Mega Millions Payout Calculator

So you've hit the Mega Millions Jackpot. Congratulations! But how much of it actually ends up in your bank account? Between the cash option, federal tax and your state's tax, a lot less than the advertised amount. Pick your state and see for yourself.

The cash value is the official figure for the current Jackpot: 42% of the advertised amount. For a different Jackpot we use the same share, but it moves with interest rates.

Cash option or annuity?

The advertised Jackpot is the total of the annuity: 30 payments over 29 years, each one 5% bigger than the last. Take the cash option instead, and you get one payment of around 42% of it, straight away.

That might sound like a terrible deal, but there's a catch: the cash value is what it would cost to buy those 30 payments today. Invest the cash at around 5.5% a year, and you could pay yourself the same annuity. Beat that, and the cash comes out ahead.

Almost every big winner takes the cash. They get the money now, they can invest it how they like, and it's theirs if anything happens to them. The annuity has one big advantage though: it protects you from yourself! Lottery winners who blow everything in a few years are a cliché for a reason.

How much you'd take home in every state

For a $482.0M Jackpot, with a cash value of $203.6M, here's what one winning ticket would take home after federal tax and each state's tax.

8 of these don't tax lottery prizes at all: the states without an income tax, and California, which exempts its lottery prizes. Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah don't sell Mega Millions tickets, so their residents have to buy them in another state.

How lottery prizes are taxed

A Jackpot is taxed as income, so it puts you in the top federal tax bracket of 37%. Only 24% is withheld when you claim the prize though, the rest is due with your tax return. Don't spend it!

States tax it as income too, at their own rates. If you live in a different state from the one where you bought the ticket, both may want a share, although most states give you a credit for tax paid to the other one. Some cities and counties add their own tax, like New York City, Maryland's counties and many cities in Ohio.

We apply the top rates to the whole prize, which is close enough: the lower brackets save a few tens of thousands of dollars at most. But these are estimates! If you do win, a tax professional is your new best friend.

Will you have to share?

For the next draw, we estimate there's a 2% chance that a winner would have to share the Jackpot with another winning ticket. With two winners, each takes home half: try it with the winning tickets box above. See the Mega Millions Jackpot page for how we work it out.

Before you start planning, remember the odds of winning the Jackpot are 1 in 290,472,336. Want to see how long it would take you? Try our free Mega Millions simulator.