Is it better to take the standard deduction or itemize in 2025?

Take whichever is larger — most people now do better with the standard deduction. For 2026 it's $16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly, and $24,150 head of household, and it requires zero recordkeeping. You itemize only if your eligible expenses exceed that amount: state and local taxes (capped at $40,400 for 2026), mortgage interest, charitable gifts, and medical costs above 7.5% of AGI. Since the standard deduction was nearly doubled years ago, the large majority of filers don't clear the bar. Homeowners with big mortgages in high-tax states are the most common itemizers. One strategy if you're close is "bunching" — concentrating two years of charitable gifts or deductible expenses into one year to exceed the threshold, then taking the standard deduction the next. Tax software automatically picks the larger of the two, so you won't accidentally choose the worse option.