Pennsylvania Salary & Paycheck Calculator 2026

Withholding on a Pennsylvania paycheck has no separate state withholding form — Pennsylvania uses your federal Form W-4 information for state withholding purposes, applying the flat 3.07% rate directly to compensation. The complication is local Earned Income Tax (EIT). PA municipalities each have their own EIT rate, ranging from 1.0% in low-tax townships to 3.75% in Philadelphia. Form REV-419 (Local Earned Income Tax Residency Certification) tells your employer your home municipality so the correct local rate gets withheld and remitted to the right tax collector. Forgetting to file REV-419 after a move is the most common PA paycheck error — months of EIT may be flowing to the wrong municipality, requiring affirmative correction.

Take-home math at three tiers, Pennsylvania single filer 2026 in a township with ~1.5% EIT: $60,000 → about $4,400 federal + $4,590 FICA + $1,842 PA state + $900 EIT = $11,732 deductions, take-home $48,268 (80%). $100,000 → $11,800 federal + $7,650 FICA + $3,070 PA + $1,500 EIT = $24,020, take-home $75,980 (76%). $150,000 → $24,000 federal + $9,275 FICA + $4,605 PA + $2,250 EIT = $40,130, take-home $109,870 (73%). A Philadelphia resident at $100K loses an extra $2,250 to wage tax versus the township example — which more than doubles the local tax burden.

Pennsylvania's flat 3.07% rate is the lowest flat state income tax in the country, but the no-standard-deduction structure means it applies to gross compensation rather than federal-adjusted income. A $100K Pennsylvania earner's state taxable wages are $100K (minus pre-tax retirement deferrals, since PA does conform to §401(k) pre-tax treatment for state purposes), versus federal taxable income of about $84K after the standard deduction. Philadelphia's wage tax is among the highest local income taxes in the US — Philly residents pay 3.75% on all wages, while non-resident workers in Philly pay 3.44% and get a credit on their resident-municipality EIT (typically reducing the resident-municipality EIT to zero).

The single highest-leverage tactic for PA W-2 earners is maxing pre-tax 401(k) since PA does conform to §401(k) pre-tax treatment (a change made in the early 2000s — a now-distant policy fix that NJ still hasn't replicated). A $24,500 401(k) deferral saves roughly $750 in PA state tax + EIT for a typical township resident. Philadelphia residents face an even bigger relative incentive to defer compensation, since each pre-tax dollar avoids the 3.75% wage tax on top of the federal and state savings. The HSA story is similar — PA conforms to federal §125 cafeteria treatment, so HSA contributions reduce both PA and EIT taxable wages.