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Long-Term Care Insurance Deduction,
self-employed vs. itemizer, side by side.
Enter your age, LTC premium, and tax situation to see your age-capped eligible premium and exactly how much more the self-employed deduction is worth compared to itemizing.
Inputs
Your LTC premium
Tax situation
For the itemizer-path comparison
The self-employed path assumes your business has enough net profit to support the full deduction — Form 7206 caps it at your actual earned income, not modeled here.
$640.00 isn't deductible — at age 55, only $1,860.00 of your premium counts as an eligible medical expense either way.
Self-employed path
Form 7206, above-the-line
$1,860.00
$1,860.00 eligible premium, no AGI floor
Itemizer path
Schedule A, 7.5%-of-AGI floor
$0.00
$3,360.00 total medical − $6,750.00 floor (7.5% of AGI)
Why the gap: the self-employed deduction bypasses the 7.5%-of-AGI floor entirely and needs no itemizing — a genuinely better deal for anyone who qualifies, not just a rounding difference.
Deduction guide
Two paths, one much better than the other.
Long-term care insurance premiums count as deductible “medical care” under IRC §213(d)(10) — but only up to an age-based dollar cap, and only through one of two paths that differ enormously in how favorable they are.
2026 age-based eligible-premium caps
| Attained age | Eligible premium cap |
|---|---|
| 40 or less | $500 |
| 41-50 | $930 |
| 51-60 | $1,860 |
| 61-70 | $4,960 |
| Over 70 | $6,200 |
These figures come from Rev. Proc. 2025-32’s routine annual inflation adjustment — the age-banded shape itself is a long-standing, evergreen rule, not tied to any one year’s tax legislation.
Self-employed: above-the-line, no floor
Sole proprietors, partners, and more-than-2% S-corp shareholders can deduct their eligible LTC premium through the self-employed health insurance deduction (Form 7206) — an above-the-line adjustment to income. No itemizing, no 7.5%-of-AGI floor to clear. One real limit not modeled by this calculator: the deduction can’t exceed the business’s own net earned income for the year.
Everyone else: itemized, floored at 7.5% of AGI
For anyone not claiming the self-employed deduction, the eligible premium simply joins your other itemized medical expenses on Schedule A. Only the portion of your combined medical expenses above 7.5% of AGI is actually deductible — and that only matters if you itemize in the first place rather than take the standard deduction.
An HSA-funded alternative
Separately from either deduction path, HSA funds can pay LTC premiums completely tax-free — up to these exact same age-based caps. It’s not a third amount to add on top of a deduction; it’s an alternative way to get the same premium paid without after-tax dollars in the first place. See the HSA Calculator to check your contribution room.
Disclaimer
This calculator estimates your 2026 LTC premium deduction under both available paths. It does not model the self-employed deduction’s net-earned-income cap, multiple people covered on one policy (the age cap applies per person, not per return), or state-level LTC tax credits some states offer separately. This is an estimate for planning purposes, not tax advice — confirm your actual eligibility and amount with a tax professional before filing.
Age-based eligible-premium caps are taken directly from Rev. Proc. 2025-32 §.27; the self-employed above-the-line mechanism, the 7.5%-of-AGI itemizer floor, and the HSA tax-free-payment option were each independently verified rather than assumed from the brief alone. For comparison, see the eligible-premium cap table above.