Capital gains tax calculator

Currency

What you paid

What you sold for

Costs of selling

Your tax rate

Tax on the gain

$10,760

20.0% of a $53,800 gain

The gain$53,800

You keep$43,040

Into the account$83,040

What the sale leaves you at every rate. Where a longer holding period earns a lower rate, the two rates are two points on this line and the gap between them is what the wait is worth.

Selling for $95,000 what cost $40,000, with $1,200 of selling costs, is a gain of $53,800. At 20.0% the tax is $10,760, so $43,040 of the gain stays with you - 80% of it - and $83,040 lands in the account in all.

How to use this, and the parts people get wrong

The gain is sale price minus purchase price minus costs of buying and selling.
The rate is an input because the rules are national. Enter your country's rate for the holding period.
Short against long is usually the whole game: the same sale can be taxed at double the rate a year earlier.

What the rate actually takes

The rate applies to the $53,800 of gain, not to the $95,000 you sold for. That distinction is worth $8,240 here, and it is the one most often got wrong.

$10,760of tax on the gain

$83,040lands in the account

80%of the gain stays with you

The same sale at every rate

What the rate alone decides, with everything else held still.

Rate	Tax	You keep	Of gain
0%	$0	$93,800	100%
5%	$2,690	$91,110	95%
10%	$5,380	$88,420	90%
15%	$8,070	$85,730	85%
18%	$9,684	$84,116	82%
20%	$10,760	$83,040	80%
24%	$12,912	$80,888	76%
28%	$15,064	$78,736	72%
33%	$17,754	$76,046	67%
40%	$21,520	$72,280	60%
45%	$24,210	$69,590	55%
50%	$26,900	$66,900	50%

Questions people ask

How is capital gains tax calculated?

The rate applies to the gain, not to the sale price. Gain is what you sold for minus what you paid minus the costs of selling: $53,800 here. At 20.0% that is $10,760 of tax, leaving $83,040 in the account.

What counts as a selling cost?

Broadly, what you had to spend to make the sale happen: agent and broker fees, legal costs, transfer duties, and in many places the costs of acquiring the asset in the first place. They come off the gain before the rate is applied, which is why the field is here rather than folded into the price.

What rate should I enter?

Yours. Capital gains rates are national and usually depend on how long you held the asset, what kind of asset it is, and what else you earned that year. Several countries also give an annual exemption before any rate applies. Enter the rate your own situation attracts, or try two and read the difference off the chart.

Does holding longer reduce the tax?

In many systems yes, and where it does, the two rates are simply two points on the line drawn above: pin one, then the other, and the gap between them is what the extra holding period is worth on this particular sale.

What if I sold at a loss?

Then there is no gain to tax and this page shows none. Whether the loss can be set against other gains, and for how long it can be carried forward, is a national rule and not something a calculator should assume for you.

Method and sources

Standard gain arithmeticProceeds less cost less selling costs, taxed at the rate you supply

The calculation

Gain is sale price minus purchase price minus selling costs. Tax is the rate applied to that gain, and only when it is positive. What lands in the account is the sale price minus the selling costs minus the tax. The chart recomputes the same three lines at every rate from zero to fifty per cent.

What these figures do not cover

The rate is yours to supply. Capital gains rates, holding-period rules, asset-class rules and annual exemptions are national and are not assumed here.
An annual exemption or allowance is not deducted; if you have one, subtract it from the gain before reading the tax.
Losses carried in from other disposals are not netted off.
Inflation indexation, where a country still offers it, is not applied.

Last updated August 2026.

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