Live in Alaska, Work Remotely for a Iowa Employer: Who Taxes You?
Answer
Your employer's state gets nothing, and neither does yours. Wages are sourced to where the work is physically done — Alaska, which does not tax them — and Iowa does not run a rule that would source your remote days back to it. No withholding, no returns.
Last verified
An employer's address is not a tax nexus for its employees. Working from Alaska keeps the income Alaska-source, and since Alaska levies no tax on wages, the income lands nowhere at all.
Iowa also has a layer below the state one, and it is the layer that survives every agreement: Many Iowa school districts levy a surtax calculated as a percentage of state income tax. It is reported on the state return rather than separately.
What you file
There is nothing to file in either Alaska or Iowa on these wages. Your federal return is unaffected — the federal government taxes the income whatever the states do.
The two states, side by side
| Alaska | Iowa | |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes wages | No | Yes — flat |
| Reciprocity partners | None | 1 (Form 44-016) |
| Convenience rule | No | No |
| Nonresident return | Not applicable | Form IA 1040 with Schedule IA 126 |
| Credit for other-state tax | No income tax | Form IA 130 |
| Nonresident safe harbour | Not applicable | None published |
| Local income tax | No | Yes |
| Revenue department | Alaska Department of Revenue — Tax Division | Iowa Department of Revenue |
| Last verified |
The other direction
Reversing the commute does not always reverse the answer. Living in Iowa and working in Alaska gives:Home state only.
Same two states, different situation
The withholding answer turns on how you are paid and where the work happens, not only on which two states are involved.
- W-2 commuter: Alaska → IowaWork state only
- 1099 contractor: Alaska → IowaClient state only, if you work there
- Moved mid-year: Alaska → IowaOne part-year return — the state you moved to
Other Alaska pairs
Questions people actually ask
I live in Alaska and work remotely for a Iowa employer. Which state do I pay?
Your employer's state gets nothing, and neither does yours. Wages are sourced to where the work is physically done — Alaska, which does not tax them — and Iowa does not run a rule that would source your remote days back to it. No withholding, no returns.
Which state should my employer be withholding for?
Neither. There is no state income tax to withhold on either side of this pairing, so a state line on your pay stub for Alaska or Iowa is an error worth querying.
Does my Iowa employer's location alone create a Iowa tax obligation?
No. Iowa sources wages to the place where the work is physically performed, and it does not apply a convenience-of-the-employer rule that would override that. Days you actually spend working inside Iowa are a different matter — those are Iowa-source income and can require a nonresident return.
How current is this?
The Alaska and Iowa rules on this page were last checked against Alaska Department of Revenue — Tax Division and Iowa Department of Revenue on 2026-08-07. We re-check the full grid every December after state legislative sessions close, and re-check the convenience-of-the-employer states quarterly because that is where the rules move fastest.
Sources
Every fact above comes from the revenue department that publishes the rule. We do not cite secondary summaries, and we do not restate a figure we could not find at source.
- Alaska Department of Revenue — Tax Division — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07
- Iowa Department of Revenue — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07