Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
EDITORS’ NOTE
February 5, 2026: With this update, our lineup of recommended tax software remains unchanged. We have updated all of our reviews for the 2026 tax season.
- Exceptional user experience
- Uses understandable language
- Deep and plentiful tax topics
- Excellent help resources and virtual support
- Thorough mobile apps
- Pricey
- Some help responses come from the community, not Intuit
TurboTax has topped our list of the best tax prep applications for many years because it makes doing your taxes more understandable and accessible than any competitor, increasing your chances of getting a bigger refund. Its explanations of both simple and complex tax topics are conversational and comprehensible, and it provides multiple layers of help as it takes you through IRS Form 1040. TurboTax also offers the most state-of-the-art user experience across its apps.
Anyone who wants the best DIY tax prep experience: TurboTax has been an Editors’ Choice winner for years because of its superior usability, depth, and guidance.
Investors who buy and sell frequently: TurboTax is the best option for in-depth reporting of capital gains and losses from investments, including cryptocurrency.
Self-employed individuals with complex tax profiles: Self-employed taxpayers are the most likely to justify the cost of TurboTax Premium.
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Intuit TurboTax 2026 (Tax Year 2025) Review
- Supports all major forms and schedules
- Understandable explanations of tax topics
- Covers Schedule C topics thoroughly
- Professional user experience
- Numerous help options, including free assistance from pros
- Expensive
- Navigation can be confusing
H&R Block is a household name when it comes to in-person tax preparation, and its DIY tax prep software lives up to that reputation. Its numerous products and services feature user-friendly interfaces, extensive topic coverage, and multiple levels of help. The company excels at explaining tax issues in ways you can easily understand.
Households with multiple income streams and numerous deductible expenses: H&R Block Deluxe is an affordable option that’s suitable for family tax issues. It offers free expert help no matter how complex things get.
Road warriors: Taxpayers who want to prepare and file their taxes on the go will like the company’s dedicated mobile apps.
Sole proprietors who are willing to pay extra for specialized help: H&R Block’s Self-Employed version offers comprehensive coverage of sole proprietor tax topics, built-in guidance, and unlimited free access to tax experts.
Taxpayers with limited income and expenses: H&R Block offers the most robust free version available. Paying as little as possible for tax software ensures you minimize what you owe or get the biggest possible refund.
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H&R Block 2026 (Tax Year 2025) Review
- Free federal and inexpensive state filing
- Supports all major forms and schedules
- Easy navigation and attractive interface
- Supports more 1099 uploads than before
- Excellent mobile access
- Could use more help resources
FreeTaxUSA is the best free federal tax prep website (state returns cost $15.99). It supports all major IRS forms and schedules, offers a clean, professional user interface, and provides an easy-to-understand navigation system. Its help content is unusually good for a free product. The service allows you to connect directly with a tax professional for just $44.99. Its mobile site is excellent, too.
Budget-conscious and tax-savvy individuals with complex returns: FreeTaxUSA’s usability, thorough coverage of tax topics, and better-than-expected guidance might prove just enough if you must report a lot of income and expenses. Similarly, it should appeal if you have a firm handle on the tax prep process and want to save some money.
First-time filers with simple returns: Free versions of competing apps might technically be sufficient, but FreeTaxUSA offers friendly, fast, comprehensive prep with enough help to support basic tax topics.
Some Schedule C filers: Competitors charge a lot for their self-employed versions, whereas FreeTaxUSA lets sole proprietors file federal returns for free. If you don’t anticipate needing much help, it could be a good option.
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FreeTaxUSA 2026 (Tax Year 2025) Review
- Deep coverage of tax topics
- Good interface and navigation tools
- Focused search results
- Thorough final review process
- Mobile site mirrors desktop
- Pricey
- Some household and self-employment topics could use more help content
- Error-checking in Q&A could be better
TaxAct is another DIY personal tax prep solution that’s been around for decades. It excels at simplicity, featuring a user interface, navigation system, and contextual support content that helps you through the complexities of the IRS tax code. TaxAct digs deep, asking questions about your finances that help it find all the deductions and credits that you should get. It doesn’t have a dedicated mobile app, but the responsive site works well on smaller screens.
Taxpayers with simple financial scenarios: TaxAct offers a good amount of guidance, but individuals who must report on self-employment and investment sales, for example, might want more help than it offers. Still, TaxAct can handle basic business income and expenses.
W-2 employees who want to itemize: TaxAct is a good choice for W-2 workers who want to maximize their refund by itemizing but don’t need the targeted support of H&R Block or TurboTax.
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TaxAct 2026 (Tax Year 2025) Review
- Fast, understandable interface
- Supports all major IRS forms and schedules
- Thorough coverage of tax topics
- Generous US-based support options
- Context-sensitive help could be more plentiful
- Help content quality could be better
TaxSlayer started as a tool for accountants and professional tax preparers more than 50 years ago. It’s been in the online DIY tax prep business since the 1990s. The site provides walk-throughs of Form 1040-related topics, a searchable database of help files, and guidance sprinkled throughout.
Budget-minded individuals with a lot to report: TaxSlayer’s Classic level, which includes all major IRS forms and schedules, costs less than competitors’ equivalents.
Very small business owners familiar with Schedule C: Self-employed individuals who have reported business income and expenses before or who don’t need a lot of handholding are a good fit for TaxSlayer. Again, it’s available at a modest price, ideal for companies looking to keep costs down.
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TaxSlayer 2026 (Tax Year 2025) Review
- Free federal and state filing
- Supports most major IRS forms and schedules
- Attractive, responsive, and understandable interface
- Excellent mobile apps
- Some support resources lack depth, and no expert tax help is available
- Doesn’t cover some forms and tax topics
- Can’t import most 1099s
Cash App Taxes is the only service we tested that doesn’t cost a dime for comprehensive federal and state preparation and filing. It supports all major and most minor tax forms and schedules. The site is fast, with an excellent interface and navigation, and its mobile apps work well. It offers almost everything you need to prepare the most difficult returns—except for a robust help system and access to professionals.
Self-employed individuals (especially gig workers) on a tight budget: While Cash App Taxes is lighter on help and guidance than paid competitors, its self-employment section now might be sufficient for the smallest businesses.
Struggling households that simply can’t afford tax prep: Families strapped for cash are likely to have simple enough tax profiles that Cash App Taxes will suffice. As mentioned, it’s free for federal and state preparation and filing.
Taxpayers whose income and expenses changed little in 2025: The only tax topics that might require extra support are those related to tax code changes, and the latest version of Cash App Taxes covers them well.
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Cash App Taxes 2026 (Tax Year 2025) Review
- Low price
- Comprehensive coverage of tax topics
- Thorough imports of previous Jackson Hewitt returns
- Proactive error checking and excellent final review
- Can’t import a prior year’s return from competitors
- Context-sensitive and searchable help is lacking in amount and quality
- User experience isn’t on par with alternatives
- Many pages don’t save automatically
Jackson Hewitt has an online DIY tax prep service, though it’s best known for its physical offices. You can trust the company’s financial expertise and expansive coverage of tax topics in its online tax service, and the price is very reasonable at just $25 for both federal and state returns. Jackson Hewitt professionals are ready to take over if you can’t complete your return yourself.
Taxpayers who have used the product before and liked it: Jackson Hewitt Online hasn’t changed much over the years, so you can expect a similar experience with the latest version. Of course, it incorporates the new tax law changes.
Individuals who want a no-frills tax prep experience at a reasonable price: The service is inexpensive enough that you shouldn’t mind the somewhat simple interface.
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Jackson Hewitt Online 2026 (Tax Year 2025) Review
- Supports all major IRS forms and schedules
- Imports more prior-year data than rivals
- Covers self-employment topics well
- Great error-checking
- Excellent mobile access
- Expensive
- Substandard user experience
- Weak support content and little context-sensitive help
- Can’t import 1099s or W-2s
Liberty Tax is a competent online tax preparation service from the well-known brick-and-mortar preparer. Pages load fast, and its user experience is simple and clean. The site offers a good review tool, and its mobile apps make it possible to complete a complex review on a smartphone—if you don’t need much help.
In-person clients of Liberty Tax who want to save money: Liberty Tax might not be a good option if you must deal with complex topics like depreciation and capital gains and losses. But if you just have common income sources and expenses, you should do fine with the online site. If you get stuck, you can go into a physical Liberty Tax office.
Returning users: Switching to new software of any kind is time-consuming, and no one wants to spend any more time than is necessary on tax prep. If Liberty Tax met your needs last year, it should do so again this year.
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Liberty Tax 2026 (Tax Year 2025) Review
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The Best Tax Software for 2026
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Buying Guide: The Best Tax Software for 2026
What’s New for the 2025 Tax Year?
By now, you’ve probably heard about at least most of the provisions in the One Big, Beautiful Bill that became law on July 4, 2025. If you’re not aware of how it will affect you, don’t worry. Tax software developers have worked overtime to ensure that their products reflect these tax code changes.
Just so you know what to expect, here’s a look at the law’s elements that are most likely to affect you. These are effective for tax years 2025-2028 and are available to both itemizing and non-itemizing taxpayers. The IRS covers additional details.
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Clean Vehicle Credits. These expired for vehicles acquired after Sept. 30, 2025.
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Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit and Residential Clean Energy Credit. Both of these expired on December 31, 2025.
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No tax on tips. Tips must be “qualified” (voluntary cash or charged tips received from customers, including shared tips), and the maximum annual deduction is $25,000.
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No tax on overtime. This refers, for example, to the “half” portion of “time and a half.” The maximum annual deduction is $12,500 ($25,000 for joint filers).
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No tax on car loan interest. The maximum annual deduction is $10,000, and this deduction isn’t available to leased vehicles.
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Senior deduction. Individuals who are 65 and older may claim an additional $6,000 deduction.
How Can You File Taxes for Free?
Saving money on tax preparation means you get to keep more of your refund (or you owe less). You have a few options for filing your taxes for free.
First, you can go to the IRS Free File page and see if you qualify. This year, there are eight options in the IRS Free File Online program available via a variety of partners, including three we reviewed: FreeTaxUSA, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer. Each has different criteria you must meet to qualify. To file for free, you must start your return at the IRS site, not at the partner’s site.
Note that the Trump administration eliminated the IRS Direct File program.
Another way to prepare and file your federal and state returns for free is to use Cash App Taxes. It supports most IRS forms, but a few tax situations make you ineligible, such as estate and trust income, foreign earned income, the low-income housing credit, and the qualified electric vehicle credit.
1099K data entry in Cash App Taxes (Credit: Cash App Taxes/PCMag)
You can also use FreeTaxUSA, which charges nothing for federal returns and $15.99 for a state return. You can get enhanced support for an additional $7.99 and connect with tax pros for $44.99.
Other sites have free options, too, but they usually don’t support many forms and schedules. H&R Block is generous with its free offering among the normally paid services. It supports the Child Tax Credit (CTC), student expenses, unemployment income, W-2 income, and more for free. TaxAct supports retirement income, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and unemployment, in addition to the CTC and W-2. TurboTax lets you report on the CTC, the EITC, limited interest and dividend income, student loan interest, and W-2 income. With TaxSlayer, you can enter your education expenses in addition to the W-2 and other topics.
What’s the Best Tax App for Self-Employment or Side Gigs?
Whether out of desire or necessity, people began launching small businesses and taking on side gigs—think DoorDash, Etsy, and Uber—in great numbers starting in 2020. That trend has continued. According to December 2025 data from the Labor Department, 5.5% of the US workforce has multiple jobs, up a bit from 2024.
That means a lot of taxpayers have had to learn about IRS Schedule C. Where do you turn for help if you are, say, a TikToker who needs to file as an influencer for the first time? Because professional tax preparation can be pricey, online DIY personal tax solutions are often a good option, especially if you don’t have a whole lot of income and expenses to report and are hoping for a refund. We think FreeTaxUSA is the best for self-employed individuals on a budget, while TurboTax Premium is the best overall.
Business income in FreeTaxUSA (Credit: FreeTaxUSA/PCMag)
If you’ve never tried an online tax service, there are three reasons this year is a good time to start. First, many changes to US tax laws haven’t made headlines because of more pressing news, which means you might not know about them. Software manufacturers update online tax prep services to reflect any changes to the tax law, so you don’t have to keep track of them all. Second, preparing and filing online might reduce your tax obligation since these sites dig deep for deductions, hopefully boosting your refund. Online tax services are thorough and guarantee accuracy. Finally, tax website developers continue to offer more ways to connect to tax professionals virtually so they can help you complete and file your return—or even take on the entire task for you.
What’s the Best Tax Software for Cryptocurrency Transactions?
How do you determine whether you need to report activity involving bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? The short answer is that if you exchanged, mined, received, sold, or used cryptocurrency in the past tax year, you need to report all those activities, whether or not you received a Form 1099.
TurboTax provides the best support for reporting cryptocurrency transactions, though all sites we tested allow it. TurboTax even has a guide to cryptocurrency and your taxes.
Investment section in TurboTax (Credit: Intuit/PCMag)
How Does Tax Software Work?
When you prepare your income taxes using paper forms, you spend a lot of time shuttling back and forth between them. You come to a line on Form 1040 that requires a supporting form or schedule, so you go there, complete it, and then transfer the number back to the 1040. Sometimes, you need to fill out a worksheet, chase down a document you got in the mail, or double-check your calculations because things just don’t look right. You might have to do this many times if your return is complex.
Online tax services work much differently. Once you create an account and fulfill the site’s security requirements, you can stop worrying about which forms you need and whether your calculations are correct. You also don’t need to worry about how any tax code changes are going to affect your return—and maybe your refund. The software handles all that in the background.
When you use a digital tax preparation solution, you’re essentially just filling out a lengthy questionnaire. The sites ask questions, and you provide answers by clicking buttons, entering information in blank fields, or selecting options from lists. You never have to see an actual IRS form or schedule (though, in some cases, you can if you want to).
If you’re familiar with tax forms, you’ll probably recognize the path tax sites follow. It follows the order of IRS Form 1040. Personal information comes first, followed by income, deductions, credits, health insurance status, and taxes paid. After you exhaust all the relevant topics, the site reviews your return and highlights potential errors or omissions that might affect your refund.
Once you address any concerns, the software transfers your tax data to any state returns you must file. Then you answer some final questions, review your entire return, and pay the service’s fees (if any). Finally, you file your return electronically and print or otherwise save a copy for yourself.
Is There More Than One Way to Work Through the 1040?
The step-by-step data entry path tax services generally use works quite well, as long as you go through your whole return without a lot of backing up or lurching forward (which some sites don’t even allow). Jackson Hewitt, for example, asks whether you prefer to complete your 1040 via its comprehensive interview. This option takes you through the entire process in one long Q&A session. It asks you about every tax topic that might apply.
Interview page in Jackson Hewitt Online (Credit: Jackson Hewitt/PCMag)
The other option, and one every online service offers, involves selecting only the tax topics that apply to you. You choose them from a list with options such as income, deductions, credits, and taxes. When you select one, the sites walk you through a mini-interview to get the information they need. Then, they return you to the main list to choose another topic, and you repeat the process until you’re done.
The point is, no matter how you choose to proceed, all you have to do is read what’s on the screen and follow the instructions. You spend most of your time responding to questions, clicking links to advance to the next screen, or using the site-wide navigation tool. These sites are good guides, most of the time.
Do You Need to Read IRS Tax Forms or Instructions?
If you’ve ever filed a tax return, you know that understanding the IRS’s forms and schedules can be challenging, and the official written instructions don’t always help. The instructions are so comprehensive that it’s often hard to find the answer to your exact question. When you do find it, once again, the language can be difficult to decipher.
From their earliest days, personal tax software developers have sought to interpret IRS-speak and make it more understandable to the non-accountant. Some of them have written and revised their content over many years to make it as clear as possible. Services like TaxAct do more. For example, they provide hyperlinks to help windows that further explain a term or phrase. They anticipate questions you might ask and post Q&As on especially thorny topics. They try to ensure you understand the question you’re facing so you can give the correct answer and possibly increase your refund total.
Sometimes, a friendly, understandable user experience isn’t enough, so tax websites offer online assistance.
Often, guidance isn’t available until you click a Help link. And a help link occasionally brings you to a giant database of questions and answers. A few sites might even direct you to official IRS instructions and publications, though they present most technical content in understandable language.
Recommended by Our Editors
H&R Block and TurboTax offer the best overall help content. They even embed it in the interview process. More help resources show up in the form of straightforward and thorough articles when you search for words or phrases. You run into guidance at practically every turn.
1098 page with help panel in H&R Block (Credit: H&R Block/PCMag)
Which Tax Apps Have the Best Professional Help?
What do you do if you can’t find answers to your questions on the site? All sites offer at least one of three ways to contact the company’s technical support representatives: chat, email, and phone. TaxSlayer offers all three. H&R Block and TurboTax have online communities where you can ask questions and search for existing threads. Pay attention, though, to who is posting responses. Answers from company representatives should be safe, but be sure to verify anything from a non-professional community member.
Technical support representatives can’t advise you on points of tax law, but other professionals can. Some tax prep sites offer to connect you to a tax professional via chat, phone, or screensharing. Everyone charges extra for this, with two exceptions. H&R Block offers unlimited professional support at no extra cost for paid users, and TaxSlayer Premium and Self-Employed allow you to ask a question of a tax pro by email, but it can take at least one business day to hear back.
Though it costs a lot, you get the most innovative and comprehensive guidance with TurboTax Live. This service connects you with a tax professional who can work with you virtually to either answer your tax questions and review your return or take the whole thing off your hands. They’re available to answer questions not only during tax season but year-round. Professional help might increase your chances of a refund.
Can You Use a DIY Tax App If Your Taxes Are Complex?
The personal tax preparation services we review here can complete very complex tax returns. The more forms and schedules you need to complete your return, the more you typically pay. We reviewed the most expensive versions this year—those that offer tax-preparation tools for the self-employed.
If you’re not comfortable completing a complicated tax return but still want to give it a shot, go with H&R Block or TurboTax. H&R Block offers DIY preparation and filing, but if you get partway through and realize you’re not sure of some tax issues, you can have an H&R Block tax professional review your return, complete it, share the results with you, and sign and e-file it. Or there’s a version of the service where you simply upload your tax documents and let a professional take over. TurboTax has similar services, as mentioned above.
Can You Do Your Taxes from Your Phone?
Filing your taxes on a desktop browser isn’t your only option. All the tax services we reviewed also let you do your taxes on your phone.
It used to be that you could file only a 1040EZ from a mobile device. But the best services now let you handle surprisingly robust returns.
How do tax services handle the transition to smaller devices? Cash App Taxes, H&R Block, TaxSlayer, and TurboTax all have dedicated Android and iOS apps. FreeTaxUSA, Jackson Hewitt, Liberty Tax, and TaxAct offer mobile versions of their websites.
Is Tax Software Safe?
Each of the tax websites we reviewed follows strict security protocols, which we detail in the reviews. They’re at least as safe as online banking sites. Each offers a combination of different security methods. They do things such as:
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Apply industry-standard web encryption technology
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Ask you to answer security questions
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Employ biometric security methods on their smartphone apps
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Monitor the site 24/7 and perform internal checks and external tests
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Notify you of any unusual activity on your account, such as a login from a new device, a password change, or a payment method update
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Use multi-factor authentication
How Can You Keep Your Tax Data Secure?
Whenever you send sensitive information over a network you don’t control, you should take precautions. Since taxes are nothing but sensitive data, you should think twice if you’re filing from a coffee shop, say, or the airport. We don’t recommend you file your taxes from such locations.
Fortunately, protecting your traffic is as simple as using a VPN. The best VPNs create a secure tunnel that encrypts your data, ensuring that anyone who intercepts it sees only gibberish.
