Work out your freelance or self-employment tax using your own revenue, expenses, income-tax rate, and social-insurance/self-employment rate — see your net income, total tax, and after-tax income instantly in your browser.
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Freelancers and other self-employed workers typically face a tax picture that regular employees don't: on top of ordinary income tax, many countries also require a separate self-employment or social-insurance contribution, since there's no employer paying half of it for you. Whether that second contribution exists at all — and what rate applies — differs enormously from one country to another, and plenty of countries have no such requirement for the self-employed whatsoever. Rather than guessing at any one country's rules, this calculator lets you supply your own income-tax rate and your own self-employment/social-insurance rate (or leave the second one at zero), along with any deductible business expenses, and applies them to your net freelance income to produce an instant, transparent breakdown. That means the same calculator works accurately whether you freelance in a country with a mandatory self-employment levy or one with none at all.
When you're a salaried employee, your employer typically withholds income tax from every paycheck and, in many countries, also pays a share of your social-insurance contributions on your behalf. As a freelancer or self-employed worker, both of those responsibilities usually land on you. You're not just paying tax on your income — in many countries you're also responsible for the self-employment or social-insurance contribution an employer would otherwise have split with you, sometimes at double the rate an employee sees, since there's no employer side to share it.
This is why a realistic freelance tax estimate needs to treat income tax and self-employment/social-insurance contributions as two genuinely separate line items, rather than lumping them into a single vague "tax rate." Some countries have no self-employment levy at all for independent workers; others apply a fixed percentage; still others scale it with income the same way ordinary income tax does. Modeling them separately — as this calculator does — lets you plug in exactly what applies to your situation, whatever that happens to be.
Expenses matter just as much. Nearly every tax system allows self-employed workers to deduct legitimate business costs — equipment, software, a portion of home-office costs, and similar expenses — before either tax is calculated, which is why this calculator subtracts your expenses from your revenue first and applies both rates to that smaller, net figure. Skipping this step, and applying tax rates directly to gross revenue, would significantly overstate what you actually owe.
Because the exact rules — whether a self-employment contribution exists, what it's called, what rate applies, and what counts as a deductible expense — vary enormously by country and change over time, no calculator can safely hard-code them for everyone. What stays the same everywhere is the underlying structure: revenue, minus expenses, gives net income; net income times your income-tax rate gives income tax; net income times your self-employment rate (if any) gives that contribution; and the two combine, minus any credit, into your total tax. This calculator performs exactly that calculation with numbers you supply yourself, so it stays accurate for freelancers anywhere in the world.
If your country taxes income progressively across brackets rather than at a single flat rate, you can use Ihsabha's Income Tax Calculator first to work out your effective income-tax rate on your net freelance income, then bring that rate back here alongside your self-employment rate for a complete picture.
Freelancers and self-employed people often owe both regular income tax and a separate self-employment or social-insurance contribution. Whether that second contribution exists, and at what rate, differs enormously by country, and many countries have no such requirement for the self-employed at all — so this calculator lets you enter each rate separately, or leave the second one at zero.
This varies by country and tax system, but typically includes costs directly related to earning your freelance income — equipment, software subscriptions, a home-office portion of rent, and similar costs. Check your local tax authority's rules or ask an accountant for what applies to you.
Self-employment and social-insurance rules — whether they exist, what they're called, and what rate applies — vary enormously by country and change over time. Entering your own rate keeps this calculator accurate anywhere in the world, indefinitely.
This calculator uses a single income-tax rate you supply for simplicity. If your country taxes freelance income progressively across brackets, use Ihsabha's Income Tax Calculator first to work out your effective rate on your net freelance income, then enter that rate here.
Revenue is everything you billed or received before any costs are subtracted. Net self-employment income is revenue minus your deductible business expenses — it's this net figure that both tax rates in this calculator are applied to, matching how most self-employment tax systems work.