What Income Puts You in the Top 10% of Earners in 2026?

The explanation of a “top-10% earner” tin alteration importantly based connected however you measurement it. Some sources usage the full magnitude of income coming into a home, typically defined arsenic “household income,” to marque that determination, but others look astatine idiosyncratic income, oregon what each chiseled idiosyncratic earns oregon reports. Those are precise antithetic yardsticks, and they nutrient precise antithetic thresholds.

Here’s however “the apical 10%” breaks down utilizing the astir caller nationwide information disposable arsenic of January 2026.

For astir Americans, the astir intuitive benchmark for determining top-10% earners is household income. The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest yearly income study shows that household income astatine the 90th percentile was $251,000. That means a household earning astir $251,000 oregon much is astir successful the apical 10% nationwide. By mode of context, the aforesaid Census array puts median household income astatine $83,730. This means the 90th percentile is astir triple the median.

What’s important to note, however, is that income organisation information is published with a lag. That $251,000 fig applies to taxation twelvemonth 2024, truthful it’s astir 1 twelvemonth retired of date. Even though you’re speechmaking this successful 2026, the latest finalized nationwide “what percentile are you in” household thresholds whitethorn not beryllium disposable until Sept. 2026.

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Household income combines aggregate earners, which is wherefore the fig is truthful high. If you’re trying to benchmark your ain pay, you whitethorn attraction much astir idiosyncratic thresholds.

The IRS publishes elaborate Statistics of Income tables that amusement adjusted gross income (AGI) cutoffs by percentile. A summary of the latest IRS percentile breakouts by the Tax Foundation shows the apical 10% AGI threshold astir the low-to-mid $150,000s, with the adjacent bracket up, the apical 5%, starting a spot supra $220,000 successful that aforesaid dataset.

Note that AGI is not the aforesaid happening arsenic salary. It tin see wages, concern income, status income, taxable Social Security, superior gains and different items, minus definite above-the-line adjustments.

If you’re looking strictly astatine pay, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Compensation Survey reports a 90th-percentile wage of $60.74 per hr arsenic of March 2025.

Assuming full-time enactment (2,080 hours per year), that translates to astir $126,000 annually. This measurement has limits: it captures wages lone and excludes bonuses, equity compensation, concern income, concern income and retiree earnings.