A Flat 3.07%, Taxed From Your First Dollar
Pennsylvania taxes wages at a single flat rate of 3.07% with no standard deduction and no personal exemption. Unlike almost every other state, the tax starts on dollar one, there is no sheltered band at the bottom. The upside is predictability: on a $70,000 salary the state income tax is a clean $2,149 regardless of whether you file single or jointly. Filing status changes your federal tax, but not your Pennsylvania state tax.
Local Earned Income Tax Is the Real Variable
The flat state rate is only half the picture. Under Act 32, nearly every Pennsylvania municipality and school district levies a local Earned Income Tax (EIT), commonly around 1%. Philadelphia is the dramatic outlier: its wage tax is 3.74% for residents and 3.43% for non-residents (2025), on top of the 3.07% state tax. A Philadelphia resident earning $70,000 pays about $2,618 in city wage tax, more than the $2,149 they owe the state. Many areas also charge a flat Local Services Tax, often $52 per year. Where you live and work inside Pennsylvania can swing your take-home pay by thousands.
A 401(k) Quirk Unique to Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania does not follow the federal treatment of retirement contributions. Your 401(k) and 403(b) elective deferrals are still subject to the 3.07% Pennsylvania income tax in the year you make them, the state taxes them up front, then lets qualified retirement distributions come out PA-tax-free later. Those same contributions still reduce your federal taxable income normally. So a Pennsylvania saver gets the full federal benefit of pre-tax contributions but not a state deduction, which changes the math on traditional-versus-Roth decisions here.
Reciprocity: Six States Where Pennsylvania Won't Double-Tax You
Pennsylvania has reciprocal agreements with Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia. If you live in one of those states and work in Pennsylvania (or the reverse), your wages are taxed only by your home state, and your employer can withhold accordingly. One catch: the agreements are state-level only. Philadelphia's wage tax is not covered by reciprocity, so a New Jersey resident working in Philadelphia still owes the city wage tax even though New Jersey and Pennsylvania reciprocate at the state level.
The 0.07% Line You Might Not Recognize
Pennsylvania withholds an employee unemployment contribution of 0.07% of wages for 2026, about 70 cents per $1,000, with no wage cap. On a $70,000 salary that is roughly $49 a year. It is small, but it is a genuine line on your pay stub that most paycheck calculators ignore entirely. Combined with the flat state rate and any local EIT, it rounds out the full picture of what Pennsylvania actually takes from each check.
How Pennsylvania Taxes Retirement Income (It Mostly Doesn't)
Here is the payoff for the 401(k) quirk above. Pennsylvania fully exempts Social Security, and it also exempts pension and retirement-account income once you have reached the plan's retirement age or separated from service after meeting its conditions, so most retirees pay 0% Pennsylvania income tax on their pension, 401(k), and IRA withdrawals. Because Pennsylvania already taxed the contributions on the way in, it lets the money out untaxed, the mirror image of the federal treatment. That makes Pennsylvania one of the friendliest states in the country for retirees on the income-tax line, even though its flat 3.07% gives working-age residents no breaks. The local Earned Income Tax also generally does not reach retirement income, only earned wages.
Adjusting Withholding and Filing: REV-419 and the PA-40
Because the state rate is a flat 3.07%, Pennsylvania has no allowance-based withholding form for residents the way states with brackets do; your employer simply withholds 3.07%. The form that matters is the REV-419, the Employee's Nonwithholding Application, which a resident of a reciprocal state (New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, or Indiana) files to stop Pennsylvania income tax from being withheld on wages earned in Pennsylvania. Everyone who owes Pennsylvania tax files the PA-40 return by April 15, e-filed through the state's myPATH portal. Note that the REV-419 covers state tax only; Philadelphia's city wage tax still applies to work performed in the city regardless of where you live.
Finding Your Local Rate: the DCED Lookup, the LST, and the Philadelphia Trap
Your local Earned Income Tax rate is the combined municipality-plus-school-district rate for where you live, and the official way to find it is the Pennsylvania DCED municipal tax lookup by address rather than guessing. Most places land around 1%, but they vary. Separately, many municipalities levy a flat Local Services Tax, commonly $52 a year, withheld where you work, not where you live. The most expensive mistake is around Philadelphia: its wage tax (3.74% for residents, 3.43% for non-residents in 2025) is a city tax, not the EIT, and it applies to anyone who works in the city even if they live in the suburbs or out of state, with no reciprocity relief. Commuters into Philadelphia routinely underestimate this.
A Pennsylvania Paycheck, Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia
Take a salary near the Pennsylvania median household income, about $73,000. State income tax is a flat 3.07%, roughly $2,241, the same anywhere in the state. The local layer is what moves: a Pittsburgh resident pays the city's 3% local tax (about $2,190) plus a small Local Services Tax, while a Philadelphia resident pays the 3.74% city wage tax (about $2,730). A worker who lives in a low-EIT suburb but commutes into Philadelphia still owes the 3.43% non-resident wage tax. So two Pennsylvanians earning $73,000 can take home meaningfully different amounts depending entirely on which city collects their local tax. Run your own figure with the city selector in the calculator above.
Social Security and Medicare (FICA) are federal, so they come out the same in Pennsylvania as in every other state. The main Paycheck Calculator walks through the full federal side, including the Social Security wage base and the Additional Medicare surtax.