Crossing a state line into or out of Virginia

Virginia borders 8 states. They fall into 3 different situations, and which one applies decides whether you file one return or two.

Where Virginia has a reciprocity agreement

Virginia has wage reciprocity with Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Washington DC and West Virginia. Work in one of these and it will not tax your wages at all: you file its exemption certificate with your employer there, which stops its withholding, and report everything to Virginia. There is no nonresident return.

Kentucky attaches conditions to its agreements, not all of which apply to every partner state: Virginia residents must commute daily; Ohio residents cannot own 20%+ of an S corporation. Check which clause covers a Virginia resident before relying on it.

Washington DC attaches conditions to its agreements, not all of which apply to every partner state: By federal law DC cannot tax the wages of any nonresident, not only MD/VA residents. Check which clause covers a Virginia resident before relying on it.

Reciprocity covers wages paid by an employer. It does not cover self-employment income, so a 1099 worker in Virginia generally still sources income to where the work was done.

Where you file a nonresident return and claim a credit

Virginia has no agreement with Arizona and North Carolina. Work in one of these and you file a nonresident return there, report the same income again to Virginia, and claim a credit for what you already paid. The credit is capped at your Virginia liability, so you are not taxed twice, the combined bill lands at roughly the higher of the two rates.

Where the work state takes nothing

Tennessee levies no personal income tax, so there is no return to file there and no credit to claim. But Virginia still taxes the wages as a resident. The catch is withholding: an employer in Tennessee has no state income tax to withhold, so nothing is taken out for Virginia either. The liability is real and nothing is being set aside against it, which usually means Virginia estimated payments.

What Virginia itself takes across a salary range

A single filer, taking the standard deduction. This is the figure every arrangement above is measured against, the tax Virginia charges a resident, whether the work happened inside the state or over a line:

Coming the other way: living in a no-income-tax state, working in Virginia

Tennessee border Virginia and levy no personal income tax of their own. A resident of Tennessee who works in Virginia has the simplest arrangement on this page and the least room to improve it: Virginia taxes the wages earned inside it, $3,768 on $70,000, there is no home-state return, and so there is nothing to claim a credit against. Living across a border that charges nothing does not reduce the Virginia bill by a cent.

Reciprocity cannot help either, even where Virginia has agreements: reciprocity shifts the income to the home state's return, and a state with no income tax has no return to shift it to.

What Virginia charges as your home state

Virginia taxes income on 4 graduated brackets for 2026, from 2% up to 5.75%. Because wages stacks on top of any other income, a second source can push part of it into the next bracket.

State income tax on wages only, 2026 rates. Not tax advice, what this does and doesn't cover.

Related

• All cross-border guides
• Virginia paycheck calculator
• 1099 taxes in Virginia