Tax Year 2025

How much self-employment tax will I owe?

Your actual return

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Try your own numbers

Enter your own numbers below - this recalculates instantly using AsasifyTax's real engine. Nothing is saved, and you don't need an account.

Calculating…

When you work for someone else, your employer pays half of your Social Security and Medicare tax and withholds the other half from your paycheck. When you're self-employed, there's no employer to split that bill — you owe both halves yourself, and Schedule SE is where that gets calculated. It catches a lot of new freelancers off guard: your business can be profitable and you can still owe a substantial tax bill on April 15 that has nothing to do with income tax brackets at all.

How much is it?

For 2025, self-employment tax is 15.3% - 12.4% for Social Security (only on the first $176,100 of combined wages and self-employment earnings) and 2.9% for Medicare with no income cap - applied to 92.35% of your net profit, not the whole amount. You then deduct half of what you owe on your own return, so it isn't taxed twice.

A real example

Net profit	Taxable SE earnings (92.35%)	Line 12: Self-Employment tax	Deduction (half)
$55,000	$50,792	$7,771	$3,886

Net profit under $400 for the year means no self-employment tax is owed at all.