Salario de Maestro en Delaware (2026)

Classroom teaching is exempt from federal overtime rules under the professional exemption for teachers. That exemption does not depend on salary, so a contract day that runs long never generates time-and-a-half. Under 29 CFR 541.303, coaching a team, advising a club or teaching summer school is still teaching, and it stays exempt even when it is paid hourly.

The 2025 federal law known as OBBBA created a deduction for the premium part of overtime pay, the extra half in time-and-a-half. For tax years 2025 through 2028 it is worth up to $12,500 for a single filer and $25,000 for a joint return. It starts phasing out above $150,000 of income for a single filer and $300,000 for a couple.

For most Delaware teachers that deduction is zero. Exempt work generates no required overtime, so there is no premium to deduct. A flat coaching stipend has no premium portion either, because it is not paid at one-and-a-half times anything.

The exception is genuinely non-teaching, hourly district work, such as driving a bus route on a separate hourly rate. Where that work is non-exempt and pushes the week over 40 hours, the extra half of the overtime rate qualifies. Keep the pay stubs that show it.

Delaware gives you nothing extra on top. The state starts from federal adjusted gross income, and the overtime deduction is taken after that line, so it never reaches your Delaware return. The General Assembly considered a state version in 2026, Senate Bill 299, and it never left committee.

Stipends are still ordinary wages. A $3,000 coaching stipend on top of $73,000 is taxed at 22% federal, 6.6% Delaware and 7.65% FICA, so you keep roughly $1,910 of it. Teach in Wilmington and the city takes another $37.50.

Delaware is small enough that many teachers cross county lines to work. A teacher can work in a Newark classroom and live in Middletown, or teach in Dover and live in Smyrna, without changing the tax picture. The exception is Wilmington, whose 1.25% wage tax follows both the job and the house: it falls on everyone who works inside the city and on every city resident, wherever they teach.

Wilmington has no school district of its own. Its schools belong to Brandywine, Christina, Colonial and Red Clay, so many New Castle County teachers work inside the city line without thinking of it as a city job. Check your building's address before you budget, because the city tax is withheld from every paycheck.

Living across a state line does not cut your state tax. Delaware taxes the wages earned here whether you live in Pennsylvania, Maryland or New Jersey, and none of those states has a reciprocity agreement with Delaware. Your home state then credits the Delaware tax, so you end up paying roughly the higher of the two rates.

There is no sales tax, which shows up every week at the register. Property tax has long been low by regional standards, but the 2025 statewide reassessment moved bills sharply, especially in New Castle County. Lawmakers let New Castle school districts set split residential and commercial rates for 2025-26, so check a house's current bill rather than an old listing.

Buying a first home has a state discount built in. Delaware's realty transfer tax is normally split between buyer and seller, and a first-time buyer's share is cut by half a percent. The saving is capped at $2,000 and applies to the first $400,000 of the price.