statelinetax.com
Two states want the same paycheck. Find out which one gets it.
Answer three questions and you get the withholding answer for your exact pair of states — plus the exemption form that stops the double withholding, if one exists, and the returns you actually have to file. Every answer is checked against the state revenue department that publishes the rule.
Which state taxes your paycheck?
Pick where you live, where the work is, and how you are paid. You get the withholding answer, the exemption form if one exists, and the returns to file — with the revenue-department source.
Your answer appears here. There are five possible outcomes:
- Home state only
- Reciprocity — file the form
- Work state only
- Both states, with a credit
- Convenience-rule trap
10,200 answers · 51 jurisdictions · 30 reciprocity agreements · last verified 2026-08-07
Start from your situation
The same two states give different answers depending on how you are paid and where the work physically happens. Pick the one that describes you.
- W-2 commuter
I live in one state and work in another — which state takes the tax out of my paycheck?
- Remote worker
I work remotely from home for an out-of-state employer — do I owe tax in the employer's state?
- 1099 contractor
I'm a 1099 contractor with a client in another state — do I have to file there?
- Moved mid-year
I moved from one state to another mid-year — do I file in both states?
Three facts that decide most answers
Nine states take nothing
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming levy no tax on wages. That removes one side of the question — but only one. Living in a taxing state and working in a no-tax state does not save you anything, because your home state taxes residents on income earned anywhere.
30 agreements switch off withholding
Where two states hold a reciprocity agreement, the work state stops withholding entirely — but only once you hand your employer that state's exemption certificate. It is not automatic, it is not retroactive, and the form belongs to the state where the work is, not the state where you live. That last detail is the one people get backwards.See the map.
Six states tax remote workers who never go there
Connecticut, Delaware, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania run convenience-of-the-employer rules. If your employer is in one of them and you work from home by choice rather than necessity, that state taxes the day anyway. Moving to a state with no income tax makes this worse, not better — there is no resident return left on which to claim the credit.How the rule works.
Why you can rely on this
Every fact on this site comes from the revenue department that publishes it — 51of them — and nothing else. No secondary summaries, no aggregator tables, no figure restated from another site. Where we could not establish something from a primary source, the field is empty and the page says so rather than filling the gap with a plausible number.
The whole site is generated from one 51-row dataset, so a correction to a single state rewrites every page that depends on it. The full grid is re-verified each December once state legislative sessions close, and the convenience-of-the-employer states are re-checked quarterly because that is where the rules move.
What this site will not do is tell you what you owe. It explains which state has the right to tax the income and what you have to file — the mechanics. It never applies a rate and never produces a number, because that is a return preparer's job and getting it wrong costs you money.Read the methodology.