Pennsylvania Paycheck Calculator
Estimate your Pennsylvania take-home pay — federal tax plus Pennsylvania's flat 3.07% state income tax, Social Security, and Medicare.
Pennsylvania payroll tax overview
Pennsylvania applies a flat 3.07% state income tax — one of the lowest flat rates of any state that taxes income. However, unlike Illinois or other "pure" flat-tax states, Pennsylvania is unusual in that most municipalities and school districts also levy a local earned income tax, typically ranging from about 1% to 4% depending on where you live and work. This calculator shows the state-level 3.07% rate only — your actual total Pennsylvania tax withholding will likely be higher once local tax is included.
Philadelphia's unique City Wage Tax
Philadelphia doesn't use the standard local earned income tax system most other PA municipalities use — instead, it has its own City Wage Tax, applied based on both residency and where you work. Philadelphia's wage tax rate is notably higher than typical suburban Pennsylvania local tax rates, making Philadelphia workers' total Pennsylvania tax burden meaningfully different from someone working in a smaller PA town or township.
Worked example
A single filer earning $62,000/year in Pennsylvania (state tax only, excluding local tax), paid biweekly:
| Item | Per paycheck | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | $2,384.62 | $62,000.00 |
| Federal income tax | ≈ $238.00 | ≈ $6,188.00 |
| Social Security | $147.85 | $3,844.00 |
| Medicare | $34.58 | $899.00 |
| PA state tax (3.07%) | $73.21 | $1,903.40 |
| Net pay (before local tax) | ≈ $1,890.98 | ≈ $49,165.60 |
Add your specific municipality's local earned income tax (or Philadelphia's City Wage Tax, if applicable) on top of this for your true total take-home pay.
Local income context: how Pennsylvania compares
According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, Pennsylvania's median household income is $77,545 — just below the 2024 national median of $81,604. Pennsylvania's economy splits between Philadelphia's finance, healthcare, and education sector in the east and Pittsburgh's tech and healthcare-driven recovery from its steel-industry past in the west, with a large rural and small-manufacturing base in between keeping the statewide median close to, but just under, the national figure.
Median household income reflects a full household (often two earners), while the calculator above estimates take-home pay for a single individual's salary — so it's a useful benchmark for context rather than a direct comparison, but it helps illustrate how a given salary stacks up against typical earnings in Pennsylvania.
Frequently asked questions
Why local tax matters more in Pennsylvania than most states
Pennsylvania's roughly 2,500 municipalities each set (or share via tax collection districts) their own local earned income tax rate, making it one of the most fragmented local tax systems in the country. This is very different from states like Illinois or Arizona, where the flat state rate is effectively the entire income tax story. If you're comparing a Pennsylvania job offer to one in another state, it's worth specifically asking what the local tax rate is for that municipality, since it can meaningfully change your real take-home pay beyond what the state-level 3.07% rate alone suggests.
Comparing Pennsylvania's flat rate to neighbors
At 3.07%, Pennsylvania's state rate alone is lower than neighboring New Jersey's progressive top rates and New York's progressive brackets. However, once typical local earned income tax is factored in, Pennsylvania's total tax burden often lands closer to its neighbors than the headline 3.07% figure suggests — a detail easy to miss if you only compare state-level rates without accounting for Pennsylvania's local tax layer. This is one of the few states where the "headline" tax rate genuinely understates the typical resident's real total burden by a meaningful margin.