Long-term gains and NIIT
See how 2026 long-term capital gains stack into the 0%, 15% and 20% bands, and whether the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax applies.
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Revenue Procedure 2025-32 §4.03us-tax-2026-v1
Tax on long-term gains
$3,000.00$0.00 at 0% · $20,000.00 at 15% · $0.00 at 20%High confidence0% and 15% ceilings transcribed from Revenue Procedure 2025-32 §4.03; NIIT thresholds from the IRS Q&A on IRC 1411; Collectibles, unrecaptured 1250 gain and the home-sale exclusion are not modelled.
Method capital-gains-v1.0.0Data us-tax-2026-v1
Guide
A long-term capital gain sits in 0%, 15% or 20% bands that are stacked on top of your other taxable income. Crossing into 15% does not re-tax the wages underneath, and a separate 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax can still apply once MAGI is high enough.
Other taxable income fills the 0% and 15% ceilings first. Only the leftover room is available to the gain. That is why two people with the same $20,000 gain can owe different tax on it: one still had 0% room, the other did not.
The 2026 ceilings come from Revenue Procedure 2025-32. Amounts above the 15% ceiling are taxed at 20%.
The tax is 3.8% of the smaller of net investment income or MAGI over $200,000 single / $250,000 joint / $125,000 married filing separately. Those thresholds are not inflation-indexed.
Wages are not net investment income. They still raise MAGI, which is how a high salary can cause NIIT on a gain that would otherwise sit below the threshold.
A holding period of one year or less is ordinary income. Enter it with other taxable income, not as a long-term gain, or this page will understate the tax.
Ordinary brackets apply to ordinary taxable income. Long-term gains use a separate 0%/15%/20% schedule stacked on top of that income.
The gains can still fill preferential bands that your wages already reached, which is why the same gain is taxed differently at different ordinary-income levels.
No. Additional Medicare Tax is 0.9% on wages and self-employment income over a threshold. NIIT is 3.8% on net investment income over a MAGI threshold. They do not apply to the same kind of income.
Only the gain that is not excluded under section 121. This page does not apply that exclusion, so entering a home-sale figure as a long-term gain can overstate the tax.
Results are for information. They are not legal, tax, medical, or financial advice. How the math is maintained · Report a wrong figure.
Rounding, versioning, and omissions that sit beside the guide rather than repeating it.
Calculation receipt
This answer is built from published figures. Each one is named below, with the release it came from.
If a source above is unavailable or out of date: The long-term rate a household pays is decided by published thresholds. Without them the page cannot say which bracket applies.
Sources