Medicare Part B Premium and IRMAA for New Yorkers: 2026 Brackets, 2027 Status

Has the 2027 Part B premium been announced?

No, not as of November 3, 2026. The CMS newsroom listed fact sheets and press releases through October 30, 2026, including the 2027 marketplace plans and prices, and none of them set the 2027 Part B premium, deductible or income brackets. A request for the usual 2027 fact sheet address on cms.gov returned “not found.” The 2026 figures were published in a CMS fact sheet dated November 14, 2025, so the 2027 version is likely to arrive in a similar window; we will update this page with the official numbers when it does, not with projections.

What does not change from year to year is the structure: which tax year is used and how to ask for a correction. The 2027 surcharge will be based on the income you reported for 2025, a return most people have already filed. If 2025 was an unusually high year, you can already see the problem coming.

Two 2027 Medicare figures are already fixed: the Part D out-of-pocket cap rises to $2,400 and the largest deductible a standard drug plan may charge rises to $700. What changes in Medicare in New York.

Who pays the standard premium

Most people pay the standard Part B premium, $202.90 a month in 2026. Social Security tells you your exact amount. Medicare’s own fact sheet lists the groups that pay the standard amount:

• people signing up for Part B for the first time in the year;
• people who do not get Social Security benefits;
• people who are billed directly for their Part B premiums;
• people with Medicare and Medicaid whose premium is paid by Medicaid. In that case the state pays the standard premium for you.

The premium is the same whether you use Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan, because an Advantage plan does not replace Part B; you keep paying for it. A late enrollment penalty raises the amount for people who signed up late, and IRMAA is calculated on top of it. How the Part B late penalty works.

The 2026 IRMAA brackets

The surcharge is set by the modified adjusted gross income on your federal tax return, the same figure for everyone in the household who files jointly. The brackets below are for 2026 and use the 2024 return.

If you are married and file separately, there are only three steps: $202.90 at $109,000 or less, $649.20 above $109,000 and below $391,000, and $689.90 at $391,000 or more. The Part D surcharge for separate filers is $83.30 and $91.00 at the same two lines.

The brackets are cliffs, not slopes: one dollar over a line moves you to the whole next step for the year. And the Part D surcharge applies to anyone with Medicare drug coverage, including drug coverage inside an Advantage plan; it is billed on top of whatever the plan charges.

Why the bill uses an old tax year

Social Security does not know your current income. It uses the most recent federal return the IRS has sent it, which for a given year is the return from two years earlier. A New Yorker who sold a house, took a large retirement distribution, received a lump-sum buyout or simply had a final full salary year in 2024 pays the 2026 surcharge on that year, even if the paychecks have since stopped.

That lag is what the correction process exists for. If the income that set your surcharge has been replaced by a lower income because of a specific event, you can ask Social Security to use the newer year.

Your situation and what to do

The life-changing events that count

Federal rules list seven events that let Social Security use a more recent year’s income instead of the return from two years earlier:

1. your spouse dies;
2. you marry;
3. your marriage ends through divorce or annulment;
4. you or your spouse stop working or reduce the hours you work;
5. you or your spouse lose income-producing property through no choice of your own and not as an ordinary investment risk, such as property lost in a declared disaster area, to arson, or to fraud or theft by a third party;
6. an employer’s pension plan is scheduled to stop, is terminated or is reorganized;
7. you receive a settlement payment from a current or former employer because that employer closed, went bankrupt or restructured.

The event has to have reduced your income. A move to New York, a market loss in an ordinary brokerage account or a one-off capital gain does not qualify on its own.

How to ask for a lower IRMAA

Is IRMAA calculated every year?

Yes. Social Security makes a new IRMAA determination for each year, using the modified adjusted gross income the IRS reports for the tax year two years before that year (20 CFR 418.1135). If the IRS does not have that return, Social Security temporarily uses the return from three years before, then corrects the amount back to January 1 when the newer return arrives.

So a surcharge is not permanent. A high year drops out of the calculation two years later. The practical use of this table: if you plan a large sale or retirement-account withdrawal, the year you take it decides which premium year it affects. Medicare enrollment periods are a separate question; IRMAA does not depend on the plan you choose.

What income counts for IRMAA

IRMAA uses modified adjusted gross income, which federal rules define as your adjusted gross income from the federal return plus certain tax-exempt income, starting with tax-exempt interest (20 CFR 418.1010). For most New Yorkers that means the “adjusted gross income” line on the 2025 return, plus any municipal bond interest.

If you file jointly, the joint figure is compared with the joint lines in the table above.

When the tax information is wrong

The life-changing event request is not the only correction. Federal rules give two more routes for New Yorkers whose numbers are simply wrong.

You amended the return. You can give Social Security an amended return for a tax year it used within three calendar years after the close of that tax year, with your copy of the amended return and the IRS letter confirming it was filed, or an IRS transcript. Social Security then corrects the surcharge retroactively (20 CFR 418.1150).

The IRS figure is wrong. If the IRS confirms that the information it sent was incorrect, ask Social Security to use the corrected figure and give it the IRS documentation (20 CFR 418.1335).

IRMAA appeal: reconsideration versus a new determination

People call both of these an “IRMAA appeal,” and they are different requests.

If you are not sure which applies, the reconsideration deadline is the one that runs out, so put the request in writing within 60 days and say in the same letter that you also want a new determination if an event applies. Free help preparing it: HIICAP at 1-800-701-0501. Free Medicare counseling in New York City.

If the premium itself is the problem: New York’s help

IRMAA is a higher-income issue. For people on the other end, New York pays Part B premiums through the Medicare Savings Programs, and its limits are well above the federal minimum with no asset test.

Qualifying for either one also enrolls you in Extra Help for prescriptions automatically. You can check your income against the limits in two minutes, and the application goes to the local department of social services, which in New York City is the Human Resources Administration. Free, non-commercial counseling on any of this is available from HIICAP at 1-800-701-0501.