Live in Tennessee, Work Remotely for a Wisconsin 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 — Tennessee, which does not tax them — and Wisconsin 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 Tennessee keeps the income Tennessee-source, and since Tennessee levies no tax on wages, the income lands nowhere at all.
What you file
There is nothing to file in either Tennessee or Wisconsin on these wages. Your federal return is unaffected — the federal government taxes the income whatever the states do.
The two states, side by side
| Tennessee | Wisconsin | |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes wages | No | Yes — graduated |
| Reciprocity partners | None | 4 (Form W-220) |
| Convenience rule | No | No |
| Nonresident return | Not applicable | Form 1NPR |
| Credit for other-state tax | No income tax | Schedule OS |
| Nonresident safe harbour | Not applicable | Dollar floor published |
| Local income tax | No | No |
| Revenue department | Tennessee Department of Revenue | Wisconsin Department of Revenue |
| Last verified |
The other direction
Reversing the commute does not always reverse the answer. Living in Wisconsin and working in Tennessee 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: Tennessee → WisconsinWork state only
- 1099 contractor: Tennessee → WisconsinClient state only, if you work there
- Moved mid-year: Tennessee → WisconsinOne part-year return — the state you moved to
Other Tennessee pairs
Questions people actually ask
I live in Tennessee and work remotely for a Wisconsin 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 — Tennessee, which does not tax them — and Wisconsin 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 Tennessee or Wisconsin is an error worth querying.
Does my Wisconsin employer's location alone create a Wisconsin tax obligation?
No. Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin are a different matter — those are Wisconsin-source income and can require a nonresident return.
How current is this?
The Tennessee and Wisconsin rules on this page were last checked against Tennessee Department of Revenue and Wisconsin 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.
- Tennessee Department of Revenue — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07
- Wisconsin Department of Revenue — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07