How Much Income Puts You in the Top 1%, 5%, and 10%?

Search Fintrev

Search our guides, reviews and glossary.

Based on 2022 federal tax returns (filed in 2023), a taxpayer needed an adjusted gross income (AGI) of at least $561,523 to rank in the top 1% of U.S. earners, according to a Tax Foundation analysis. The top 5% started at $169,466, and the top 10% started at $99,971. These are national figures. In some states the top 1% line sits above $1 million, while in others it falls well under $500,000.

Income thresholds for the top 1%, 5% and 10%

The thresholds climb steeply at the top. Moving from the top 10% to the top 5% takes about $70,000 more in AGI. Moving from the top 5% to the top 1% takes nearly $400,000 more. This shape reflects how concentrated income is at the high end: the distribution stretches out sharply once you pass the 95th percentile.

These figures come from a tax year that ended several years ago. Wages and prices have risen since then, so the current lines are likely somewhat higher in nominal dollars. See the U.S. inflation rate by year.

What these numbers actually measure

Three choices of measure change the result.

AGI, not salary. Adjusted gross income is total income reported on a federal return minus certain “above-the-line” adjustments, such as deductible traditional IRA contributions, health savings account contributions and student loan interest. Total income includes wages, but also taxable interest, dividends, capital gains, business and rental income, and other taxable sources. Someone with a $300,000 salary and $300,000 in realized capital gains in the same year would report about $600,000 of income before adjustments, enough to cross the 2022 top 1% line even though the salary alone would not.

Tax returns, not people. The IRS percentiles rank returns. A married couple filing jointly counts as one return with one combined AGI. That makes these figures closer to a household measure for married filers and an individual measure for single filers. A single person and a two-earner couple are ranked on the same scale, which is one reason a “top 1% household income” figure from another source can differ from the tax-return figure.

Thresholds versus averages. A threshold is the lowest income in a group. An average blends everyone in the group, including the very highest earners, so it is always higher than the threshold. Mixing the two is the most common source of confusing numbers on this topic.

Threshold vs. average: what top earners make

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), using Social Security Administration wage records, calculated average annual wages within each top group:

These figures differ from the tax-return thresholds in two ways. First, they are averages, so the top 1% figure is pulled upward by earners well into the millions. Second, they count wages only, per individual worker. Investment income does not appear, and spouses are not combined.

Read side by side, the two tables show how skewed the top of the distribution is. The average wage in the top 10% ($250,792) is far above the minimum AGI needed to join it ($99,971), because the group includes everyone from the 90th percentile up to the very top. The top 0.1% average wage is more than three times the top 1% average.

How location changes the top 1% line

National thresholds hide large regional differences. An inflation-adjusted state analysis by GoBankingRates found that reaching the top 1% required an AGI above $1 million in five states: California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington. Connecticut had the highest threshold, at close to $1.2 million.

At the other end, residents of Mississippi, New Mexico and West Virginia could reach their state’s top 1% with an AGI below $500,000. West Virginia had the lowest threshold in that study, at roughly $435,000. A separate state-by-state analysis put the West Virginia figure at $416,310. The two studies use different years and adjustments, so neither number should be treated as exact.

State thresholds rank you only against other filers in that state. Someone earning $450,000 could be in the top 1% in West Virginia and well outside it in Connecticut, with the same paycheck.

Where does your income rank?

The 2022 thresholds divide incomes into four national bands:

• Below $99,971: outside the top 10%
• $99,971 to $169,465: top 10%, but not top 5%
• $169,466 to $561,522: top 5%, but not top 1%
• $561,523 and above: top 1%

The examples below are hypothetical. Each one assumes the stated figure is AGI on a 2022 federal return and compares it with the national thresholds above.

Example 1: a single filer earning $140,000

A single filer with $140,000 of AGI is above the top 10% threshold ($99,971) and below the top 5% threshold ($169,466). This filer is in the top 10% of returns nationally, but not the top 5%. The same filer’s rank within a high-threshold state would likely be lower.

Example 2: a filer making $400,000 a year

An AGI of $400,000 clears the top 5% line by a wide margin but falls about $161,500 short of the national top 1% line. This filer sits between the 95th and 99th percentiles. In West Virginia, $400,000 is just below both published estimates of that state’s top 1% threshold. In Connecticut it is roughly a third of the threshold.

Example 3: a two-earner married couple

Two spouses each earn $90,000 in wages, file jointly and have no other income or adjustments, for a combined AGI of $180,000. Because the IRS ranks the joint return as one unit, the couple lands in the top 5% of returns. Ranked as individual wage earners instead, each spouse’s $90,000 would fall below the top 10% tax-return threshold. The household and individual answers differ even though nothing about the couple’s income has changed.

Income is not wealth

Income is what a person or household earns in a year. Wealth, or net worth, is what they own (savings, investments, real estate, business stakes and other assets) minus what they owe. A high earner early in a career can have little wealth, and a retiree with modest income can have a lot. The top 1% by income and the top 1% by wealth are overlapping groups, not the same group.

Federal Reserve distributional data for Q4 2025 shows how concentrated wealth is:

• The top 10% of households held 68.3% of U.S. household wealth.
• Households in the 40th to 90th percentiles held 29.2%.
• The top 1% alone held 31.9%.

Are the rich getting richer?

By the Federal Reserve’s wealth-share measures, yes. The top 0.1% of households by wealth held 8.7% of national household wealth in Q4 1989 and 14.5% in Q4 2025. The rest of the top 1% (the 99th to 99.9th percentiles) rose from 14.2% to 17.4% over the same period.

Those gains were offset by smaller shares lower down. The bottom 50% of households saw their share fall from 3.4% to 2.5%. A shrinking share does not by itself mean those households lost wealth in dollar terms. It means the top grew faster.

Wages show a similar pattern. EPI data indicates that the top 1%’s share of total wages has risen substantially since the late 1970s while the bottom 90%’s share has declined, and that wage growth at the top has outpaced gains for most workers.

How these ranks fit with income classes

Percentile ranks answer “how many people earn more than I do?” They do not, on their own, define “rich” or “high income,” because those labels depend on household size, location and expenses. A single person with a top 10% income in a low-cost area may have more disposable income than a family of four with a top 5% income in an expensive metro. Class definitions such as “upper middle class” use different methods, often based on household income relative to the median and adjusted for household size. For those cutoffs, see upper, middle, and lower income brackets.

Percentile ranks are also different from federal tax brackets. Tax brackets set the marginal rate on each slice of taxable income. They are fixed by law and adjusted for inflation each year. Percentile thresholds are statistical results that move with the actual distribution of incomes.

The Bottom Line

On 2022 federal returns, the top 10% of U.S. taxpayers started at about $100,000 of AGI, the top 5% at about $169,000, and the top 1% at about $562,000. Those lines are minimums, measured per tax return and including investment income. They shift with the year, with whether you count households or individuals, and with location. Wealth is far more concentrated than income.