The Trump tax cuts expire on different dates depending on which part of the tax code you're looking at
Most of the individual income tax cuts from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 are set to expire on December 31, 2025. This means that on January 1, 2026, tax rates, standard deductions, and child tax credits will revert to what they were before 2017 unless Congress passes new legislation to extend them. The corporate tax rate, however, is permanent — it will stay at 21 percent.
The expiration date was built into the law itself. When the bill passed, Congress used a budget procedure that allowed them to pass tax cuts without needing 60 votes in the Senate. That same procedure required the individual provisions to sunset — or expire automatically — after ten years. Corporate tax changes did not have this requirement, which is why they remain in place indefinitely.
What actually expires is not a single thing but a collection of changes to how your taxes are calculated. Understanding which parts affect you depends on your situation: whether you have children, whether you itemize deductions, what your income is, and whether you own a business.
Key Takeaways
- Individual income tax provisions expire December 31, 2025, meaning tax rates and deductions revert to 2017 levels on January 1, 2026, unless Congress extends them.
- The corporate tax rate of 21 percent is permanent and will not expire.
- The standard deduction will drop, child tax credits will shrink, and tax brackets will shift back to pre-2017 levels if no action is taken.
- Congress would need to pass new legislation before the end of 2025 to prevent these changes from taking effect.
What changes for individual taxpayers on January 1, 2026
If the tax cuts expire as scheduled, your tax bill will likely increase. The specific changes depend on your income and family structure, but here are the main ones:
Tax brackets and rates: The seven tax brackets will shift. For example, the top tax rate will rise from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. The brackets themselves will be narrower, meaning more of your income falls into higher brackets. A married couple filing jointly with $400,000 in income will pay more tax on that income than they do now.
Standard deduction: The standard deduction will drop significantly. For 2025, the standard deduction for a single filer is $14,600. After the expiration, it will fall to roughly $9,000 (adjusted for inflation from 2017 levels). Married couples filing jointly will see their standard deduction drop from about $29,200 to roughly $18,000.
Child tax credit: The child tax credit will shrink from $2,000 per child to $1,000 per child. The credit will also become less refundable, meaning fewer families will receive the full amount if their tax bill is low.
Other deductions and credits: The deduction for state and local taxes (SALT) will drop from $10,000 to $0. The deduction for pass-through business income will disappear. Various education credits and deductions will change.
What does not expire and stays the same
The corporate income tax rate of 21 percent is permanent. Corporations will continue to pay this rate regardless of what happens to individual taxes. This was a deliberate choice by Congress — they made the corporate cuts permanent while making individual cuts temporary.
Certain business provisions also remain in place. The ability to deduct business meals at 100 percent (instead of 50 percent) expires at the end of 2025, but most depreciation rules and other business tax treatment stays in effect.
If you receive Social Security, Medicare, or other federal benefits, those programs are not directly affected by the expiration of these tax cuts. Your benefits themselves do not change. However, if you pay federal income tax on your benefits, the amount you owe could change based on the new tax rates and brackets.
What Congress would need to do to prevent the expiration
Congress must pass legislation before December 31, 2025, to extend any of these provisions. There is no automatic extension — if no bill passes, the cuts expire as written in the law.
Congress could extend all the provisions, extend only some of them, make them permanent, or let them expire entirely. They could also modify them — for example, raising the child tax credit to $1,500 instead of returning it to $1,000. Any of these options requires a vote in both the House and Senate and the President's signature.
The timeline matters because Congress typically works on tax legislation in the fall of an election year or the early months of a new Congress. Waiting until December to negotiate leaves little time for debate or amendment. Past experience suggests that major tax changes are usually decided by October or November at the latest.
How to estimate your tax bill if the cuts expire
You can get a rough sense of how the expiration would affect you by looking at your 2017 tax return. The tax brackets, standard deduction, and child tax credit on that return are close to what they will be in 2026 if the cuts expire. Your actual 2026 tax bill will be higher because of inflation adjustments, but the structure will be similar.
A more precise estimate requires knowing what Congress does. If they extend the cuts, nothing changes. If they let them expire, you can use the 2017 rules as a baseline. If they pass a compromise that keeps some provisions and lets others expire, the calculation becomes more complex.
The IRS will publish updated tax tables and instructions in late 2025 if the cuts expire. These will show the new brackets, standard deductions, and credit amounts. You can use those to calculate your estimated 2026 tax bill once they are released.
State and local taxes after the expiration
The SALT deduction — which lets you deduct state and local income taxes and property taxes from your federal taxable income — will drop from $10,000 to $0 if the Trump tax cuts expire. This affects people who live in high-tax states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts most severely.
If you pay $15,000 in state and local taxes and the SALT deduction disappears, that $15,000 becomes part of your federal taxable income instead of being deductible. Depending on your tax bracket, this could increase your federal tax bill by $3,000 to $6,000 or more.
Some states have explored workarounds to the SALT cap, such as allowing charitable contributions in exchange for tax credits. These state-level changes are separate from the federal expiration and vary by state. Check your state's tax website for current rules.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Congress extend the tax cuts after they expire?
Yes. Congress can pass legislation at any time to extend, modify, or reinstate tax provisions. However, doing so after the expiration date means retroactively changing the tax year that has already passed, which is more complicated than extending before the deadline. It is simpler for Congress to act before December 31, 2025.
Will my paycheck withholding change on January 1, 2026?
If the tax cuts expire and Congress does not extend them, your employer's payroll system will need to update your withholding based on new tax tables. The IRS will issue new withholding guidance in late 2025. Your paycheck could be larger (less withheld) or smaller (more withheld) depending on your income and family situation.
Does the expiration affect self-employed people differently?
Self-employed people are affected by the expiration of the pass-through deduction, which allows business owners to deduct up to 20 percent of may have access to business income. When this expires, self-employed income will be taxed at higher rates. The standard deduction and tax bracket changes also apply to self-employed filers the same way they apply to employees.
What if I have already filed my 2025 taxes before the expiration?
Your 2025 tax return uses 2025 tax rules, which include the Trump tax cuts. The expiration affects your 2026 tax return and beyond. You do not need to amend a 2025 return because of the expiration — it only changes the rules for future years.
Are there any tax cuts from 2017 that are already expired?
No. The main individual income tax provisions all expire together on December 31, 2025. Some temporary provisions, like enhanced business meal deductions, expire at the end of 2025 as well. The corporate tax rate has no expiration date.