State Tax Savings from Moving Calculator
Your income, your home, your spending, and the taxes in both states
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. Confirm the assumptions, current rules, fees, and rounding that apply to your situation before making a decision.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter your household income, then each state's income tax as a share of it. For the state you live in, divide last year's state income tax (plus any city income tax) by your income; for the new state, estimate the same share, or enter 0 for one of the nine states that do not tax wages.
- 02
Enter your home's value and effective property tax rate now, and the value and rate of the home you would own in the new state. The rate is the yearly bill divided by the value; for the new state, use a recent buyer's bill rather than a long-time owner's.
- 03
Enter the yearly spending that sales tax applies to and the combined state and local sales tax rate in each place. Leave out rent, utilities and insurance, and groceries if both states exempt them.
- 04
Enter the share of a change in your SALT deduction that reaches your federal tax (100% if you itemize, 0% if you take the standard deduction), your federal marginal rate, the moving cost and the years to compare. Any vehicle property tax or other local tax goes in the advanced fields.
- 05
Read the net yearly saving and the payback, then the table, which lays out each tax in both states, the federal effect, and the total over the years you compare.
Formula
Income tax in each state = household income × that state's income tax share. Property tax = home value × effective property tax rate. Sales tax = taxable spending × combined sales tax rate. Each state's total adds the vehicle or local tax line. Saving before the federal effect = total now − total in the new state. Your 2026 SALT cap = $40,400 − 30% of income above $505,000, but not below $10,000. The deduction in each state = the lesser of that cap and (the larger of income tax or sales tax + property tax + the other line). Federal effect = (deduction now − deduction in the new state) × your itemizing share × your federal marginal rate. Net saving a year = saving before the federal effect − federal effect. Payback = moving cost ÷ (net saving ÷ 12) months. Ahead over the period = net saving × years − moving cost.
Example
A household earns $250,000 and pays state income tax equal to 5% of it, $12,500. It owns a $600,000 home taxed at 1.0%, $6,000, spends $50,000 a year on things subject to a 7% sales tax, $3,500, and pays $700 of vehicle property tax: $22,700 in all. In the new state there is no income tax, the same $600,000 home is taxed at 1.5%, $9,000, sales tax is 8.2%, $4,100, and there is no vehicle tax: $13,100 in all. The state and local saving is $9,600 a year. The household itemizes at a 24% federal rate, and its SALT deduction, well under the $40,400 cap at this income, falls from $19,200 to $13,100, which gives back $1,464 a year in federal tax. The net saving is $8,136 a year. The $12,000 move is repaid in 1 year 6 months, and over 10 years the household is $69,360 ahead: $81,360 of net saving less the cost of the move.
Definitions
- Effective tax rate
- The tax actually paid divided by the income or value it is paid on. It is lower than a top bracket rate because of lower brackets, deductions and exemptions.
- SALT deduction
- The federal itemized deduction for state and local income or sales tax, real estate tax and personal property tax, capped at $40,400 for 2026 and reduced at high incomes.
- Domicile
- Your one permanent, primary home, the place you intend to return to. You can have only one, and it stays with the old state until you clearly establish a new one.
- Statutory resident
- Someone a state taxes as a resident without being domiciled there, typically for keeping a home in the state and spending more than a set number of days there; New York's test is 184 days or more.
- Combined sales tax rate
- The state sales tax rate plus the average local rates added by counties and cities. The Tax Foundation's population-weighted US average was 7.53% at midyear 2026.
Good to know
Why the income tax you stop paying overstates the saving
The usual case for moving to a low-tax state starts and ends with the income tax line on last year's return. That number is real, but it is only one of three large state and local taxes a household pays, and the other two do not go away when you move. Property tax follows the home you buy, and sales tax follows what you spend. A state that collects nothing from wages still has to pay for schools, roads and courts, so it tends to collect more through one or both of the others. This page asks for all three in both states for that reason. On its example, a household earning $250,000 pays $12,500 of state income tax where it lives now, 5% of its income. In a state with no income tax, that $12,500 disappears, and so does a $700 vehicle property tax. But the same $600,000 home is taxed at 1.5% instead of 1.0%, which adds $3,000 a year, and a combined sales tax of 8.2% instead of 7% on $50,000 of taxable spending adds $600. The saving before anything else is $9,600, not $12,500. Then the federal return takes its share. Because the household itemizes, its deduction for state and local taxes shrinks when those taxes shrink, and at a 24% marginal rate that costs $1,464 of federal tax. The net saving is $8,136 a year, about two thirds of the income tax line the move was sold on. It is still a large number: the $12,000 move is repaid in about a year and a half, and the household is $69,360 ahead after ten years. The point is not that moving never pays. It is that the answer comes from the net of all three taxes and the federal effect, and a comparison that leaves any of them out can be wrong by thousands of dollars a year.
Property and sales tax in states without a wage tax
Nine states do not tax wages: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. The Tax Foundation's 2026 table of state individual income taxes counts eight of them as levying no individual income tax at all, New Hampshire having repealed its tax on interest and dividends as of 2025, while Washington taxes capital gains income only. Among states that do tax income, top marginal rates in 2026 run from 2.5% in Arizona and North Dakota to 13.3% in California. What these nine collect instead varies widely, which is why no single rule of thumb works. The Tax Foundation's 2026 property tax report, built on 2024 American Community Survey data, measures effective rates on owner-occupied housing as property taxes paid divided by home value. New Hampshire, at 1.50%, and Texas, at 1.40%, are among the highest in the country, against a range from 0.29% in Hawaii to 1.88% in New Jersey and Illinois. Florida, at 0.78%, and Nevada, at 0.50%, are below the middle. On sales tax, the Tax Foundation's midyear 2026 figures put Tennessee's average combined state and local rate at 9.61% and Washington's at 9.57%, the second and third highest after Louisiana's 10.13%, against a population-weighted national average of 7.53%. Five states, Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon, have no statewide sales tax, and of those only Alaska lets localities add one. Two practical points follow. First, use rates for the place you would actually live: combined sales tax and property tax rates differ by county and city, sometimes by more than they differ between states. Second, remember what the sales tax falls on. Most states exempt groceries, some tax them at a lower rate, and a few tax them fully, so the spending you enter should be the part of your budget that is actually taxed where you are going.
The 2026 SALT cap and the federal give-back
State and local taxes are deductible on a federal return, but only for people who itemize and only up to a cap. The deduction covers state and local income tax, or general sales tax if you choose that instead, together with real estate tax and personal property tax such as a value-based car tax. Under 26 U.S.C. 164(b)(7), as amended by Public Law 119-21, the cap for 2026 is $40,400, or $20,200 for married couples filing separately. It shrinks by 30% of modified adjusted gross income above $505,000, or $252,500 filing separately, but never below $10,000, or $5,000 filing separately, and it returns to $10,000 in 2030. This matters for a move because a state tax cut lowers the deduction too. On the example, the household's deductible state and local taxes are $19,200 where it lives now: $12,500 of income tax, $6,000 of property tax and the $700 vehicle tax. In the new state they are $13,100: $9,000 of property tax plus $4,100 of sales tax, deducted in place of the income tax the state does not have. The $6,100 drop, taxed at the household's 24% marginal rate, is $1,464 of federal tax a year that partly offsets the state saving. Three situations change that. If you take the standard deduction, $32,200 for joint filers and $16,100 for single filers in 2026, state and local taxes never lowered your federal tax, so none of the saving goes back; set the itemizing share to 0 and the example saves the full $9,600. If your income is high enough that the cap binds in both states, the deduction is the same either way; at $600,000 of income the example's cap is $11,900 in both places and the move saves $27,100 a year. And if a smaller deduction pushes you from itemizing to the standard deduction, the true federal effect is smaller than this page shows, which is why the itemized deductions page is the next check.
Residency, domicile and the year you move
A state does not stop taxing you because you signed a lease somewhere else. States tax their residents on all income from every source, and they decide who is a resident by their own rules, usually through two tests. The first is domicile: your one true, permanent home, the place you intend to return to. You can have only one, and it stays with your old state until you clearly establish a new one, which states judge from facts such as where you live and keep your belongings, where your family is, where you work and what you do with the old home. The second is a statutory residence test for people domiciled elsewhere. New York's Department of Taxation and Finance explains that you are a New York resident, even if domiciled in another state, if you maintain a permanent place of abode in New York for substantially all of the year and spend 184 days or more there, with any part of a day counting as a day. Keeping the old house and returning often can therefore keep you a resident for tax purposes. Nonresidents are not free of the old state either. They owe tax on income sourced there, such as wages for work done in the state or rent from property there. New York adds a rule that matters for remote workers: if your primary office is in New York and you telecommute from another state, your days working from home count as days worked in New York unless your employer has established a bona fide employer office where you are. If that applies, the income tax saving this page counts may never arrive. In the year of the move expect part-year returns in both states, with income divided between them by the date you changed residence. A few habits make the change easier to defend: keep a log of days, change your driver's license, voter registration and car registration promptly, move your banking and doctors, and keep records of when the old home was sold or rented out.
Frequently asked questions
How much will I save by moving to a state with no income tax?
Less than the income tax you stop paying, because property tax, sales tax and your federal deduction all move too. In this page's example, a household earning $250,000 stops paying $12,500 of state income tax and a $700 vehicle tax, but pays $3,000 more property tax on a $600,000 home at 1.5% instead of 1.0%, and $600 more sales tax at 8.2% instead of 7%. The state and local saving is $9,600. Because the household itemizes, its SALT deduction falls from $19,200 to $13,100, which costs $1,464 of federal tax at a 24% rate. The net saving is $8,136 a year, the $12,000 move is repaid in about a year and a half, and the household is $69,360 ahead after ten years.
Which states have no income tax?
Nine states do not tax wages: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. According to the Tax Foundation's 2026 table, eight of them levy no individual income tax at all, New Hampshire having repealed its tax on interest and dividends as of 2025, and Washington taxes capital gains income only. Among the states that do tax income, top marginal rates in 2026 run from 2.5% in Arizona and North Dakota to 13.3% in California.
Do states with no income tax have higher property or sales taxes?
Some do. The Tax Foundation's 2026 property tax table, built on 2024 data, puts the effective tax on owner-occupied homes at 1.50% in New Hampshire and 1.40% in Texas, against a national range from 0.29% in Hawaii to 1.88% in New Jersey and Illinois. Tennessee's and Washington's average combined sales tax rates, 9.61% and 9.57% at midyear 2026, are the second and third highest after Louisiana's 10.13%. Others are low on both: Florida's effective property tax rate is 0.78% and Nevada's 0.50%. That is why this page asks for all three taxes in both states.
Why would moving to a lower-tax state raise my federal tax?
Because state and local taxes are deductible for itemizers, so a smaller state tax bill means a smaller federal deduction. In the example the deduction falls by $6,100, from $19,200 to $13,100, and at a 24% marginal rate that is $1,464 of federal tax. If you take the standard deduction instead, nothing comes back: with the itemizing share at 0, the same move saves the full $9,600 a year, repays the $12,000 move in about 15 months and leaves you $84,000 ahead after ten years.
What is the SALT deduction cap for 2026?
$40,400, or $20,200 if married filing separately, under 26 U.S.C. 164(b)(7) as amended by Public Law 119-21. It shrinks by 30% of modified adjusted gross income above $505,000 ($252,500 married filing separately), but never below $10,000 ($5,000 married filing separately), and it returns to $10,000 in 2030. At high incomes the cap can bind in both states. Run the example at $600,000 of income and the cap is $11,900; the deduction is $11,900 in either state, so none of the saving goes back to the IRS, and the move saves $27,100 a year.
When does my old state stop taxing me after I move?
Only when you have changed your residence in the old state's eyes, and even then it can tax income earned there. A state taxes its residents on all their income, and your domicile, the one permanent home you intend to return to, stays put until you clearly break ties. New York, for example, treats someone domiciled elsewhere as a resident if they keep a permanent place of abode there for substantially all of the year and spend 184 days or more in the state, with any part of a day counting. Nonresidents still owe New York tax on New York source income, and a telecommuter whose primary office is in New York owes it on days worked from home unless the employer has set up a bona fide office there.
What does this calculator leave out?
It is an estimate of three state and local taxes and the federal SALT deduction at today's rates. It leaves out differences in home prices, insurance and everyday living costs, which the cost of living page compares; state taxes on retirement income and Social Security; estate and inheritance taxes; credits, exemptions and homestead discounts; and rate changes in future years. It also does not test whether a smaller deduction moves you onto the standard deduction. Your real tax for the move year is settled on part-year returns in both states.