State Income Tax Rates, 2026
Which states levy no wage income tax, which use a single flat rate, and the top marginal rate in the rest — published with the confidence level of each figure stated openly.
State income tax is the largest source of variation in take-home pay between two people earning identical salaries. Nine states levy no tax on wage income at all; thirteen apply a single flat rate; the rest run progressive brackets that top out anywhere from under 3% to over 13%.
This page is organized by how confident we are in each figure, which is unusual and deliberate. Publishing a precise-looking number for every state would be easy and partly wrong. What follows separates the figures that are exact from the ones that are estimates, and says which is which.
States with no tax on wage income
| State | Wage income tax |
|---|---|
| Alaska | None |
| Florida | None |
| Nevada | None |
| New Hampshire | None |
| South Dakota | None |
| Tennessee | None |
| Texas | None |
| Washington | None |
| Wyoming | None |
One nuance worth knowing: Washington has no wage income tax but does tax long-term capital gains above a threshold, so “no income tax” is not the same as “no tax on investment income” there. And no-income-tax states raise revenue elsewhere — several of them carry notably high property or sales taxes.
Flat-rate states
| State | Flat rate |
|---|---|
| Arizona | 2.50% |
| Colorado | 4.40% |
| Georgia | 5.19% |
| Idaho | 5.30% |
| Illinois | 4.95% |
| Indiana | 2.95% |
| Iowa | 3.80% |
| Kentucky | 3.50% |
| Michigan | 4.25% |
| Mississippi | 4.00% |
| North Carolina | 3.99% |
| Pennsylvania | 3.07% |
| Utah | 4.50% |
Massachusetts is close to flat but not quite: a base rate of 5.00% plus an additional 4.00% surtax on income above $1,000,000. Some sources also list Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Montana as flat-tax states; those still have multiple brackets, so they appear in the estimates section below instead.
Progressive-bracket states: top marginal rate only
| State | Top marginal rate |
|---|---|
| Alabama | 5.00% |
| Arkansas | 3.90% |
| California | 13.30% |
| Connecticut | 6.99% |
| Delaware | 6.60% |
| District of Columbia | 10.75% |
| Hawaii | 11.00% |
| Kansas | 5.20% |
| Louisiana | 3.00% |
| Maine | 7.15% |
| Maryland | 6.50% |
| Massachusetts | 9.00% |
| Minnesota | 9.85% |
| Missouri | 2.00% |
| Montana | 4.70% |
| Nebraska | 4.55% |
| New Jersey | 10.75% |
| New Mexico | 5.90% |
| New York | 10.90% |
| North Dakota | 2.50% |
| Ohio | 2.75% |
| Oklahoma | 4.50% |
| Oregon | 9.90% |
| Rhode Island | 5.99% |
| South Carolina | 6.00% |
| Vermont | 8.75% |
| Virginia | 5.75% |
| West Virginia | 4.82% |
| Wisconsin | 7.65% |
Read this before using the table above
A top marginal rate is the rate on the last dollar earned by the highest earners in that state. Nobody with an ordinary income pays it on their whole income. In California, the 13.30% figure applies only to income far above what most households earn; effective rates for typical earners are a fraction of it.
We publish the ceiling rather than a fabricated bracket table because the alternative — inventing plausible thresholds for twenty-nine jurisdictions — would look more authoritative and be less true. For an exact figure, use your state's own withholding calculator or department of revenue tables.
Things this table does not capture
Local income taxes. Several states permit cities, counties, or school districts to levy their own income tax on top of the state rate. Where those apply, the combined burden is higher than any figure above.
Standard deductions and exemptions. Each state defines its own taxable income differently, and some are far more generous than others. Two states with identical rates can produce noticeably different tax on the same salary.
Retirement income treatment. Many states exempt Social Security benefits entirely, and several exempt some or all pension and retirement account income. For a retiree, that treatment often matters more than the headline rate.
Working across state lines. Remote work and multi-state employment create genuinely complex questions about which state has the right to tax which income, including reciprocity agreements between some neighboring states. Those are worth a professional rather than a table.
Calculators that use this data
Found a figure that looks wrong or has been superseded? Tell us on the contact page — corrections are handled the way the editorial standards describe.