States With No Income Tax in 2026: Full List and Filing Rules

Eight states levy no individual income tax at all: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. Washington is usually counted as a ninth because it taxes only capital gains, not wages or salary. That gives the commonly cited figure of nine states with no broad-based income tax. New Hampshire is the newest addition, having repealed its interest and dividends tax as of 2025. Plenty of older articles still list it as taxing investment income, which is no longer true.

Which states have no income tax?

Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming impose no individual income tax whatsoever. Residents of those eight states file a federal return only, with no accompanying state income tax return. Washington belongs in a separate category: it taxes capital gains income but leaves wage and salary income untouched entirely.

If you live in one of the eight, the state side of tax season simply does not exist for you. That does not mean you have zero state filing obligations forever, though. Earn income sourced to another state and that state may still want a nonresident return, which is the part people miss.

Is Washington a no income tax state?

Washington has no tax on wages, salary, or self-employment earnings, so for the overwhelming majority of workers it functions exactly like a no income tax state. It does, however, tax certain capital gains. That single carve-out is why careful sources say nine states have no broad-based income tax rather than nine states with no income tax.

The distinction matters if you sell appreciated assets while living in Washington. A salaried employee in Seattle who never sells stock will go an entire career without filing a Washington income tax return. Someone who sells a large position in a single year may owe Washington capital gains tax even though every dollar of their paycheck is untaxed by the state. This is the single most confused point in the whole topic, and the confusion runs both directions: people assume Washington taxes nothing, or they assume the capital gains tax makes it an income tax state like Oregon next door. Neither framing is right.

One practical note. TaxFile does not handle Schedule D and capital gains, so a Washington capital gains situation is one to take to a CPA rather than to self-prepared software.

Do states with no income tax actually cost you less?

Not automatically. States without an income tax still need revenue, and they raise it through sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, and in some cases severance taxes on oil, gas, and minerals. Whether you come out ahead depends on your own income level, how much you spend, and what you own.

Think about the mechanics rather than the headline. A high earner who rents a modest apartment and spends little tends to benefit a lot from having no income tax, because the taxes that replace it are largely tied to consumption and property they do not have much of. A middle-income family that buys a house in a state funding its schools through property tax may find the swap close to neutral, or worse. Retirees drawing down savings face a different calculation again, since their income is often already lightly taxed and their spending is what gets hit.

The other half of the equation is what your money buys. Moving to a state with no income tax also means moving into that state's cost of living, housing market, insurance rates, and public services. None of that shows up in a tax rate comparison. Run your actual numbers rather than trusting a ranking, and if you are weighing a move, model the federal side too with our tax refund calculator so you are comparing complete pictures.

Which states have a flat income tax?

As of January 1, 2026, fifteen states have single-rate individual income taxes: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. For tax year 2025 returns, the ones filed in 2026, the count was fourteen, because Ohio and Georgia only became flat on January 1, 2026.

Be careful with the year. Ohio's 2.75 percent flat rate and Georgia's 5.19 percent flat rate both took effect at the start of 2026, so a tax year 2025 return for either state is not a flat-rate return. Articles that state "15 flat tax states" without a date attached are describing 2026 income, not the return most people filed this spring.

The remaining structure: 26 states plus the District of Columbia use graduated rates. Bracket counts vary more than you would expect, from just two brackets in Arkansas, Kansas, Massachusetts, Montana, and North Dakota, up to twelve in Hawaii, the most of any state.

Do I have to file a state tax return?

If you live and work entirely in one of the eight no-income-tax states, no state return is required. Everywhere else, you generally file a resident return in the state where you live if your income exceeds that state's threshold, plus a nonresident return in any other state where you earned income sourced there.

Nonresident thresholds are where people get caught out. As of January 1, 2026, 22 states have no meaningful nonresident filing threshold at all, meaning a single day of work performed in the state can create a filing obligation. Nine states use income-based thresholds ranging from $100 in Vermont to $15,300 in Minnesota. Connecticut and Maine use combined tests that look at both days present and income earned.

So a consultant based in Dallas who spends four days working in a client's office in one of those 22 states may owe that state a nonresident return, despite living in a state with no income tax of its own. Living somewhere with no income tax removes your resident filing obligation. It does not exempt you from other states' rules. Our state tax filing guide covers the state-by-state mechanics in more detail.

What happens if I live in one state and work in another?

You normally file a resident return in your home state and a nonresident return in the state where you worked. Your home state taxes all of your income but generally gives you a credit for tax paid to the other state, so the same dollars are not fully taxed twice. If you moved during the year, you file part-year returns in both states instead.

Most states fold nonresident and part-year filing into a single form. California uses Form 540NR and New York uses Form IT-203, both of which ask you to allocate income between the state and everywhere else. If you are dealing with either, the California tax filing and New York tax filing pages walk through the specifics.

Part-year allocation is the tedious part, because it turns on dates. You need to know what you earned before the move and what you earned after, and for anything without a clean pay stub trail (freelance payments, interest, side income) the fastest route is usually to pull the dated transactions out of your bank statements and sort them by the move date. A spreadsheet of dated deposits settles most allocation questions in an afternoon.

Remote work has made this messier, not simpler. Some states assert taxing rights over income earned by a remote employee of an in-state company even when the employee never sets foot in the state. If your employer is in a different state from your desk, check both states' rules before assuming your no-income-tax residence solves it.

What is a state reciprocity agreement?

A state reciprocity agreement is a mutual arrangement, usually between neighboring states, to tax cross-border workers based exclusively on residency. Under one, you file and pay only in the state where you live, your employer withholds only for that state, and you skip the nonresident return entirely. There are 30 such agreements across 16 states plus DC.

Most agreements are limited to wage and compensation income; a few cover all income. They are concentrated in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, where short commutes cross state lines constantly.

Reciprocity is not automatic. You typically have to give your employer an exemption certificate for the work state so it stops withholding there. Skip that step and you will have work-state tax withheld all year and have to file a nonresident return purely to get it refunded.

Delaware is the instructive counterexample: it has no reciprocity agreements with anyone. Its Division of Revenue is explicit that Delaware residents who work out of state must file with Delaware in addition to the state where they worked. Bordering a state is no guarantee of an agreement.

Do state tax deadlines match the federal deadline?

Most states match the federal deadline, which for tax year 2025 was April 15, 2026. A handful do not. Virginia's is May 1, Delaware's and Iowa's are April 30, and Louisiana's is May 15. States with no income tax have no filing deadline for individuals at all, because there is nothing to file.

California and New York are the cleanest illustration of how much extension rules differ. California grants six extra months automatically with nothing to submit, though the payment is still due in April. New York gives the same six months but only if you actually file Form IT-370 by April 15. Assume New York works like California and you have a late-filed return. For the federal picture, see our guide to when taxes are due. Note that TaxFile does not e-file Form 4868 or state extension forms, so extensions are handled separately from your return.

Filing when more than one state is involved

Multi-state filing is not conceptually hard, it is just easy to get wrong through omission: a forgotten nonresident return, a missed credit for taxes paid to another state, a part-year allocation done by eyeball. The cost of those mistakes is usually money left behind rather than a penalty.

TaxFile reads your W-2s and 1099s (or just chats with you about your situation), prepares your federal and state returns, finds the deductions and credits you qualify for, and runs an error check before anything is submitted. It e-files through an authorized IRS e-file provider only after you review and approve every line. Pricing is $39 for a simple return, $89 for self-employed, and $199 for business, plus $19 per state return, which is the line that matters if you are filing in two states this year. There is no free plan. TaxFile does not handle capital gains, rental income, crypto, or amended returns.

If you want to see how the process works before committing, start with online tax filing and add states as needed. This is general information, not tax advice; for complex multi-state or residency questions, consult a CPA or tax professional.