California income tax brackets run from 1% to 12.3% across nine tiers, with an additional 1% surcharge on taxable income above $1,000,000 that pushes the top rate to 13.3%. Which bracket applies to you depends on your filing status and your California taxable income — not your gross salary, and not the federal AGI on your IRS return. The rate you see at the top of your bracket is only applied to the dollars that fall inside it.
How the Brackets Actually Work
California’s system is progressive. Different slices of your income are taxed at different rates, climbing as income rises. You never pay your top rate on every dollar you earn, only on the portion that lands in that top tier.
Two numbers describe your situation. Your marginal rate is the rate on your last dollar of income, which is the headline bracket you fall into. Your effective rate is the total tax you owe divided by your taxable income, and it is almost always lower than the marginal rate. A single filer earning $80,000, for example, pays 1% on the first $11,079, then 2%, 4%, 6%, and 8% on successive slices, before any income is taxed at the 9.3% marginal rate.
Finding Your Filing Status
The bracket table you use depends on your filing status as of December 31 of the tax year. The Franchise Tax Board recognizes five categories.1Franchise Tax Board. Filing Status
- Single: unmarried, divorced, or legally separated on the last day of the year.
- Married or registered domestic partner (RDP) filing jointly: income and deductions combined on one return.
- Married or RDP filing separately: each spouse or partner files their own return.
- Head of household: unmarried and paying more than half the cost of maintaining a home for a qualifying person. California follows the federal Internal Revenue Code definition with minor modifications.2California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 17042
- Qualifying surviving spouse or RDP: your spouse or partner died within the past two years and you maintain a home for a dependent child.
Filing jointly often lowers the combined bill for married couples and RDPs because the joint bracket thresholds are roughly double the single thresholds.
Tax Year 2025 California Tax Brackets
The nine rates are set by Revenue and Taxation Code Section 17041, and the Franchise Tax Board adjusts the thresholds every year for inflation.3California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 17041 The brackets below apply to tax year 2025, the return filed in 2026.4Franchise Tax Board. 2025 California Tax Rate Schedules
Single or Married/RDP Filing Separately
- 1% on the first $11,079
- 2% on $11,080 – $26,264
- 4% on $26,265 – $41,452
- 6% on $41,453 – $57,542
- 8% on $57,543 – $72,724
- 9.3% on $72,725 – $371,479
- 10.3% on $371,480 – $445,771
- 11.3% on $445,772 – $742,953
- 12.3% on $742,954 and above
Married/RDP Filing Jointly or Qualifying Surviving Spouse
- 1% on the first $22,158
- 2% on $22,159 – $52,528
- 4% on $52,529 – $82,904
- 6% on $82,905 – $115,084
- 8% on $115,085 – $145,448
- 9.3% on $145,449 – $742,958
- 10.3% on $742,959 – $891,542
- 11.3% on $891,543 – $1,485,906
- 12.3% on $1,485,907 and above
Head of Household
- 1% on the first $22,173
- 2% on $22,174 – $52,530
- 4% on $52,531 – $67,716
- 6% on $67,717 – $83,805
- 8% on $83,806 – $98,990
- 9.3% on $98,991 – $505,208
- 10.3% on $505,209 – $606,251
- 11.3% on $606,252 – $1,010,417
- 12.3% on $1,010,418 and above
The 1% Millionaire Surcharge
If your California taxable income tops $1,000,000, you owe another 1% on everything above that line. The surcharge came in with the Mental Health Services Act (Proposition 63) in 2004 and funds county mental health programs.5California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 17043 Combined with the 12.3% top bracket, it produces a 13.3% maximum marginal rate, the highest state income tax rate in the country. The $1,000,000 threshold is the same for every filing status, and no credits can offset the surcharge.
Getting to Your California Taxable Income
The number you look up in the bracket tables is your California taxable income, which usually differs from both your gross pay and your federal AGI. Three steps get you there.
Start With Federal AGI, Then Adjust
Begin with the federal adjusted gross income from your federal return — total income minus certain above-the-line adjustments.6Internal Revenue Service. Definition of Adjusted Gross Income California then layers on its own adjustments for items it treats differently. The most common one: California doesn’t tax Social Security benefits, so any Social Security included in your federal AGI gets subtracted.7California Tax Service Center. Special Circumstances Other adjustments may add back federal deductions California doesn’t recognize or subtract income California exempts. The result is your California AGI.
Subtract the Standard or Itemized Deduction
From California AGI you subtract either the standard deduction or your itemized deductions, whichever is larger. For tax year 2025 the California standard deduction is $5,706 for single filers and married/RDP filing separately, and $11,412 for joint filers, head of household, and qualifying surviving spouse.8Franchise Tax Board. Deductions Those amounts are considerably smaller than the federal standard deduction ($16,100 single, $32,200 joint for 2026), which makes itemizing worthwhile for more Californians than it is on the federal return.9Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026 What remains after the deduction is your California taxable income, the figure that sets your bracket.10California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 17073
Watch for California-Federal Differences
If you itemize, two differences can shift the number noticeably.11Franchise Tax Board. Instructions for Schedule CA (540) – California Adjustments California does not impose the federal $10,000 SALT cap on state and local taxes, so the full amount of property tax you paid is deductible. California does not, however, let you deduct state income tax or State Disability Insurance payments on the state return. On mortgage interest, California still uses the pre-2018 cap of $1,000,000 of acquisition debt ($500,000 for married filing separately) rather than the federal $750,000 cap, and still allows home equity loan interest.
Working the Brackets: An Example
Take a single filer with California AGI of $90,000 who takes the standard deduction. Subtract $5,706 and taxable income is $84,294. Apply each bracket to its slice of income:4Franchise Tax Board. 2025 California Tax Rate Schedules
- 1% on $11,079 = $110.79
- 2% on $15,185 = $303.70
- 4% on $15,188 = $607.52
- 6% on $16,090 = $965.40
- 8% on $15,182 = $1,214.56
- 9.3% on $11,570 = $1,076.01
Total: about $4,278 in state income tax before credits. The marginal rate is 9.3%, but the effective rate is roughly 5.1% ($4,278 ÷ $84,294). That gap is why moving into a higher bracket does not raise your whole tax bill in step with the new rate — only the dollars sitting in the new bracket are taxed at it.
If You Didn’t Live in California All Year
Part-year residents and nonresidents with California-source income don’t read the tables directly. The Franchise Tax Board prorates: it calculates the tax as if you were a full-year resident on all your income from every source, then multiplies by the share of income that was actually from California.12Franchise Tax Board. FTB Publication 1100 – Taxation of Nonresidents and Individuals Who Change Residency The result is a tax rate matching your overall income level rather than one artificially lowered because only part of your earnings came from California.