Will Your 2026 Tax Refund Be Bigger? 2026 Tax Changes for the Same Household, 2025 vs 2026, Federal and in All 51 Jurisdictions

Published 2026-10-29. Tax years 2025 and 2026 (the returns filed in 2026 and in early 2027).

Will my 2026 tax refund be bigger than my 2025 refund?

For the same household with the same income and the same withholding, the 2026 refund is a little bigger than the 2025 one, by the federal tax the 2026 inflation adjustments take off: $40 to $235 for eight of the households priced here (the most, $235, for the single parent earning $32,000, mainly from a larger earned income credit). Giving $1,000 to charity without itemizing adds the one new 2026 deduction: the same single worker's refund grows by $172 instead of $52. The senior deduction, the tips deduction and the overtime deduction do not make 2026 bigger: each applied to 2025 returns already, at the same amount. The bigger difference is the state. 33 jurisdictions charge some of the four households less in 2026 than in 2025 (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin); for a married couple earning $100,000 the largest state cut is $596 in South Carolina, so their refund there grows by $699 in all. 2 charge some of them more (Alabama, South Carolina): South Carolina charges W1 and W2 less but R2 $99 more.

Estimate your own 2026 refund, federal and state
Free: wages, children, tips, overtime and withholding in; the federal and state refund or amount owed out.

The households

Each household has exactly the same income in 2025 and in 2026, so every difference below is the tax law's: the 2026 inflation adjustments, the provisions that start in 2026, and each state's own 2026 changes. A refund is what was withheld (and paid in estimates) less the tax, plus the refundable credits, so with the same withholding in both years the refund moves by exactly the change in the tax: a $100 lower tax is a $100 bigger refund, or $100 less to pay. Whether your own withholding stayed the same is the other half of the answer (see the limits).

Federal: a slightly bigger refund for everyone, from the inflation adjustments

Why the federal tax falls with the same income: the 2026 standard deduction, the tax brackets and the earned income credit are adjusted for inflation (Rev. Proc. 2025-32, against the 2025 amounts of Rev. Proc. 2024-40 as the 2025 law changed them), so the same wages leave less taxable income and less of it in the higher brackets. The table below shows the moving parts. The senior deduction for people 65 and older, the tips deduction and the overtime deduction are the same in both columns: the law that created them applies from tax year 2025 (IRC §151(d)(5)(C), §224, §225), so they were already on the 2025 return, and a household that claimed them then gets no extra refund from them in 2026. New for 2026 is the deduction of up to $1,000 ($2,000 joint) of cash gifts to charity for people who do not itemize (IRC §170(p)): household C1 shows it.

States: where the refund grows most

The four households without children, tips or overtime, priced in every state in both years. A negative state change is a state tax cut (a bigger state refund); the whole change adds the federal one.

Alabama lets its taxpayers deduct the federal income tax they pay, so the lower 2026 federal tax raises the Alabama tax by a few dollars: part of the federal cut comes back to the state.

No change in a state means its 2026 rules give these households the same tax as its 2025 rules; 7 taxing jurisdictions charged all four the same in both years, and 10 charged none of them any income tax in either year (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming). Each state's 2026 and 2025 rules, with their official sources, are on its state guide and in the state tax engine documentation.

Every state

Related: Tax refund calculator 2026 · Federal income tax calculator · 2026 Return Preview · State income tax calculator · When your 2026 refund arrives · No tax on tips calculator · No tax on overtime calculator · Senior deduction calculator

Download the data

Every case on this page, with its inputs: tax-refund-2026-vs-2025-by-state.csv (the 204 household-state cases) · tax-refund-2026-vs-2025-by-state.json (the federal table and the state table) (CC0). Dollar amounts in USD a year.

Questions

Will my tax refund be bigger in 2027?

If your income and withholding are the same as last year, slightly: the 2026 inflation adjustments lower the federal tax on the same income, by $40 to $235 for eight of the households priced here. 33 states also cut their own tax for 2026. A refund is withholding less tax, so a change in your pay, your withholding or your family moves it far more.

Does no tax on tips make my 2026 refund bigger than my 2025 refund?

No, not by itself. The tips deduction applies from 2025 returns: a tipped worker with $38,000 of wages including $10,000 of tips deducts $10,000 on the 2025 return and $10,000 on the 2026 one. The federal tax still falls by $42, from the inflation adjustments.

Does the overtime deduction make my 2026 refund bigger?

Not compared with 2025, when it already applied: a worker with an $8,000 overtime premium deducts $8,000 in 2025 and $8,000 in 2026. If your employer withheld tax on the overtime during the year, the deduction comes back as part of the refund in both years.

Will seniors get a bigger refund in 2026 because of the senior deduction?

Not compared with 2025: the deduction applies to 2025 through 2028 returns. A single retiree at 68 deducts $6,000 in both years and a couple at 67 and 65 $12,000; their federal tax still falls by $40 and $115 from the inflation adjustments.

Which states cut income tax for 2026?

For the four households priced in every state, 33 jurisdictions charged some of them less in 2026 than in 2025: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin. The largest cut for a single worker at $50,000 was $460, in South Carolina.

Why is my refund smaller this year?

For the same income the 2026 tax is lower than the 2025 tax, so a smaller refund usually means less was withheld (a new Form W-4, for example to take the tips or overtime deduction during the year), a raise, a child who turned 17, or a credit you no longer qualify for. Compare the two years' withholding first.

Method and sources

Every 2026 figure was computed by QuantCalc's open tax engines (federal 2.5.1, state 1.21.2) through the household module the free tax refund calculator and federal income tax calculator run, then recomputed by the C engines behind the federal and state tax APIs from independently written requests, agreeing to the cent. The 2025 figures come from the same C engines' tax year 2025 rules (the APIs' taxYear: 2025): the federal 2025 return under the law in force for 2025 returns, the 2025 changes of the 2025 law included, and each state's 2025 rules, all 51 verified against the 2025 forms and instructions. The website's own engine copies carry 2026 only, so the 2025 figures are not compared with a second copy; instead every state figure of both years was recomputed a second way, with the state API building the federal return itself, and agreed to the cent. Each state's 2025 changes and their official sources are in the state API's response for taxYear: 2025. The sources of the federal changes:

• Rev. Proc. 2025-32: 2026 inflation-adjusted items (incl. One Big Beautiful Bill amendments)
• Rev. Proc. 2024-40: 2025 inflation-adjusted items
• 26 U.S.C. 63
• 26 U.S. Code § 151
• 26 U.S. Code § 224
• 26 U.S. Code § 225
• 26 U.S. Code § 32
• Schedule 8812 (Form 1040) 2025, Credits for Qualifying Children and Other Dependents
• 26 U.S. Code § 170

What is not modelled

• Withholding is not modelled. The refund change here assumes the same withholding (and estimated payments) in both years; a new Form W-4, a raise or a new job changes the refund by more than the tax law does. The engine does not model the employer withholding tables of either year.
• The same income in both years: a raise, a cost-of-living increase or a bigger Social Security benefit in 2026 raises the 2026 tax and is not included.
• Households with children, tips or overtime are priced on the federal return only. The state engine does not take dependents (no state dependent exemption or child credit) and taxes tips and overtime as ordinary wages (no state tips or overtime deduction, and no state's conformity to the federal one), so their state returns would be incomplete in both years. They are left out of the state tables rather than approximated.
• The state figure is the state income tax before any state refundable credit; state credits for renters, property tax and the like are not included.
• The Indiana and Maryland figures include the county income tax every county there levies, on the state return, at a default county rate: Indiana at 1.75% (county rates); Maryland at 3.12% (county rates). A resident pays their own county's rate. Other local income taxes (city and school-district taxes, and county taxes in other states) are not included (see local income tax on retirement income).
• Federal: no self-employment income, education or energy credits, premium tax credit, or itemized deductions; the children meet every test for the credits claimed. Joint returns: half of each amount in each spouse's name.
• The households are illustrations, not averages.

An estimate, not tax advice. These are computed examples for the 2025 and 2026 tax years from QuantCalc's open tax engines (federal 2.5.1, state 1.21.2). Your own return depends on facts these examples do not include. Check any decision with your tax preparer before acting.

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  title  = {Will Your 2026 Tax Refund Be Bigger? The Same Household's 2025 and 2026 Tax, Federal and Every State},
  author = {{QuantCalc Research}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://quantcalc.app/research/tax-refund-2026-vs-2025-by-state/},
  note   = {Accessed <date>}
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