Live in New Mexico, work in Texas
State income tax on wages · single filer · tax year 2026
Texas takes
$0
on wages earned there
New Mexico takes
$1,654
after the credit it gives
Both together
$1,654
state tax for the year
Cost of the line
$0
a year, above working at home
What crossing the line costs
no work-state taxTexas has no income tax, so only New Mexico taxes this pay. Solid is what you actually pay; the faded part of the New Mexico bar is the credit it hands back. State income tax only — federal and payroll tax apply on top, and a city wage tax may too.
Which state taxes you, and what it costs
- No income tax in Texas means one bill instead of two, not zero bills. New Mexico still taxes you because you live there, and it reaches pay earned across the line. You owe $1,654 for the year, and only New Mexico collects it.
- Plenty of states feed workers into Texas — 9 of them at this scale. New Mexico is number 2, with 30,685 jobs. You will not be the first person at your employer to have filed as an out-of-state worker.
- Texas levies no individual income tax, so a commuter into it is taxed by New Mexico alone, on the whole of the wages, at $1,654 for the reference salary. ⛔ The common expectation — that working in a state without an income tax removes the tax — is exactly backwards for a commuter: residence is what gives New Mexico its claim, and that claim reaches income wherever it is earned. There is no work-state liability to credit against it, so nothing offsets the New Mexico bill. The only version of this that changes the answer is moving.
- Texas draws commuters of this scale from 9 states, and New Mexico ranks number 2 among them with 30,685 jobs. A work state pulling from that many directions tends to have a well-established non-resident filing routine, which is a practical convenience rather than a tax saving.
Where the money goes
A $75,000 salary
- Federal income tax$7,670
- Social Security and Medicare$5,738
- State income tax$2,359
- Yours$59,233
| Federal income tax10.23% | $7,670 |
|---|---|
| Social Security and Medicare7.65% | $5,738 |
| State income tax3.15% | $2,359 |
| Yours78.98% | $59,233 |
Which rung you are on
A $75,000 salary
| This rung starts at | $66,500 |
|---|---|
| Next rung starts at | $121,800 |
| Room before it | $46,800 |
Federal only, measured on gross pay — so the first rung is what the standard deduction covers.
The arithmetic, step by step
| Texas takes, on wages earned there | $0 |
|---|---|
| New Mexico charges its residents | $1,654 |
| Less the credit New Mexico gives | $0 |
| Total state tax | $1,654 |
| If you also worked in New Mexico | $1,654 |
| Difference | $0 |
On a reference salary of $60,000 a year, single filer. Both states run progressive schedules, so the figures do not simply scale — use the tool above for your own salary.
What this page does not cover
- What you see here is state tax between New Mexico and Texas. Cities can charge their own tax on top, and a handful do. That layer is not modeled on this page, so treat these figures as the floor rather than the final bill.
- Two assumptions sit under this page. First, that Texas is where all your pay comes from. Second, that you go there rather than working from your kitchen in New Mexico. Mixed income changes how the credit is worked out, and remote days have their own rules in some states.
- Every dollar figure here uses a salary of sixty thousand a year. It is a stated benchmark, not a guess at what people on this route earn. Scale them to your own pay. Which state ends up dearer, New Mexico or Texas, generally holds at other salaries — though the gap between them can widen or narrow as you cross tax brackets.
- These figures cover the STATE layer only. City and municipal wage taxes sit on top of them and are not included: a commuter into Philadelphia pays its wage tax on top of anything here, and Ohio's municipalities run their own credit system, which this site models in its own families. New York City, by contrast, taxes only its residents, so a commuter into it adds nothing at the city level. Whether Texas or New Mexico carries a local layer is a separate question from the state arithmetic above.
- The arithmetic assumes all wages are earned in Texas and that there is no other income. That matters for the credit: where income comes from several states, New Mexico limits the credit to the share of its own tax attributable to the Texas portion, computed as a ratio rather than the straightforward cap used above. It also assumes days are worked in Texas rather than remotely — several states tax a non-resident's remote days as though they were worked at the employer's location, which reverses the usual expectation and is handled on this site's reciprocity pages.
- Dollar amounts are computed at a stated reference salary of sixty thousand rather than a corridor wage average, which no published source provides per state pair. Because both states' liabilities and the credit between them are functions of the same income, the direction of the New Mexico to Texas comparison holds at other salaries even though the amounts do not — with one qualification worth stating, that a progressive schedule can change the SIZE of the gap at higher incomes, and in Texas's case a bracket crossed on one side and not the other is exactly where that happens.
Questions people ask
Do I pay state tax twice, to New Mexico and Texas?
Not twice over. Both states have a claim — Texas because you earn the money there, New Mexico because you live there — but New Mexico gives you credit for what Texas took. The credit stops at what New Mexico would have charged on its own, so what you actually pay is the bigger of the two bills. Here that comes to $1,654 for the year.
Does working in Texas cost me anything extra?
It costs you nothing in tax. $1,654 is what you owe whether you work in Texas or at home in New Mexico. The only real cost of the crossing is the extra return.
Do I have to file tax returns in both New Mexico and Texas?
Usually yes, and it catches people out. New Mexico wants a return because you live there. Texas usually wants one too, because you earned money inside it — even in the cases where you end up owing it nothing. Filing in a state and paying it are separate things, and the return is often what proves you do not owe.
What if I work from home in New Mexico some days instead of going to Texas?
It depends on the state, and the answer is not the one most people expect. You might assume a day worked at your kitchen table in New Mexico is taxed by New Mexico. Usually that is right, and your Texas share shrinks to the days you were actually there. But a few states tax days you work at home as though you had been in the office, unless your employer required you to be elsewhere. It is worth checking which kind Texas is before assuming.
How is liability allocated between residence and work state on the same wages?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim on the same wages — Texas on a source basis, New Mexico on residence. The residence state grants a credit for tax paid to the source state, limited to the residence state's own liability on that income. Net combined liability therefore equals the greater of the two liabilities rather than their sum, $1,654 at the reference salary, and the split between the two treasuries is the only thing the credit changes.
Why is the marginal state-tax cost of this crossing zero?
Marginal cost is zero because the binding liability is the residence state's. New Mexico's own charge on this income equals or exceeds Texas's, so the resident credit absorbs the source-state tax entirely and combined liability equals residence-only liability, $1,654. ⚠️ Zero marginal tax is not zero obligation: a non-resident return may still be required in Texas.
What filing obligations arise in each state on this corridor?
Generally two. New Mexico requires a resident return reporting all income; Texas requires a non-resident return reporting the income sourced to it, which is also the mechanism by which the resident credit is substantiated. ⚠️ A filing obligation is distinct from a liability: a reciprocity exemption or a zero net position removes tax without necessarily removing the return, and the non-resident return is frequently what establishes the credit claimed on the resident one.
How do remote working days affect sourcing between these two states?
Ordinarily wages are sourced to where the services are performed, so days worked remotely from New Mexico fall outside Texas's jurisdiction and the source-state apportionment shrinks accordingly. ⛔ The exception is the "convenience of the employer" rule, which several states apply: a non-resident's remote days are sourced to the employer's location unless the remote work is required by the employer rather than chosen by the employee. The figures on this page model in-person attendance in Texas throughout.