Living in one state, working in another

Commute across a state line and two tax systems can touch your paycheck. Whether you owe one state or both depends on reciprocity agreements and the credit for taxes paid. These 41 guides work it out one state at a time, in both directions, with the actual 2026 rates for every neighbour.

The three ways it can go

Reciprocity. Some neighbouring states agree that only your home state taxes your wages. File an exemption certificate with your employer and the work state never withholds. This is the clean case, and the per-state guides list every agreement that applies in 2026.

Credit for taxes paid. Without reciprocity, the work state taxes the wages first on a nonresident return, then your home state taxes the same income but gives a credit for what you already paid. You don't pay twice, but you do effectively pay the higher of the two rates, and you file two returns. Take a New Jersey resident working in New York: New York taxes the wages as a nonresident, and New Jersey's credit wipes out most of its own tax on that income. The New Jersey guide runs those numbers.

One side has no income tax. Live in a no-income-tax state and commute into a taxing one, and the work state's tax is simply the tax, there's no home-state credit because there's nothing to credit against. The reverse commute is the pleasant case: live in a taxing state, work in a no-tax state, and only your home state taxes the wages.

Pick the state you live in. Or the one you work in

Each guide covers both directions: commuting out of that state, and commuting into it from a neighbour, including from the nine states with no income tax at all.

• Alabama ↔
• Arizona ↔
• Arkansas ↔
• California ↔
• Colorado ↔
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Georgia ↔
• Idaho ↔
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa ↔
• Kansas
• Kentucky ↔
• Louisiana ↔
• Maine ↔
• Maryland
• Massachusetts ↔
• Michigan
• Minnesota ↔
• Mississippi ↔
• Missouri ↔
• Montana ↔
• Nebraska ↔
• New Jersey
• New Mexico ↔
• New York
• North Carolina ↔
• North Dakota ↔
• Ohio
• Oklahoma ↔
• Oregon ↔
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• Utah ↔
• Vermont ↔
• Virginia ↔
• Washington DC
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

↔ also covers commuting in from a no-income-tax neighbour.

What these guides cover, and what they don't

• State income tax on wages. Federal tax and FICA are the same wherever you commute.
• Reciprocity agreements cover wages paid by an employer, not self-employment income.
• Local and municipal income tax is called out where the dataset has it, but is not in the figures.
• Worked examples assume a single filer and each state's own rules for 2026.
• Informational only, not tax advice.