2026 state take-home pay rankings
Every state and DC ranked by estimated take-home pay at three salary levels, computed from documented 2026 federal, FICA, and state tax rules — not projections, not survey data.
Each ranking holds one profile constant — a single filer, paid biweekly, with no dependents and no 401(k) contribution — and varies only the salary and the state. That isolates what state tax structure alone does to take-home pay, at three points on the income scale where a state’s relative rank can shift: a flat-tax state with a modest standard deduction can rank differently at $50,000 than at $100,000 against a progressive-bracket state.
This ranks modeled state-level income tax only — it excludes local (city/county) tax, cost of living, housing, insurance, and any other expense. A state ranking highest here can still cost more to live in overall. The interactive tax arbitrage tool runs this same computation for any salary, filing status, dependent count, and 401(k) contribution.
$50,000 salary — spread
$3,888
Highest: Florida. Lowest: Oregon. See the full ranking →
$75,000 salary — spread
$6,251
Highest: Florida. Lowest: Oregon. See the full ranking →
$100,000 salary — spread
$8,613
Highest: Florida. Lowest: Oregon. See the full ranking →
Methodology
Every figure is computed by the same tax engine that powers PaycheckBase’s calculators — federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and each state’s own income tax, sourced from that state’s own published brackets, standard deductions, and exemptions for tax year 2026, documented in our methodology. Nothing here is estimated by formula shortcut, survey, or a third-party aggregator. Local (city/county) income tax is deliberately excluded from this ranking — each state’s row on its full table links to a detail page that can add a local tax where one is modeled.
Run this for your own salary
The interactive tax arbitrage tool ranks all 51 jurisdictions for any salary, filing status, dependent count, and 401(k) contribution — not just the three fixed levels above.
Compare a specific pair of states
A side-by-side breakdown of up to three states on your own numbers, rather than a full 51-state ranking.
Use this data
Free to reproduce, including commercially, with attribution and a link back to this page.
Download the full dataset
All 3 salary levels × every ranked jurisdiction, with the federal, FICA, state income and state payroll components broken out per row.
2026-state-take-home-pay-rankings.csv
Fetching this from a script? Use the open-data repository instead — the copy above is served through a CDN that turns away HTTP clients without a browser fingerprint, which is most of them.
import pandas as pd
pd.read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mprakhar369-cmd/paycheckbase-data/main/2026-state-take-home-pay-rankings.csv")Assumptions are stated above and in the methodology note; rules were reviewed through 2026-08-09. States whose published schedule does not cover this filing status are omitted rather than estimated, so ranks are contiguous over the jurisdictions actually ranked.
Cite it
PaycheckBase. "2026 State Take-Home Pay Rankings — Every State Ranked."
Reviewed through 2026-08-09.
https://paycheckbase.com/research/2026-state-take-home-pay-rankings/