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Where does your paycheck go furthest?

Federal, state, local, payroll, property and sales taxes for the household you describe, adjusted for what things cost in each place.

What you keep after every tax, in national-average dollars: take-home divided by the local price level.

For this household, South Dakota comes out best at $100,234 and California worst at $70,116.

Select a state on the map or in the list for the full breakdown, then compare it with another.

States ranked by take-home, cost-of-living adjusted

About this tool

Who it's for
For anyone deciding which US state or county to live in, or wondering what a move would do to their taxes.
What you can enter
Filing status, wages, long-term capital gains, children, whether you own a home and what it's worth, and the share of spending that's sales-taxable, for any tax year from 2017 to 2026.
What it runs on
Federal, state, local, payroll, property and sales tax law for 2017 through 2026, with Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parities. Sources and simplifications are under How this is calculated.
Who made it
Sam Wen, co-founder of Square. Free, no sign-up; it runs in your browser. Last updated .

Spot a mistake, or a rule that changed? Tell me.

Frequently asked questions

I'm looking for a man in finance (trust fund, 6'5", blue eyes). Where should I live?

Florida. Enough hedge funds have decamped to Miami and Palm Beach that it answers to "Wall Street South," and with no state income tax his bonus arrives intact. The Manhattan version of him loses up to 14.8% of it to New York State and City before he's even picked a restaurant. For the trust fund half of the brief, try the Oil baron nepobaby preset and watch Florida stay a flat, reassuring zero.

Where should a Swiftie live in the Kelce era?

Nashville. Tennessee doesn't tax wages at all, which leaves more for resale tickets. The catch: its combined sales tax averages 9.61%, one of the highest in the country, so you'll give it all back at the merch table.

I want to go full tradwife and bake sourdough on a farm. What's the most tax-efficient homestead?

Utah has a flat 4.45% income tax and knocks about $127 off it for every dependent, so a family the size of Ballerina Farm's saves roughly a thousand dollars a year, or a lot of raw milk. The credit phases out as income rises, though, so the husband can't also be a man in finance.

Where can I buy Labubus without paying sales tax?

Oregon charges no sales tax, so a $30 blind box costs $30 (before the resale markup). Just don't earn the money there: Oregon's income tax hits 9.9% at $125K, and Portland-area county taxes stack on top. Buy in Portland, earn in Vancouver, Washington, and tell no one.

All the tech bros moved to Austin. Should I?

Texas has no income tax, which is why the podcasts moved there. It makes up for it with a 1.4% effective property tax rate, among the steepest in the country, so the ranch with the cold plunge costs you every year. Switch the map to Property tax and compare it with California's 0.70%.

Mostly jokes. Still not tax advice, and definitely not dating advice.

How this is calculated

What's included

  • Federal income tax with 2026 brackets, the standard deduction or itemized state and local taxes (whichever is larger, with the SALT cap and its phase-out), long-term gains stacked on top of wages at 0/15/20%, the alternative minimum tax, and the nonrefundable child tax credit.
  • Payroll taxes: Social Security up to the wage base, Medicare plus the 0.9% surtax, the 3.8% net investment income tax on gains, and employee-paid state programs such as disability and paid-leave insurance.
  • State income tax with each state's brackets, standard deduction, personal exemptions or credits and their phase-outs, per-child allowances, and capital gains treatment (exclusions and Washington-style separate taxes).
  • Local income taxes that cover a whole county: New York City, Maryland and Indiana counties, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Louisville, Lexington, and the Portland-area taxes. Switch to counties to see them.
  • Property tax: the effective rate (taxes paid ÷ home value) times the home value you choose. Renters pay none directly.
  • Sales tax: the average combined state and local rate, applied only to the share of take-home you spend on taxable goods.
  • Cost of living: take-home divided by the Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parity, so $100 buys the same amount everywhere.

Simplifications

  • Wages come from one W-2 earner; there's no self-employment, retirement, or pension income.
  • State and local tax is the only itemized deduction. Mortgage interest and charitable gifts aren't counted, and neither are other credits (EITC, state child credits). The larger state phase-outs of standard deductions and personal allowances are modeled as straight lines; per-child phase-outs are not.
  • States tax your income starting from gross income, not from their own adjusted gross income. New York and Connecticut's recapture of lower brackets isn't modeled, and neither is the deduction for federal tax paid in Alabama, Missouri and Oregon, so those three read slightly high.
  • Municipal and school-district income taxes (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan cities, Kansas City) are not included, and county taxes assume you live and work in that county.
  • Counties without their own price, property, or home-value data use their state's. Connecticut's new planning regions don't line up with the map's old counties, so Connecticut uses state values.
  • Trendlines apply each year's law to the same household with incomes held fixed. Census data lags two years, 2020 had no one-year survey (so 2022 home values use a five-year average), and 2025–26 reuse 2024's price levels, the latest published. 2017 leaves out that year's phase-outs of itemized deductions and exemptions, and 2021 uses the regular child tax credit rather than that year's temporary expansion.
  • This is an estimate for comparing places, not tax advice.

Sources

Data compiled 2026-09-29.