What Are the Medicare IRMAA Brackets for 2026?
IRMAA is a cliff, not a ramp: one dollar over a threshold moves your whole premium to the next tier for the year. The 2026 Part B and Part D tiers.
The standard 2026 Medicare Part B premium is $202.90 a month. IRMAA is a surcharge added on top of it once modified adjusted gross income passes $218,000 for a couple filing jointly, or $109,000 for a single filer — measured on the 2024 tax return, two years back.
That two-year lag is the part that catches people. By the time the letter from Social Security arrives, the income year that caused it closed at least two years ago.
The figures below are 2026 figures, and every one of them is read against your 2024 return: Social Security uses the modified adjusted gross income the IRS reports for the tax year two years before the premium year (20 CFR 418.1135(a)). Why the rule works that way, which year is the first one that counts for you, and what happens if the IRS has not supplied that return yet are all covered in the IRMAA look-back period.
What are the 2026 IRMAA brackets?
Each row is the total monthly Part B premium at that tier, plus the Part D income-related adjustment. Both are per person.
| Joint return MAGI (2024) | Single return MAGI (2024) | Total monthly Part B | Part D monthly surcharge |
|---|---|---|---|
| $218,000 or less | $109,000 or less | $202.90 | $0.00 |
| Over $218,000 to $274,000 | Over $109,000 to $137,000 | $284.10 | $14.50 |
| Over $274,000 to $342,000 | Over $137,000 to $171,000 | $405.80 | $37.50 |
| Over $342,000 to $410,000 | Over $171,000 to $205,000 | $527.50 | $60.40 |
| Over $410,000 to under $750,000 | Over $205,000 to under $500,000 | $649.20 | $83.30 |
| $750,000 or more | $500,000 or more | $689.90 | $91.00 |
Source: SSA POMS HI 01101.020. These figures are read directly from this site’s sourced-figure module, not retyped.
Two things about that table.
The Part D column is a surcharge, not a premium — it comes from a separate statute (42 U.S.C. §1395w-113(a)(7)) that borrows the Part B thresholds, so crossing one line moves both columns at once. It sits on top of whatever your drug plan charges, and it is collected out of your Social Security check or paid directly to Medicare even when you pay the plan itself separately.
And every figure is per person. A married couple both enrolled in Part B and Part D pays each column twice.
What are the 2026 brackets for married filing separately?
Married filing separately runs on its own schedule, and it is much steeper. If you lived with your spouse at any point during the year, MAGI over $109,000 goes straight to $649.20 for Part B and $83.30 for Part D. There are two tiers, not five, and the second one starts at $391,000. An MFS filer who lived apart from their spouse for the entire year is measured on the single-filer schedule above instead.
What does one dollar over a 2026 threshold cost?
The whole tier, because 42 U.S.C. §1395r(i)(3)(C) sets one applicable percentage for each income range and applies it to the range rather than to the dollars inside it. (Why it is built as a cliff rather than a phase-in is the structural question behind that.) Here is the price of it.
Illustrative, 2026 figures, a married couple both enrolled in Part B and Part D:
- MAGI of $218,000 exactly: $202.90 Part B, $0 Part D surcharge.
- MAGI of $218,001: $284.10 Part B, $14.50 Part D surcharge.
- The difference per person is $81.20 + $14.50 = $95.70 a month.
- Times twelve months: $1,148.40 a year.
- Times two people: $2,296.80 a year.
That single dollar of income costs the couple about $2,297 over the year. At the top tier the gap from standard is $487.00 plus $91.00 a month per person — $6,936 a year each.
If it helps to have the numbers in one place, I keep them all in the Ultimate Retirement Guide.
Where does the top of the 22% bracket land against the 2026 threshold?
Above it, and that is the arithmetic worth doing before a conversion.
IRMAA is measured on modified adjusted gross income, which sits above the standard deduction on the return; taxable income sits below it. (What MAGI includes, and why it is not the same as taxable income.) The two numbers are never equal, and the gap is the size of your deductions. That matters because “convert to the top of the 22% bracket” is one of the most repeated instructions in retirement content, and the bracket ceiling it points at is a taxable income figure.
Illustrative, 2026, married filing jointly. The 22% bracket runs to $211,400 of taxable income. The basic standard deduction is $32,200. A couple whose taxable income lands exactly at that ceiling therefore has AGI of at least $211,400 + $32,200 = $243,600. The first IRMAA threshold is $218,000. They are $25,600 over it — into the second tier, at $284.10 and $14.50 per person per month.
I wrote “at least” deliberately. Anyone 65 or older gets an additional standard deduction on top of the basic one, which raises the AGI implied by the same taxable income and widens the gap further.
Filling a tax bracket and clearing an IRMAA threshold are two different measurements taken at two different lines on the same return. Nothing about hitting one tells you where you are on the other.
How do I read these numbers against my own 2024 return?
Three habits close most of the gap between the table and reality.
Read them per person. Every Part B and Part D figure above is one person’s amount. A married couple both enrolled doubles the annual cost of any tier change, which is why $95.70 a month at the first line becomes $2,296.80 across a year for the household.
Read them against MAGI, not against your tax return’s bottom line. The measure adds tax-exempt interest and a few other items back to adjusted gross income. What counts, and what never enters the measure at all, decides which row you are actually on.
Read them against 2024, not against this year. A conversion completed in December 2024 lands on the 2024 return and prices every month of 2026. Income you create during 2026 prices 2028. The look-back article works that clock in both directions.
And if a 2026 determination looks wrong to you, or retirement has already dropped your income well below the year on file, there are two separate correction routes and they answer different questions — both are set out here.
These are 2026 figures and they move every year. For the surcharge itself — what it is, what MAGI includes, and how a determination gets corrected — see what IRMAA is. For which year of income is being measured and when your first measured year begins, see the IRMAA look-back period. Enrollment timing, the coverage gap before 65, and how premiums fit a withdrawal plan are collected at Healthcare in Retirement.
Illustrative example
Curtis and Paula, both 68, converting to the top of a tax bracket
They are following the most repeated instruction in retirement content: convert to the top of the bracket. Both are enrolled in Part B and Part D.
Every figure below is round and invented. The bracket ceiling and the deduction are stand-ins, chosen only so the two measurements can be lined up against each other.
- Taxable income they are aiming at — a stand-in ceiling, not a real one
- $196,000
- Their deduction, including the extra amount for their age
- $38,000
- Modified adjusted gross income the same plan produces
- $234,000
- The gap between the two numbers
- $38,000
- Which number the bracket ceiling is measured on
- The lower one
- Which number the Medicare surcharge is measured on
- The higher one
- If that higher number clears a threshold
- The full tier, each of them, every month of the premium year
They aimed at one line and were measured at another. The deduction sits between the two, and the instruction they followed does not mention it.
The gap is not a rounding difference. It is $38,000 of income that the bracket rule treats as spent and the Medicare measure treats as present.
And the two measurements are taken two years apart in their effect. The return that produces $234,000 prices premiums two years later, by which time the conversion is closed and unappealable — a conversion is not a life-changing event.
The fix is not to stop converting. It is to check the same conversion against both lines before the year ends, and to remember the surcharge is charged per person rather than per household.
Which of the two ceilings should govern the size of the conversion is a question about their own numbers, not one this page can answer.
A hypothetical household with round numbers, built to show the arithmetic. Not a real person, and not a recommendation.
Motion Retirement is an educational media brand. Content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute personalized financial, tax, or legal advice. Read the full disclosures.
Example case study. Details are changed and some examples combine more than one household. Nothing here is a recommendation, and your own numbers will be different.
