the clearest case in this year's set for reading the schedule rather than the rate. What HB 96 removed was a band that began at $100,000. Below that line, Ohio Revised Code §5747.02 charged $342.00 plus 2.75% of the excess over $26,050 in 2025, and charges $332.00 plus the same 2.75% over the same $26,050 in 2026. Same rate, same threshold, ten dollars apart. The 3.125% that vanished never applied to a dollar below $100,000 of Ohio taxable income in the first place.

Four schedules got shorter, and one changed what it taxes

Four of the thirteen cuts came with fewer brackets: Oklahoma went from six bands to four, Nebraska from four to three, and South Carolina and Ohio from three to two. Consolidation moves the income at which the top rate starts applying, so two filers in the same state with the same headline cut can land very differently.

South Carolina went further than any of them, and its rate cut is the least of what it did. Act 110 (H. 4216) makes federal adjusted gross income the starting point for the SC1040 and decouples the state from the federal standard and itemized deductions, substituting a South Carolina Income Adjusted Deduction of $15,000 for a single filer. The schedule itself is published as an equation: 1.99% below $30,000, and above it, 5.21% of income minus $966. That is a different tax on a different number, landing in the same year as the −0.79 in the table above. The Department of Revenue's own individual income tax page has yet to catch up: it still leads with the 2025 rate of 6% and the 2025 SC1040TT tables.

The thirty-seven that did nothing

A state can hold every rate and still change what you owe. North Dakota kept its rates and its structure for 2026 and became the tenth jurisdiction on the fleet ranking that charges a $65,000 single filer nothing at all. Its schedule opens with a 0% band, and Form ND-1ES puts the top of that band at $49,575 for 2026, up from $48,475 for 2025. Add the $16,100 deduction our tables take off first and the zero band now reaches $65,675 of income. In 2025 the same two numbers reached $64,225, leaving $775 exposed at 1.95%. Our filer owed $15 in North Dakota last year and owes nothing this year, without a single rate changing.

Nine states never had a rate to change: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. What they charge instead is a separate story.

What is not confirmed, and what we do not model

Of the fifty-one jurisdictions, 28 carry final 2026 figures and 23 are still provisional in our tables. Provisional means the value rests on a published schedule, an enacted bill, or an indexation formula applied to known inputs, and not yet on final guidance from the state.

Arkansas is the one provisional entry in the cut table above, and the reason is specific. Act 2 of the 2026 First Extraordinary Session sets the 3.70% rate for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2026, while the Department of Finance and Administration's individual income tax page still lists forms through 2025 and no 2026 table. Until that publishes, the figure stands on the session law alone.

Two gaps in our own model bear on the states above, and both run in the taxpayer's disfavour. Our Maine entry carries the state's $15,700 standard deduction but not the $5,300 personal exemption that sits beside it on the same MRS schedule, so a computed Maine figure runs roughly $358 high for a single filer at $65,000. Our Ohio entry carries the two rate bands but not the fixed dollar amount the schedule adds to them, so a computed Ohio figure runs $332 light for 2026. Neither affects a rate quoted in this article; both affect a dollar figure, which is why no Maine or Ohio dollar figure appears above. Anything that changes after publication is recorded in corrections.

The rate table is where this story starts and not where it ends. The fleet ranking reorders all 51 jurisdictions by what the $65,000 filer owes, and the calculator will run it on your own number instead of ours.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax advice. Consult a qualified tax professional for guidance specific to your situation.