States with no income tax, and what they charge instead

The states with no tax on wages for 2026 are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Two of them come with footnotes. New Hampshire used to tax interest and dividends, and that tax was repealed from 2025. Washington taxes large long-term capital gains, but not wages. For a salaried employee, every state on the list is the same at the income tax line: nothing.

What it is worth on a paycheck

On a $75,000 salary, single, paid every two weeks, a year of take-home pay in Texas comes to $61,592. The same salary leaves $57,396 in California, where state income tax and disability insurance take $4,196, and $55,731 in Oregon, where state income tax alone takes $5,317. The gap with Oregon is $5,861 a year.

The difference between the no-tax states themselves comes from payroll levies, which are not income taxes and so are not affected by having no income tax.

The paycheck levies that remain

Washington takes two. The employee share of Paid Family and Medical Leave is 0.8072% of wages up to the Social Security wage base. The WA Cares Fund, a public long-term care insurance program, takes 0.58% of all wages with no cap; a worker at Washington’s median wage pays $365.30 a year for it. Some workers hold an approved exemption, mainly those who bought private long-term care coverage before the program’s deadline. On $75,000, the two together take $1,040, leaving $60,552.

Alaska is the only state where employees pay into unemployment insurance. The AK Unemployment Insurance (employee) takes $271 a year on $75,000, up to a yearly wage cap. Alaskans also receive the Permanent Fund Dividend, which is federally taxable income.

The rest take nothing from employees beyond federal tax and FICA. In the table below, take-home pay is highest in Florida and the states tied with it, and lowest in Washington.

Take-home pay is federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and any state payroll levy taken from a year of paychecks every two weeks. Sales tax is the state rate only; most cities and counties add their own. Property tax is median tax paid divided by median home value, from the Census Bureau's ACS 5-year 2020-2024, and links to each state's mortgage page.

Sales tax

Most states without an income tax rely heavily on sales tax. The state rate is 7% in Tennessee, 6.5% in Washington, 6.25% in Texas and 6% in Florida, as of 2026-10-20. Cities and counties add their own rates on top, so the rate at the register is often a few points higher than the state rate. Tennessee also taxes groceries at a reduced rate, where many states exempt them.

Two states have no statewide sales tax at all: New Hampshire at 0% and Alaska at 0%, although many Alaska boroughs and cities charge local sales tax. Oregon runs the other way: a high income tax and no sales tax at all, a state rate of 0%, which is part of why it appears in so many comparisons.

How much sales tax costs you depends on what you spend, not what you earn. A household that saves a large share of its income pays proportionally less, which is one reason sales-tax states favor higher earners and savers.

Property tax

Property tax is the other main source, and here the no-income-tax states split sharply. Using the Census Bureau’s ACS 5-year 2020-2024 figures for median tax paid divided by median home value, Texas has an effective rate of 1.4912% and New Hampshire 1.6564%, both among the highest in the country. On the Texas median home value of $283,800, that is $4,232 a year.

Compare Oregon, with an effective rate of 0.8116%. Its median home is worth more, $477,600, but the median tax bill is lower at $3,876. A homeowner who moves from Portland to Austin gains the income tax back on the paycheck and gives part of it up to the county appraisal district.

Renters pay property tax too, through rent, though less visibly. Our state mortgage pages show property tax by county, which varies even more within a state than between them, and the affordability guide shows how a high property tax rate lowers the price a salary can support.

Other things to check before moving

• Your old state may still tax you. Leaving a state mid-year means a part-year resident return there. Some states also look closely at whether you really left, especially when you keep a home there.
• Remote work for an out-of-state employer. A handful of states tax nonresidents who work remotely for an employer based there under a “convenience of the employer” rule. Moving to Florida does not end New York tax if the job is still tied to a New York office under that rule.
• Local income taxes. None of these states has local income taxes on wages, but neighboring states often do. Our local income taxes guide lists them.
• Retirement income. None of them taxes pensions, Social Security or retirement account withdrawals at the state level, which matters more than wage tax for many people who move later in life.
• Car and home insurance, tolls and fees. These vary widely and are not taxes, but they can offset a share of the saving.

How we compared

Take-home pay uses our paycheck engine with the 2026 federal tables and each state’s own payroll rules, for a single filer with the standard W-4, paid every two weeks with no pre-tax deductions. Sales tax rates are the state-level rates in our dated snapshot. Property tax is the ACS state figure; county figures are on each state’s mortgage page. Our research page on take-home pay by state has the same comparison for all 50 states and DC at three salaries.

Every figure on this page is computed by the same code as our calculators. How we calculate.