The 8 States With No Income Tax in 2026

Nine states will not take a cut of your salary in 2026. Eight of them have no individual income tax of any kind. The ninth, Washington, taxes capital gains and nothing else, which leaves wage income untouched.

State governments still need revenue. Roads, schools, courts and police cost the same in Nashville as they do in Raleigh. A state that gives up the income tax has to find the money somewhere, and the two obvious places are property and consumption. That is exactly what the data shows, and it is why "no income tax" is a claim about which tax you pay rather than how much.

The right way to read this page is as an arithmetic problem, not a slogan. Your own answer depends on how much you earn, how much house you own, and how much you spend.

Which states have no income tax in 2026?

Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming impose no individual income tax on any form of income. Washington is a partial ninth: it has no tax on wages, salaries, interest or dividends, but does tax long-term capital gains above a threshold at 9%.

Alaska is the outlier twice over. It has no state income tax and no state sales tax, and the 1.82% figure above is the average of local sales taxes only. Oil and mineral revenue does work that income tax does elsewhere.

What do these states charge instead?

Each of the eight leans hard on one substitute. New Hampshire and Texas lean on property. Tennessee, Washington and Nevada lean on sales. South Dakota and Wyoming spread the load more evenly but at lower service levels. Alaska relies on resource revenue that no other state can copy.

The pattern is visible in the extremes. New Hampshire's 2.11% effective property tax rate is second only to New Jersey's 2.14% nationally, and New Hampshire charges no sales tax at all, so a homeowner carries the state almost single-handedly. Tennessee's 9.61% combined sales tax rate is among the highest in the country, while its property tax rate of 0.72% is modest. The state chose to tax what you buy rather than what you own.

How much would moving actually save?

Less than the income tax figure suggests, and sometimes nothing. The income tax saving is easy to see and easy to overstate. The property and sales tax increase arrives quietly, spread across a mortgage escrow payment and a thousand receipts.

Take a single filer earning $95,000, buying a $400,000 home, and spending $25,000 a year on taxable goods. Moving from North Carolina, which has a flat 3.99% income tax and a $12,750 standard deduction, to Texas, which has none:

The North Carolina income tax line is 3.99% of $95,000 minus the $12,750 standard deduction, so 3.99% of $82,250. The property tax lines are 0.85% and 1.71% of $400,000. The sales tax lines use the 7.00% and 8.20% combined rates. On these assumptions the move to Texas costs $458.22 a year more, not less.

Change the assumptions and the answer flips. The same filer renting a small apartment in Texas pays no property tax directly and saves most of the $3,281.78. A filer earning $300,000 saves far more income tax against the same house. The variable that decides it is the ratio of your income to the value of the property you own. Test your own figures with the income tax calculator and the property tax calculator.

Why does New Hampshire have such high property tax?

Because it has almost nothing else. New Hampshire levies no individual income tax and no general sales tax, so local property levies fund schools and municipal services nearly alone. The result is an effective rate of 2.11% of home value, against a national picture where most states sit under 1.2%.

For a household with a large house and a modest income, New Hampshire is one of the most expensive states in the country. For a high-earning renter, it is one of the cheapest. The state's tax system does not adjust for that; the property bill does not ask what you earn.

Does no income tax mean no state tax return?

For wage earners in the eight states, generally yes: there is no individual return to file. Washington is different for anyone realizing large capital gains, and every one of the nine still requires businesses to file various franchise, gross receipts or excise returns.

Watch for part-year situations. If you move mid-year, you file a part-year return in the state you left, covering income earned while you were resident there. Income sourced to another state, such as rental property or wages physically earned in a taxing state, remains taxable there regardless of where you live.

Common mistakes

Treating a mailing address as residency. States determine residency by domicile and physical presence, not by where your driver's license or bank statements go. High-tax states audit departures, and the evidence they want is where you sleep, where your family is, where you see a doctor, and where your possessions are. A mailbox in Florida with an apartment in New York is a losing position.

Comparing only the income tax line. The table above shows the whole point: the income tax saving can be smaller than the property tax increase. Any comparison that stops at the income tax rate is incomplete. Add property and sales, then compare totals.

Assuming no income tax means low overall taxes. Texas has an effective property tax rate of 1.71%, higher than 40 other states. Tennessee's sales tax is 9.61%. Washington's is 9.51%. Total state and local burden is a different question from income tax rate, and the answers do not line up.

Forgetting that remote work can be sourced to the employer's state. Some states tax wages earned for an in-state employer even when the employee works elsewhere. Moving to Nevada while working for a company headquartered in a taxing state may not produce the saving you expect. Check the sourcing rules with a professional before you rely on the number.

Ignoring the local layer. Alaska has no state sales tax but an average local rate of 1.82%, and some municipalities are much higher. Statewide averages hide a lot of variation, particularly in Alaska, Colorado and Louisiana.

Who this is wrong for

If you rent and earn a very high income, the eight states are strongly in your favor: you take the income tax saving and avoid the property tax that funds it. If you own an expensive home and earn a modest income, you are subsidizing that filer, and you would probably be better off in a low-property-tax state with an income tax such as Alabama at 0.28% or Colorado at 0.41%.

Retirees are a special case. Retirement income is often partly or wholly exempt in states that do have an income tax, so the comparison against a no-tax state narrows or disappears while the property and sales tax differences remain. And none of this touches federal tax. The federal tax brackets for 2026 apply identically in all fifty states, and federal tax is the larger bill for most households.

Before you move for tax reasons

• Total your current state income tax, property tax and estimated sales tax as three separate lines.
• Price the same three lines in the destination state using its actual rates, not its reputation.
• Get a real property tax estimate for the specific home, not the state average.
• Confirm how your employer sources your wages if you work remotely.
• Check whether your departing state taxes part-year residents on the income you already earned.
• Plan the documentary evidence of domicile: license, registration, voter record, physical days.
• Check state treatment of any pension, Social Security or capital gains income you expect.
• Confirm whether your destination has local income or occupational taxes at city or county level.

What to watch next

The list of nine has been stable for several years, but the pressure is on the other side: several states with income taxes have flattened or cut their rates, which narrows the gap. Washington's capital gains tax has been litigated and remains the only tax of its kind, so its status is worth rechecking each year. Property tax rates move whenever local assessments are updated, and assessment cycles vary by state, so the effective rate you pay in year one may not be the rate in year three. Recheck the figures for the tax year you actually move in.