IRMAA brackets for 2027
CMS has not published the 2027 MAGI brackets. Pages printing a single 2027 threshold are applying an assumed inflation rate. The statutory calculation indexes on a twelve-month CPI-U average, and one month of that window — October 2025 — was never published. Below is what exists, what does not, and when the figures are due.
What is known today
| Item | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Income that counts | Known | Your 2025 MAGI — already filed, already fixed |
| Part D national base premium | Published | $41.33 — CMS, 2026-07-28 |
| Top-tier floors | Fixed by statute | $500,000 / $750,000 — not indexed for 2027 |
| MAGI thresholds | Not published | Expected October-November 2026 |
| Standard Part B premium | Not published | Same release |
| Part B and Part D IRMAA amounts | Not published | Same release |
The Part D national average bid is the ONLY 2027 figure CMS has released. It is an input to late-enrollment-penalty math, not to the Part D IRMAA column, and it says nothing about the MAGI thresholds.
When CMS publishes the 2027 figures
CMS does not announce the date in advance, so the honest answer is the record of when it has actually done it. Each year’s figures arrive in a Medicare Parts B and D fact sheet published the autumn before the plan year begins.
| Plan year | CMS published the figures | Fact sheet |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 27 September 2022 | CMS newsroom |
| 2024 | 12 October 2023 | CMS newsroom |
| 2025 | 8 November 2024 | CMS newsroom |
| 2026 | 14 November 2025 | CMS newsroom |
| 2027 | Not published | Due in the autumn of 2026 |
The date has moved later every year in that record — from 27 September 2022 for 2023 to 14 November 2025 for 2026, a drift of 48 days across four releases. On that pattern the 2027 figures are a November 2026 release rather than a September or October one, though CMS is under no obligation to follow it and a year that breaks the pattern would not be surprising.
Two practical consequences. Anyone planning a 2025 income decision around the 2027 thresholds is working from figures that will not exist until late in 2026, by which time the income year that sets them is already closed. And a page showing a 2027 threshold today is showing an assumption, whoever publishes it — the section below explains why no one can compute the statutory figure yet.
What the statutory calculation still needs
The MAGI thresholds are indexed under Social Security Act §1839(i)(5), 42 U.S.C. §1395r(i)(5) using the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers (CPI-U), United States city average, measured over the 12-month period ending with August of the preceding calendar year, versus the 12-month period ending with August 2018 (for years beginning with 2020).
For 2027 that means the 12-month average ending August 2026. That figure was published on 11 September 2026 and is 334.98. It is not enough on its own: the statute indexes on the twelve-month average, and one month of that window is missing.
| Input the statute requires | Months published | 12-month average |
|---|---|---|
| Base: September 2017 - August 2018 | 12 of 12 | 249.280167 |
| Measurement: September 2025 - August 2026incomplete | 11 of 12 | not computable |
CPI-U, U.S. city average, all items, not seasonally adjusted — BLS series CUUR0000SA0. Both averages recomputed from the monthly series rather than read from a summary field.
BLS publishes no value for October 2025. Its footnote reads: “Data unavailable due to the 2025 lapse in appropriations”
October 2025 falls inside the September 2025 - August 2026 window. Eleven of the twelve months exist; the twelfth does not. The statutory average therefore cannot be computed from the published series — not by us, and not by anyone else publishing a 2027 threshold today. Do not average around the gap, substitute a seasonally adjusted figure, or carry October 2024 forward. A computed average that silently skips a month is not the statutory average.
Published 2027 figures differ for that reason. Across pages ranking for this query, the first single-filer threshold is given variously as $109,000, $111,000, $112,000 and $113,000, and the joint figure as $222,000, $224,000 and $226,000. Each implies a different inflation assumption.
Two things, in either order. If BLS publishes October 2025, or SSA states how it is handling the gap, the statutory average becomes computable and we will publish it here with every input shown. When CMS releases the official 2027 figures in October-November 2026, this page becomes the official table, dated and sourced.
Illustrative range — not CMS figures
What the 2026 thresholds would come to at a few rates of increase. For scale, the thresholds actually rose 2.83% from 2025 to 2026 ($106,000 → $109,000 single).
These are arithmetic on the 2026 published thresholds at an assumed rate - NOT the statutory computation, which indexes against a 2018 base rather than year over year, and rounds once rather than twice. They show magnitude only. Treat them as a range, not a forecast.
| Tier | 2026 single (official) | at +0% not CMS | at +2% not CMS | at +3% not CMS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $109,000 | $109,000 | $111,000 | $112,000 |
| Tier 1 | $137,000 | $137,000 | $140,000 | $141,000 |
| Tier 2 | $171,000 | $171,000 | $174,000 | $176,000 |
| Tier 3 | $205,000 | $205,000 | $209,000 | $211,000 |
| Tier 4not indexed | $500,000 | $500,000 | $500,000 | $500,000 |
| Top tiernot indexed | $500,000 | $500,000 | $500,000 | $500,000 |
Joint thresholds are double the single figures at every tier except the top. The $500,000 and $750,000 top-tier floors are NOT indexed until calendar years beginning after 2027, so they do not move for 2027. Rolling every line forward by inflation produces a wrong top tier. The married-filing-separately floor moved DOWN from $394,000 (2025) to $391,000 (2026), so it does not track the same index as the other lines. We do not project it.
Which tax year sets the 2027 surcharge
The 2027 bracket is set by the 2025 return, which is already filed. A conversion, sale or large withdrawal in that year raised the MAGI the surcharge will be calculated from, whatever the thresholds turn out to be.
2028 is set by income in the current tax year — see 2028.
If your income has since dropped because of a life-changing event — retirement, a spouse’s death, divorce, loss of a pension — you may be able to have the surcharge reduced using Form SSA-44, rather than waiting for the lookback to move to a later tax year. How that works.