Projected 2027 IRMAA brackets

What will the 2027 IRMAA brackets be?

Projection computed from the statutory formula (42 U.S.C. 1395r(i)(5), 20 CFR 418.1105) and BLS CPI-U data through August 2026 (334.980), the final month of the determination window. Only the never-published October 2025 value is unresolved. CMS announces final figures in fall 2026. Surcharge dollar amounts for 2027 are not yet knowable.

Every number above is a projection until CMS announces. The first surcharge tier is now locked: it starts above $112,000 for single filers and $224,000 for joint filers. With the August 2026 CPI print in, both remaining treatments of the missing October 2025 month round to the same first tier, so only a CMS surprise would move it.

Tiers 2, 3 and 4 are ranges, on purpose. Tier 2 lands at either $141,000 or $142,000 single ($282,000 or $284,000 joint), tier 3 at either $176,000 or $177,000 single ($352,000 or $354,000 joint), and tier 4 at either $211,000 or $212,000 single ($422,000 or $424,000 joint). All three sit on rounding boundaries, and one of them, tier 2 in the skip-October case, lands almost exactly on the halfway point. The only thing that can still tip them is how SSA handles the never-published October 2025 value: skip it and they round up, substitute the estimate and they round down. Sites that print a single number for those tiers today are guessing; nothing published can resolve them until CMS announces.

The top tier stays at $500,000 single and $750,000 joint. Congress froze those thresholds by statute through 2027. They become inflation-indexed starting in 2028, using a base period that ends August 2026, so the freeze ends with the 2028 brackets, not during 2027.

Married filing separately: the projected first threshold ($112,000) and the frozen $500,000 tier are the only inputs to the separate-filer table, so tier 1 movement is the only projected part of it. Below the first threshold there is no surcharge; above it, separate filers who lived with a spouse during the year skip the middle tiers entirely.

These are 2027 projections, so no tool can compute your 2027 bill yet. To see your 2026 position and your distance to the cliffs, use the IRMAA calculator. If you want a PDF, print this page; the tables are plain HTML and the print layout strips ads and navigation.

Are the 2027 IRMAA brackets based on 2025 income?

Yes. The 2027 IRMAA brackets are based on 2025 income: your MAGI from the 2025 tax return you filed in 2026. Medicare uses a two-year lookback. SSA generally pulls the return from two years before the premium year, though if your 2025 return is not yet available it can temporarily use your 2024 return.

MAGI here means adjusted gross income plus tax-exempt interest, nothing else. See how to calculate MAGI for IRMAA for the full include and exclude list.

The lookback cuts both ways. Your 2025 income is already fixed, so there is nothing left to plan for 2027. Income you earn in 2026 sets your 2028 premiums: a Roth conversion this year lands in the MAGI that determines 2028, not 2027. If that window matters to you, here is how to reduce your MAGI before the lookback year closes.

What are the projected 2027 IRMAA brackets for married filing jointly?

For couples filing jointly, the first 2027 surcharge threshold is locked at $224,000 MAGI. The second falls between $282,000 and $284,000, the third between $352,000 and $354,000, and the fourth between $422,000 and $424,000, all three turning on the missing October 2025 print rather than any pending data. The top joint tier stays at $750,000, frozen through 2027.

Joint filers routinely miss that IRMAA is charged per person. When both spouses are on Medicare each pays it separately, and the same joint MAGI sets both bills. Crossing a threshold by one dollar raises two premiums, not one.

Married filing separately is a different and much harsher table. If you lived with your spouse at any time during the year and file separately, one dollar over the first threshold jumps you near the top of the schedule, skipping the middle tiers.

When will the official 2027 IRMAA brackets be released?

Not yet. As of September 13, 2026, CMS has not announced the 2027 brackets or premiums. Expect the announcement in the fall of 2026. The regulation targets September publication, but recent practice is November: the 2026 figures arrived November 14, 2025, and the 2025 figures arrived November 8, 2024.

We update this page within 24 hours of the CMS announcement. The last scheduled input, the August 2026 CPI print, arrived September 13, 2026 and is already reflected above.

How are these projections computed?

The law sets the formula, so anyone can reproduce it. Under 42 U.S.C. 1395r(i)(5); 20 CFR 418.1105, each year's thresholds are the 2019 base thresholds ($85,000 / $107,000 / $133,500 / $160,000 single, doubled for joint) multiplied by the growth in the BLS series CUUR0000SA0 (CPI-U, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted), using the 12-month average ending in August of the prior year over the base-period average of 249.2802, rounded to the nearest $1,000.

The 2027 window runs September 2025 through August 2026. Every usable month is now published, ending with August 2026 at 334.980. October 2025 will never be published; BLS skipped it during the 2025 government shutdown. So the projection below no longer waits on any pending print. It rests entirely on locked data, plus one decision that is SSA's to make.

We validated the method end to end before publishing anything: applying the same formula to the September 2024 through August 2025 window reproduces the official 2026 thresholds exactly.

The missing October 2025 print deserves care. It does not exist and never will. There is no official guidance on how SSA will handle the gap; Treasury used an estimated 325.604 for an unrelated bond calculation, a figure reported secondhand, and nothing obliges SSA to use it. So we compute both treatments: skip the month for an 11-month average, or substitute the estimate for a 12-month average. Tier 1 comes out identical either way, at $112,000. Tiers 2, 3 and 4 each shift by one $1,000 step between the two, which is exactly why we show them as ranges.

Read the table left to right: whichever treatment SSA applies, the first threshold is $112,000. The spread between the two rows, one $1,000 step, shows up in the second, third and fourth thresholds.

What will the 2027 Part B premium and Part D surcharges be?

Nobody knows yet, and CPI cannot tell you. The bracket thresholds follow a published formula that anyone can check. The dollar amounts do not. The Part B standard premium comes from program cost estimates CMS finalizes in the fall, and Part D IRMAA follows a separate formula tied to drug plan bids submitted by insurers.

You will find 2027 premium dollar figures on other sites. Those trace back to a Medicare Trustees Report estimate, not a CMS announcement, and the sites deriving full surcharge tables from that estimate do not even agree with each other on the results. We think publishing those tables is guesswork dressed as data, so we do not print projected dollar amounts for 2027, Part B or Part D.

Here is what we can say about Part D: the income brackets are the same for Part B and Part D, so every projected threshold on this page applies to both. Only the surcharge dollars wait for CMS. When it announces, this page and the calculator will carry the final figures within a day.

Do the 2027 IRMAA brackets change if you are over 65?

No. IRMAA has no age tiers. The same 2027 brackets apply to every Medicare enrollee at any age, including people under 65 who qualified through disability. What determines your surcharge is your MAGI and your tax filing status, never your age.

Update log

Every entry records a real content change, and we grade ourselves in public. When CMS announces the final 2027 figures, the projection table above becomes the final table and the log entry will score our projection against the announcement, line by line: we projected $112,000 for the first threshold, and the entry will show what CMS announced next to it.

• September 13, 2026: August 2026 CPI-U published at 334.980, completing the measurement window. Tier 1 locks at $112,000 single / $224,000 joint. The August print came in above every earlier scenario, which nudged the skip-October tier 2 up to $142,000 (it lands right on the $141,500 rounding line), so tier 2 is now a range, $141,000 to $142,000 single, alongside tiers 3 and 4. All three now turn only on SSA's treatment of the never-published October 2025 value; the four-scenario grid collapses to the two shown above.
• August 19, 2026: Page launched with CPI data through July 2026. Tiers 1 and 2 projected stable at $112,000 / $141,000 single across all four scenarios; the August print later split tier 2.

Data locked in: every usable monthly CPI value for the 2027 window is now published (October 2025 never will be). No scheduled inputs remain. The only open question is how SSA handles the missing October 2025 month, which holds tiers 2 through 4 as one-step ranges. Final brackets: within 24 hours of the CMS announcement, expected in the fall, recent practice November.

Current-year figures: the 2026 IRMAA brackets. Check where your MAGI lands today with the IRMAA calculator.