Best States for Taxes (2026)

How this ranking works

Computed, not quoted. For every row the table runs this site’s calculator twice — the two profiles above — and reports the resulting stateTaxAnnual. Because ranking and calculators share one engine, the order cannot drift out of sync with the per-state pages, and there is no figure on this page that a reader cannot reproduce with a linked calculator.

Owed, not withheld; owed, not top rate. A top marginal rate only prices the last dollar. What a salary actually pays depends on every bracket below it and on the standard deduction, which is why a flat state can beat a graduated one at this salary — and why the two columns do not always rank states the same way. Ties share a rank, so the 9 wage-tax-free jurisdictions are all #1 and the next state is #10. “Eff.” is simply state tax ÷ salary.

Cross-checked. An independent Fidelity analysis of $100,000 single filers (2025 data, published September 2026) also put Oregon first, with Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, Virginia, Kansas, Montana and D.C. among its costliest ten — all eight sit in this table’s bottom quarter. Whether a state taxes wages at all is independently listed by TaxMath: nine states, zero wage tax, matching the nine $0 rows above.

What this ignores

• Income tax only. On total tax burden — income plus sales plus property — WalletHub’s 2026 ranking flips the picture: Hawaii is the heaviest overall and Alaska the lightest, even though neither appears at the top of this table. A cheap income-tax state can be an expensive place to buy groceries.
• Local income taxes are excluded — New York City, Yonkers, Ohio cities, Pennsylvania counties. The main calculator’s local-rate field handles them; this table keeps all 51 rows on state tax alone so the comparison is apples to apples.
• Seven states (CO, ID, IA, MO, MT, NM, ND) base taxable income on the federal return instead of wages minus their own deduction. Like every calculator on this site, this table applies each state’s brackets to wages after that state’s standard deduction — one uniform method across all rows; the starting-point difference is disclosed on those state pages.
• No credits, no dependents, no itemizing. The child tax credit, retirement and health pre-tax deductions, and state credits all change a real return; both profiles here model a plain wage with none of them.
• Wage income only. Washington’s capital-gains tax and New Hampshire’s investment income never touch a paycheck, and Alaska’s permanent fund dividend is not wages — so all three sit correctly at $0 for this metric while still having their own tax quirks.

Where to look next

• 50 states — the same numbers grouped by structure (none, flat, graduated), with brackets and a calculator behind every row.
• Equivalent salary — keep the same take-home pay after a move: what the salary becomes when the state changes.
• Moving between states — part-year returns and which state gets which slice of the year.
• Remote work taxes — when the employer’s state and your home state both want the income.