Live in Virginia, Work Remotely for a West Virginia Employer: Who Taxes You?
Answer
Virginia taxes the income and West Virginia cannot. Residency, not the location of the job, drives this answer: Virginia reaches all of a resident's income, and West Virginia has no personal income tax to apply to the part earned inside its borders.
Last verified
Crossing into a state with no income tax does not lower your tax bill, because your home state is not taxing you on where you work — it is taxing you on where you live. Virginia reaches all of a resident's income, and West Virginia adds nothing on top.
West Virginia also has a layer below the state one, and it is the layer that survives every agreement: Some West Virginia municipalities levy a flat weekly city service fee on people who work in the city. It is a fixed charge rather than a percentage of income, so no credit offsets it.
What you file
- 1Resident return · Virginia
File a Virginia resident return reporting all of your income.
The two states, side by side
| Virginia | West Virginia | |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes wages | Yes — graduated | Yes — graduated |
| Reciprocity partners | 5 (Form VA-4) | 5 (Form WV/IT-104) |
| Convenience rule | No | No |
| Nonresident return | Form 763 | Form IT-140 with Schedule A |
| Credit for other-state tax | Schedule OSC | Schedule E (Form IT-140) |
| Nonresident safe harbour | None published | None published |
| Local income tax | No | Yes |
| Revenue department | Virginia Department of Taxation | West Virginia Tax Division |
| Last verified |
The other direction
Reversing the commute does not always reverse the answer. Living in West Virginia and working in Virginia 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: Virginia → West VirginiaReciprocal agreement — file the exemption form
- 1099 contractor: Virginia → West VirginiaHome state, plus the client state if you work there
- Moved mid-year: Virginia → West VirginiaTwo part-year returns
Other Virginia pairs
Questions people actually ask
I live in Virginia and work remotely for a West Virginia employer. Which state do I pay?
Virginia taxes the income and West Virginia cannot. Residency, not the location of the job, drives this answer: Virginia reaches all of a resident's income, and West Virginia has no personal income tax to apply to the part earned inside its borders.
Which state should my employer be withholding for?
Virginia. Your employer should withhold Virginia tax rather than West Virginia tax on these wages. If a West Virginia line is showing on your pay stub, raise it with payroll now rather than at filing time.
Does my West Virginia employer's location alone create a West Virginia tax obligation?
No. West Virginia 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 West Virginia are a different matter — those are West Virginia-source income and can require a nonresident return.
How current is this?
The Virginia and West Virginia rules on this page were last checked against Virginia Department of Taxation and West Virginia Tax Division 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.
- Virginia Department of Taxation — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07
- Virginia — Form VA-4accessed 2026-08-07
- Virginia Tax — Reciprocityaccessed 2026-08-07
- West Virginia Tax Division — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07