Live in West Virginia, Work in Virginia: Which State Taxes Your Paycheck?
Answer
File Form VA-4 and Virginia takes nothing. Under the reciprocal agreement between West Virginia and Virginia, wages you earn in Virginia are taxable only by West Virginia. The certificate goes to your employer rather than to a revenue department, and it turns two potential returns into one.
Last verified
Reciprocity is the cleanest outcome in multi-state wage tax, and also the one most often missed, because it only works if you file the certificate. The agreement between West Virginia and Virginia does not apply itself: an employer that never receives Form VA-4 keeps withholding.
Virginia's agreements come in two shapes. Residents of Kentucky and the District of Columbia are exempt only if they commute to the Virginia workplace on a daily basis. Residents of Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are exempt if their only Virginia-source income is salary and wages taxed by their home state and they do not live in Virginia for 183 days or more. Either way the exemption is claimed on Form VA-4, and Virginia requires it to be recertified every year.
The certificate goes to your employer's payroll department, not to Virginia Department of Taxation, and it is not retroactive — filing it in June does not recover Virginia tax withheld in January. That money comes back only by filing a Virginia nonresident return for the year and claiming a refund.
What you file
Give your employer Form VA-4 so Virginia stops withholding. This goes to the employer, not to Virginia Department of Taxation — and it is not retroactive, so file it before the first paycheck of the year.
- 2Resident return · West Virginia
File a West Virginia resident return reporting all of your income, including the wages earned in Virginia.
The two states, side by side
| West Virginia | Virginia | |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes wages | Yes — graduated | Yes — graduated |
| Reciprocity partners | 5 (Form WV/IT-104) | 5 (Form VA-4) |
| Convenience rule | No | No |
| Nonresident return | Form IT-140 with Schedule A | Form 763 |
| Credit for other-state tax | Schedule E (Form IT-140) | Schedule OSC |
| Nonresident safe harbour | None published | None published |
| Local income tax | Yes | No |
| Revenue department | West Virginia Tax Division | Virginia Department of Taxation |
| Last verified |
The other direction
Reversing the commute does not always reverse the answer. Living in Virginia and working in West Virginia gives:Reciprocal agreement — file the exemption form.
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.
- Remote worker: West Virginia → VirginiaHome state only
- 1099 contractor: West Virginia → VirginiaHome state, plus the client state if you work there
- Moved mid-year: West Virginia → VirginiaTwo part-year returns
Other West Virginia pairs
Questions people actually ask
I live in West Virginia and work in Virginia. Which state takes the tax out of my paycheck?
File Form VA-4 and Virginia takes nothing. Under the reciprocal agreement between West Virginia and Virginia, wages you earn in Virginia are taxable only by West Virginia. The certificate goes to your employer rather than to a revenue department, and it turns two potential returns into one.
Which state should my employer be withholding for?
West Virginia. Your employer should withhold West Virginia tax rather than Virginia tax on these wages, but only once you have given payroll Form VA-4 — the exemption is not automatic and it does not apply retroactively. If a Virginia line is showing on your pay stub, raise it with payroll now rather than at filing time.
What if Virginia tax was already withheld from my pay?
File Form VA-4 with your employer to stop it going forward, then recover what was already taken by filing a Virginia nonresident return for that year and claiming a refund of the full amount. West Virginia will still expect its own tax on the same wages, so do not treat the refund as a windfall.
How current is this?
The West Virginia and Virginia rules on this page were last checked against West Virginia Tax Division and Virginia Department of Taxation 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.
- West Virginia Tax Division — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07
- Virginia Department of Taxation — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07
- Virginia — Form VA-4accessed 2026-08-07
- Virginia Tax — Reciprocityaccessed 2026-08-07