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No employer is withholding tax from your freelance income, so the IRS asks you to pre-pay it yourself — four times a year. Underpay and you owe a penalty; overpay and you've handed the government an interest-free loan. This sizes each payment from the income you actually expect, and shows every step.
Nothing you type leaves your browser. This is an estimate, not tax advice — confirm your numbers and due dates with a CPA or enrolled agent.
When you're an employee, your employer skims tax out of every paycheck and sends it to the IRS for you. When you're self-employed, that job becomes yours. The IRS operates on a "pay-as-you-go" system, so it expects you to estimate your tax for the year and pay it in four installments rather than in one lump sum each April. Miss them, or pay too little, and you can owe an underpayment penalty on top of the tax itself.
Your quarterly payment has to cover both taxes a freelancer owes: self-employment tax and income tax. Lumping them into a vague "set aside 30%" rule is how people end up short in April. This calculator sizes each one separately and then splits the total across the four due dates:
Estimated tax for the 2026 tax year is paid on four dates that don't line up with neat calendar quarters: April 15, 2026 (for income earned Jan–Mar), June 15, 2026 (Apr–May), September 15, 2026 (Jun–Aug), and January 15, 2027 (Sep–Dec). If a due date lands on a weekend or federal holiday, it rolls to the next business day. You can pay online for free through IRS Direct Pay or EFTPS, or mail a Form 1040-ES voucher.
You don't have to predict your income perfectly. The IRS gives you a "safe harbor": pay at least the smaller of 90% of this year's actual tax or 100% of last year's total tax (110% if last year's adjusted gross income was over $150,000), and you won't owe an underpayment penalty even if you end up earning more than expected. That's why this tool asks for last year's tax — once it knows that number, it shows the lower bar you can safely aim for. Many freelancers with rising income simply pay last year's tax in four equal parts and settle the rest, penalty-free, in April.
If you expect to owe $1,000 or more in tax for the year after any withholding, the IRS expects quarterly estimated payments. If you also have a W-2 job (or a spouse who does), you can sometimes cover your freelance tax by increasing that withholding instead — enter it in the "already withheld" field above and the quarterly figure drops accordingly.
It depends on your profit and your income-tax rate, but many freelancers land somewhere between 25% and 35% of net profit once self-employment tax and income tax are combined. Rather than guess, enter your numbers above — the calculator shows your actual effective rate and the dollar amount per quarter.
The IRS charges an underpayment penalty, calculated like interest on the amount you were short, for the time it was late. Hitting the safe harbor (90% of this year's tax or 100–110% of last year's) avoids it entirely. Paying a little extra early is cheaper than catching up late.
Your real income-tax rate isn't knowable from freelance income alone — it depends on your bracket, deductions, filing status, and any other household income. So we compute the self-employment tax precisely and let you supply your own combined federal + state rate for the income-tax piece. Set it to 0 to size self-employment tax on its own.
Yes. The IRS lets you use the "annualized income" method to pay based on what you actually earned in each period, which helps if your work is seasonal or you landed a big project late in the year. This tool gives you the even-split baseline; a tax pro can help you annualize if your income is lumpy.
No. Every calculation runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent to a server or stored. The link in your address bar updates so you can bookmark or share a scenario, but it only contains the numbers you chose.
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The 15.3% SE tax on your profit and the deductible half, broken all the way down.
See what you actually keep after expenses, self-employment tax, and income tax.
Work backward from the take-home you want to the hourly rate you need to charge.