US Pay & Taxes: What Your State Actually Costs You
A US paycheck has three layers. Two of them — federal income tax and FICA — are identical in all fifty states. Only the third, state and local income tax, changes when you move. These guides cover that third layer: which states charge it, how much of the difference is real, and what the comparison tables routinely leave out.
Start with the calculator
The take-home salary calculator computes the federal income tax and FICA portion of a salary. That figure is state-independent — it is the same number whether you live in Seattle or Miami — so it is the right starting point for any comparison. The state layer sits on top of it, and that is what these guides explain.
The guides
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California vs Texas Take-Home Pay
Same salary, two states. What the state line actually changes in a paycheck, what stays identical, and why “no income tax” is not the same as “lower taxes”.
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New York vs Florida Salary
New York City residents pay a city income tax on top of the state one. That layer, plus the residency and remote-work rules that can erase the whole saving.
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The Nine States With No Income Tax
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming — what each charges instead, and who actually comes out ahead.
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$100,000 After Taxes by State
Federal tax and FICA are identical in all fifty states. Nine take nothing more, thirteen apply a flat rate, and eleven cities add a wage tax most tables leave out.
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Remote Work Across State Lines
Two states can claim the same income. Convenience of the employer rules, reciprocity agreements, day-count thresholds, and what withholding does not prove.
How these pages handle numbers
Tax rates, brackets, standard deductions and thresholds change every filing season, and a stale figure in a financial comparison misleads rather than helps. Every such figure on these pages is explicitly marked for verification against the IRS and the relevant state revenue department rather than printed from memory. What does not change year to year — the structure of the comparison, which layers move and which do not, which traps catch people — is written out in full.
Which US cities levy their own income tax
The state line is the layer people compare, but a city line exists too, and it is the one that quietly breaks side-by-side salary tables. The calculator behind these guides carries 11 local jurisdictions. This is the full list it knows about — if your city is not here, the calculator is treating your local income tax as zero, which is correct for most of the country and wrong for these places.
| Jurisdiction | State | Resident rate | Non-resident rate | Rate effective from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York City | NY | 3.078%–3.876% (progressive) | — | 2026-01-01 |
| Yonkers (NY) | NY | 1.5% | 0.5% | 2026-01-01 |
| Philadelphia (PA) | PA | 3.735% | 3.425% | 2026-07-01 |
| Pittsburgh (PA) | PA | 3% | 1% | 2026-01-01 |
| Detroit (MI) | MI | 2.4% | 1.2% | 2013-01-01 |
| Baltimore City (MD) | MD | 3.2% | — | 2026-01-01 |
| Kansas City (MO) | MO | 1% | 1% | 2026-01-01 |
| St. Louis (MO) | MO | 1% | 1% | 1959-01-01 |
| Cleveland (OH) | OH | 2.5% | 2.5% | 2020-01-01 |
| Columbus (OH) | OH | 2.5% | 2.5% | 2009-10-01 |
| Cincinnati (OH) | OH | 1.8% | 1.8% | 2020-10-02 |
Resident and non-resident rates differ in most of these jurisdictions, which is why commuting across a city line is not the same as moving across it. New York City is the only entry that is progressive rather than flat; the range shown is its single-filer schedule. Every figure in this table is read directly from the data file that powers the calculator, not retyped.
Data year. The state and locality rate tables on this page are the 2025 tax year tables — 51 state entries and 11 local entries — carried in us-state-tax.json in this repository, where every entry links to the issuing state revenue department. The data file applies those same 2025 state tables to 2024, 2025 and 2026 calculations because the state-rate cadence is slower than the federal one, and it explicitly warns against presenting the 2025 state figures as 2024 or 2026 figures; treat the state layer here as 2025 and re-check it against your state before relying on a year other than 2025. The federal layer is separate and was rebuilt on 2026-08-21 directly from IRS Publication 15-T, IRS Publication 15 and Revenue Procedure 2025-32.
Not tax advice. These pages explain how the pieces fit together. They do not produce a number for your situation and are not a substitute for a CPA or an enrolled agent.