The 2024 Tax Brackets (Single Filers)

California’s personal income tax uses nine brackets, established under Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Section 17041. These are indexed for inflation each year by the FTB per the Form 540 instructions. For the 2024 tax year (returns filed in 2025), single filers face these rates:

• 1% on taxable income from $0 to $10,412
• 2% from $10,413 to $24,684
• 4% from $24,685 to $38,959
• 6% from $38,960 to $54,081
• 8% from $54,082 to $68,350
• 9.3% from $68,351 to $349,137
• 10.3% from $349,138 to $418,961
• 11.3% from $418,962 to $698,271
• 12.3% on taxable income of $698,272 and above

And then there’s the kicker: if your taxable income exceeds $1,000,000, an additional 1% Mental Health Services Tax applies to the amount over $1M, authorized by Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Section 17043 (Proposition 63). That pushes the effective top rate to 13.3%.

How Progressive Taxation Actually Works

People get confused by marginal rates. A lot of filers see “12.3%” and think their entire income gets taxed at that rate. It doesn’t. Only the income within each bracket gets taxed at that bracket’s rate. Every dollar you earn under $10,412 is taxed at just 1%, regardless of whether you make $50,000 or $5,000,000.

A Real Example

Say you’re a single filer with $150,000 in California taxable income. Here’s the math:

• $10,412 at 1% = $104.12
• $14,272 at 2% ($10,413–$24,684) = $285.44
• $14,275 at 4% ($24,685–$38,959) = $571.00
• $15,122 at 6% ($38,960–$54,081) = $907.32
• $14,269 at 8% ($54,082–$68,350) = $1,141.52
• $81,650 at 9.3% ($68,351–$150,000) = $7,593.45

Total California tax: about $10,603. That’s an effective rate of roughly 7.1% — far less than the 9.3% marginal rate the top slice gets taxed at. The distinction between effective and marginal rates matters a lot when you’re planning estimated payments or comparing California to other states.

No Preferential Rate for Capital Gains

This is where California really stings high-income filers. On your federal return, long-term capital gains and qualified dividends get preferential rates under IRC Section 1(h): 0%, 15%, or 20% depending on income. California doesn’t do that. Capital gains in California are taxed as ordinary income. All of them. Short-term and long-term alike.

Sell stock you’ve held for ten years and make a $500,000 profit? That $500,000 goes straight into your regular brackets. If it pushes you past $1,000,000 in total taxable income, the Mental Health Services Tax kicks in too. A single stock sale can generate a California tax bill that shocks people who only planned around the federal 20% rate. We see this every year with clients who exercise ISOs, sell rental properties, or cash out of a business. The federal bill is one number. The California bill is often higher than they expected. For a deeper look at how this plays out, see our California capital gains tax guide.

Married Filing Jointly: Double the Brackets

For married couples filing jointly, each bracket threshold is roughly doubled per the FTB tax rate schedules. The 12.3% bracket kicks in at $1,396,542 instead of $698,272. The Mental Health Services Tax threshold, however, stays at $1,000,000 combined — it doesn’t double for MFJ. That catches some couples off guard. Two high-earning spouses who each make $600,000 are well past the threshold when they file together.

How This Compares to Other States

At 13.3%, California’s top rate beats every other state. For context: New York’s top rate is 10.9% (plus NYC tax of up to 3.876% for city residents). New Jersey tops out at 10.75%. Hawaii reaches 11%. Texas, Florida, Nevada, and Washington have no state income tax at all. This is part of why so many high-income Californians restructure their affairs, establish residency elsewhere, or elect the CA pass-through entity tax to get a federal deduction for what they’re paying.

One counterintuitive fact: California’s lowest brackets are actually quite gentle. If you make under $68,350, your top rate is just 8%. That’s competitive with plenty of other states. The system is specifically designed to extract revenue from high earners, and it does that job extremely well — the top 1% of California earners pay roughly half of all personal income tax collected by the state. For more on how self-employment income interacts with these brackets, see our self-employment tax guide.

Sources & References

• FTB Form 540 Instructions & Tax Table (2024 Tax Year)
• FTB Tax Rate Schedules (2024)
• Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Section 17041 — Tax Rates
• Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Section 17043 — Mental Health Services Tax (Prop. 63)
• IRC Section 1(h) — Federal Capital Gains Tax Rates
• IRS — Tax Inflation Adjustments for 2024