How do state standard deductions in 2025 compare to federal amounts and to 2024?
Executive summary
Federal standard deductions for tax year 2025 were adjusted upward from 2024, with the official Congress.gov summary (sourcing IRS Revenue Procedure 2024‑40) listing $15,000 for single filers and $30,000 for married filing jointly, reflecting an across‑the‑board inflation adjustment [1]. State standard deductions remain a patchwork—some states follow or mirror federal increases, some set smaller amounts or none at all, and a few enacted their own substantive increases for 2024–2025, but comprehensive state‑by‑state parity with federal figures is uneven and not fully covered in the available reporting [2] [3].
1. Federal top‑line: 2025 amounts and how they moved from 2024
The authoritative federal listing used by Congress and the IRS reports the 2025 baseline standard deduction as $15,000 for single filers and married filing separately, $22,500 for heads of household, and $30,000 for married couples filing jointly and surviving spouses, with age‑or‑blindness extra amounts available for qualifying taxpayers [1]. Those amounts reflect the annual inflation indexing and other legislative adjustments: the IRS’s Revenue Procedure underpinning the 2025 figures was summarized by the Tax Foundation as modest increases — notably a $400 rise for single filers and an $800 rise for joint filers relative to 2024 in the Tax Foundation’s reading of the IRS data [4]. Service providers and tax publishers also characterized 2025 as a meaningful uptick from 2024; TurboTax reported the basic standard deduction rose roughly 7.9% from 2024 to 2025, a view that incorporates both inflation adjustments and policy changes captured by private analyses [5].
2. State picture: diverse rules, a few big changes, and no single comparison
State standard deductions are not uniform and do not universally mirror federal amounts; some states adopt their own fixed standard deductions, some index them to inflation, some tie them to federal rules, and a few impose no standard deduction at all, creating variability for taxpayers across jurisdictions [3]. The Tax Foundation highlights concrete state moves that changed taxpayers’ state‑level standard deductions for 2024–2025 — for example, a state law that doubled a single‑filer standard deduction from $2,200 to $4,400 for tax years 2024 and 2025 and widened rate brackets effective January 1, 2025 — evidence that state legislatures can and do diverge meaningfully from federal adjustments [2]. That snapshot illustrates why many taxpayers will see larger or smaller net benefit from claiming a state standard deduction than from the federal amount, depending entirely on their state of residence [3].
3. How 2025 state amounts compare to federal amounts in practice
Because federal standard deductions in 2025 rose by an inflation adjustment and a handful of policy changes, they are broadly higher than many state standard deductions, but multiple states either match or exceed federal generosity for some filing statuses after local legislative changes — the reporting shows isolated state boosts but lacks a complete mapping of every state’s 2025 standard deduction vis‑à‑vis federal levels [1] [2]. Practically, the majority of taxpayers still face a decision at the state level that is independent of the federal choice: some states that use a federal starting point will effectively mirror federal increases, while others will continue to apply lower fixed amounts or no deduction, producing differences that cannot be summarized as a single ratio or percentage without a state‑by‑state table that is not included in the supplied sources [3] [2].
4. Divergent interpretations and reporting limits
Published guidance and tax‑prep firms sometimes present different headline numbers for 2025 — for example, several consumer sites list $15,750 (single) and $31,500 (married filing jointly) as 2025 standard deduction figures while Congress.gov/IRS summaries report $15,000 and $30,000 — a discrepancy that reflects differences in source selection, timing, or inclusion of supplemental temporary legislative changes in private analyses versus the IRS revenue procedure cited by Congress.gov [1] [6] [7] [4]. Reporters and taxpayers should treat the IRS/Revenue Procedure figure as the primary federal authority and consult state revenue departments for precise 2025 state standard deductions; the supplied reporting documents specific state moves but does not provide a complete, authoritative state‑by‑state comparison for 2025 [1] [2] [3].