Maine State Income Tax Brackets, Rates and Deductions

Maine’s state income tax brackets for 2026 use three graduated rates: 5.8%, 6.75%, and 7.15%. The rate that applies depends on your taxable income and filing status, and because the system is progressive, each rate only touches the slice of income that falls within its bracket. Earning a dollar past a threshold doesn’t lift your whole income into a higher rate; it lifts only that dollar.

2026 Brackets by Filing Status

Maine Revenue Services publishes the rate schedule each year after applying an inflation adjustment to the base brackets in 36 M.R.S. § 5111. The 2026 thresholds are below.

Single Filers and Married Filing Separately

5.8% on taxable income under $27,400
6.75% on taxable income from $27,400 to $64,849
7.15% on taxable income of $64,850 and above¹

Head of Household

5.8% on taxable income under $41,100
6.75% on taxable income from $41,100 to $97,299
7.15% on taxable income of $97,300 and above¹

Head of household brackets are wider than single brackets, reflecting the assumption that you’re supporting at least one dependent.

Married Filing Jointly and Surviving Spouses

5.8% on taxable income under $54,850
6.75% on taxable income from $54,850 to $129,749
7.15% on taxable income of $129,750 and above¹

Joint filers get the widest brackets. The 7.15% rate doesn’t start until taxable income tops $129,750, roughly double the $64,850 threshold for single filers.

What the Brackets Actually Cost You

A single filer with $80,000 in Maine taxable income pays 5.8% on the first $27,400, which comes to $1,589. The next $37,450, running from $27,400 up to $64,850, is taxed at 6.75%. The remaining $15,150 above $64,850 is taxed at 7.15%. The total lands at roughly $5,200, an effective rate well below the 7.15% top marginal rate.¹

That gap between marginal and effective rate is the whole point of a bracketed system. The “rate” people quote is the rate on the last dollar earned, not the rate on the whole paycheck.

Getting to Taxable Income

The brackets apply to Maine taxable income, not to your gross pay or your federal adjusted gross income. Maine starts with your federal AGI, applies its own additions and subtractions to reach Maine adjusted gross income, then lets you subtract either the standard deduction or itemized deductions plus a personal exemption.

Standard Deduction

For 2026, the standard deduction is:¹

Single or married filing separately: $15,300
Head of household: $22,950
Married filing jointly: $30,600

If you itemized on your federal return, you can itemize on your Maine return instead, using the federal itemized total as the starting point with certain state modifications.

Personal Exemption

Every taxpayer also gets a personal exemption of $5,300. Joint filers claim $5,300 each, for a combined $10,600 reduction to taxable income.¹

Phase-Outs at Higher Incomes

The bracket table alone understates what higher earners pay, because both the standard deduction and the personal exemption shrink as income rises. Losing those subtractions pushes more income into the taxed portion, which functions like a stealth rate increase even though the top rate stays at 7.15%.

Standard Deduction Phase-Out

The standard deduction starts to decrease once Maine AGI passes the following thresholds, and reaches zero at the completion figure:²

Single: begins around $102,250, completes around $177,250
Head of household: begins around $153,400, completes around $265,900
Married filing jointly: begins around $204,550, completes around $354,550

The mechanics: the full deduction is multiplied by a fraction. The numerator is how much your income exceeds the starting threshold; the denominator is $75,000 for single, $112,500 for head of household, and $150,000 for joint filers. When the fraction reaches 1.0, the deduction is gone.³

Personal Exemption Phase-Out

The personal exemption uses a similar formula. It starts shrinking once Maine AGI exceeds base applicable amounts of $266,700 for single filers, $293,350 for heads of household, and $320,000 for joint filers. Those base figures are adjusted upward each year for inflation. The denominator for the phase-out fraction is $125,000 for every filing status except married filing separately, which uses $62,500.⁴

If your income sits anywhere near these bands, working through the worksheets attached to Form 1040ME is worth the time. The combined loss of both the deduction and exemption can quietly add several hundred dollars to your bill.

Why the Numbers Move Each Year

Maine indexes its bracket thresholds, standard deduction, and personal exemption every year using a cost-of-living factor tied to the Chained Consumer Price Index. For 2026, the factor applied to the rate table is 1.303 at the lowest bracket thresholds and 1.298 at the highest. The standard deduction and personal exemption use a factor of 1.279. Indexing keeps inflation from silently pushing you into a higher bracket when your real income hasn’t changed.¹

If You Don’t Live in Maine All Year

The brackets above apply to full-year residents on income from all sources, regardless of where it was earned. Part-year residents run the same brackets but only on income received while living in Maine. If you live in another state and earn money from work performed in Maine or from property located here, you file as a nonresident and pay tax only on the Maine-source portion. The rates are the same in each case; what changes is the income the rates apply to.

1
Maine Revenue Services. State of Maine Individual Income Tax 2026 Rates
2
Maine State Legislature. Maine Code 36 5124-C Standard Deduction Resident on or After January 1, 2018
3
Maine Revenue Services. 2026 Standard Deduction Phase-Out Worksheet
4
Maine State Legislature. Maine Code 36 5126-A Personal Exemptions on or After January 1, 2018