The whole return's income, not one property's or one business's. Above $505,000 the cap shrinks by 30% of every additional dollar, down to a $10,000 floor.
Or general sales tax, if you elect that instead. Withholding plus estimated payments.
On your home and vehicles. Rental and business property tax is deducted elsewhere, uncapped.
Your cap, 2026
$40,400
The full headline cap
You can deduct
$30,000
100.0% of the $30,000 you paid
Buys you nothing
$0
Your SALT is under the cap
Your cap, year by year, to the 2030 reversion
The cap does not follow inflation. It follows a schedule Congress wrote into OBBBA §164(b)(6): it steps up a little each year, and then reverts to the pre-OBBBA figure and stays there. The phase-down goes with it, because there is nothing left to phase down once the cap is already the floor.
| Tax year | Cap for your status | Phase-down starts | Your cap at this MAGI |
|---|---|---|---|
2026 IRS published | $40,400 OBBBA schedule | $505,000 | $40,400 |
2027 IRS has not published this year | $40,804 OBBBA schedule | $510,050 | $40,804 |
2028 IRS has not published this year | $41,212 OBBBA schedule | $515,151 | $41,212 |
2029 IRS has not published this year | $41,624 OBBBA schedule | $520,302 | $41,624 |
2030 IRS has not published this year | $10,000 OBBBA reversion | No phase-down | $10,000 |
2031 IRS has not published this year | $10,000 OBBBA reversion | No phase-down | $10,000 |
What the cliff costs you: −$31,624 of cap, overnight. On your numbers the cap goes from $41,624 in 2029 to $10,000 in 2030, and stays there. If a deduction you are planning around depends on the current cap, that is the date it stops.
Two different kinds of uncertainty, kept apart. The IRS has not published tables for the later years above, so every OTHER figure on this site for those years — brackets, the standard deduction, contribution limits — is an inflation estimate and is labelled one. The SALT cap is the exception: its steps and its reversion are written into the statute, so the amounts in this table are read from the law rather than projected from a price index. That is the point of showing them. A generic inflation projection would have carried the 2030 cap to several times the figure the statute actually sets.
Three things the cap number alone will not tell you
- A cap you never reach costs you nothing. SALT only matters if you itemize at all, and the standard deduction beats itemizing for roughly nine filers in ten. Run itemize vs standard before you plan around this one.
- It is one test, on one household. The MAGI that phases the cap down is the whole return's. Two people each pricing their own property against their own income will both get a cap that is too high, and the error is largest for the households closest to the threshold.
- Business income changes the answer entirely. State tax paid by a pass-through entity is not your SALT at all — it is the entity's deduction, uncapped. That is the mechanism behind the PTET election, and it is the only workaround that moves real money.
Looking for the workarounds rather than the number?
This page is a calculator: what your cap is, and what the schedule does to it. The strategy side — which states offer a Pass-Through Entity Tax, how the election works for an S-Corp owner, and the smaller moves available to a household with no business income — is a separate guide: SALT cap workarounds.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What is the SALT deduction cap for 2026?
$40,400 per return ($20,200 if you are married filing separately). It is a single combined ceiling on state and local income tax — or general sales tax, if you elect that instead — plus real property tax and personal property tax, all added together on Schedule A. It is a ceiling on the DEDUCTION, not on what you paid: the tax above the cap is still owed, it simply buys you nothing federally.
Why is my cap smaller than the headline number?
Because the cap itself phases down with income. Above $505,000 of modified AGI the cap is reduced by 30% of every additional dollar, until it bottoms out at $10,000 — a floor reached at $606,333 of MAGI and held there however high income goes. This is the part most summaries leave out, and it bites precisely the households the headline cap looks generous to: a high earner in a high-tax state can be deducting a quarter of what the number in the news says.
What happens to the SALT cap in 2030?
It reverts, permanently, to $10,000 per return ($5,000 married filing separately), and the income phase-down disappears with it — there is nothing left to phase down once the cap is already at the floor. This is not an inflation forecast or a guess about what Congress might do. It is the schedule the statute itself lays out, and the calculator above reads it rather than projecting one. The practical consequence: a deduction you are planning around in the years before it is a deduction that largely goes away, on a known date.
Is the cap per person or per return?
Per return. Two single filers who each own a home get a full cap each; the same two people married get one cap between them, which is the clearest marriage penalty left in the code. Married filing separately halves it rather than restoring it, so splitting the return does not recover the second cap — and it costs you several other joint-only benefits on the way. The phase-down threshold is halved for separate returns too.
What does NOT count against the cap?
Property tax and state income tax attributable to a rental property or a business go on Schedule E or Schedule C, not Schedule A, and are deducted in full outside the cap entirely. Foreign income tax is usually better taken as a credit. Federal tax, transfer taxes on a sale, and assessments that add value to your property (a new pavement, a sewer line) are not deductible as SALT at all. And none of this matters unless your itemized total beats the standard deduction in the first place, which is a separate question.
Can anything be done about it?
If you own a pass-through business, most states now offer a Pass-Through Entity Tax election that moves the state tax off your personal return and onto the entity's, where no cap applies — the single largest workaround available. Without business income the options are smaller: bunching two years of property tax into one, or electing to deduct general sales tax instead of income tax if you live somewhere with no state income tax and made large purchases. The workarounds have their own guide, linked above.
Your cap is one input of many
The full optimizer reads your SALT cap off the same accessor this page does, then prices it against your mortgage interest, charitable giving, retirement contributions and entity choice on one return.
Open the full calculator