2026 tax year
How much of your SSDI is taxable
SSDI on its own is usually tax-free. What makes it taxable is everything else.
Social Security disability is not taxed like wages. It is taxed on a formula that adds up half your benefit plus all your other income, and compares the total against a threshold. Below the threshold, none of the benefit is taxable. Above it, up to 85% of it becomes taxable, never more than 85%, however high your income goes.
The consequence catches people out constantly: your benefit can become taxable without your benefit changing at all. A spouse taking on freelance work, an investment paying out, a pension starting, any of them can push the household past the threshold and make a benefit that was tax-free last year partly taxable this year.
Add the other income below and you will see exactly how much of the benefit crosses over. Add a second person if you are married, because the thresholds and the formula work on the household, not on the person receiving the benefit.
Calculator
Add everyone's income above and press Calculate.
The states that tax Social Security
12 states tax Social Security benefits. Everywhere else leaves them alone entirely, whatever your income:
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Kansas
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- New Mexico
- Rhode Island
- Utah
- Vermont
- West Virginia
Where this comes from
The rules on this page that are specific rather than general are cited below. Follow a link to read the provision itself rather than taking our word for it:
- Social Security and SSDI are taxed on a combined-income formula counting half the benefit plus other income, to a maximum of 85%IRC 86(a)-(b)
Related
- All benefit calculators
- Is your short-term disability benefit taxable?
- Is your long-term disability benefit taxable?
- SSDI and long-term disability together
- Is workers’ compensation taxable?
- Tax on Social Security and a 401(k)
- Household calculator
General information about how these benefits are taxed, not tax advice. Disability and benefit taxation turns on facts about your policy and your household that this page does not have, check with a tax professional before relying on a figure here.