Bensalem Township to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · BUCKS to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Bensalem Township, residents
Work rate
3.43%
Philadelphia, non-residents
You pay
3.43%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$1,458
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsPhiladelphia charges commuters more than Bensalem Township charges its own residents, so the work rate wins the greater-of test and the difference is real money. You pay the solid bar only — Pennsylvania charges the higher of the two rates, never their sum. Local earned income tax only; state, federal and payroll tax apply on top.
What this commute actually costs
- Where you work costs more than where you live here. Bensalem Township charges residents about 1%. Philadelphia charges non-residents about 3.43%. You pay the higher one. That is $2,058 a year, or $1,458 more than working at home would cost.
- Roughly 5,784 people commute from Bensalem Township to Philadelphia, which makes this route number 3 out of 94 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- Roughly 5,784 workers go from Bensalem Township to Philadelphia each day. That is a lot of households facing one rate question. Hence a page of its own.
- On the Bensalem Township to Philadelphia commute the work location governs. Bensalem Township's resident rate is about 1% and Philadelphia's non-resident rate is about 3.43%; Pennsylvania's greater-of test therefore fixes the effective rate at about 3.43%. At the reference salary that is $2,058, of which $1,458 is attributable to the workplace. The residence collects its own rate and the excess is remitted to the work location.
- This flow carries 5,784 workers, ranking 3 among 94 recorded routes into Philadelphia and 1 of 6 destinations recorded for Bensalem Township. The rate outcome above therefore applies to a meaningful but not dominant share of that workplace's inbound commuters.
- Approximately 5,784 employees commute from Bensalem Township to Philadelphia. Flows of this size are why the greater-of rule matters in aggregate: the per-worker difference may be modest, but it is replicated across a large and stable population.
Where the money goes
A $75,000 salary
- Federal income tax$7,670
- Social Security and Medicare$5,738
- State income tax$2,303
- Yours$59,290
| Federal income tax10.23% | $7,670 |
|---|---|
| Social Security and Medicare7.65% | $5,738 |
| State income tax3.07% | $2,303 |
| Yours79.05% | $59,290 |
The arithmetic, side by side
| If you worked in Bensalem Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Philadelphia | $2,058 |
| Difference | $1,458 |
On a reference salary of $60,000 a year. The local tax is flat, so every figure scales with your own pay.
What this page does not cover
- One thing worth being clear about, because it catches people out. You are not charged by both places. Bensalem Township and Philadelphia do not add their rates together. Pennsylvania picks the higher of the two, and that is what you pay. Adding them would roughly double the bill.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Bensalem Township and Philadelphia levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for Bensalem Township. No wage data exists for single municipalities, and inventing one would be worse. Scale the numbers to your own pay. The rate for the Philadelphia commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Bensalem Township while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the Philadelphia end. Philadelphia is a special case too, with its own wage tax.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Bensalem Township resident working in Philadelphia is the higher of the two applicable rates, not their sum. The distinction is worth stating plainly because the additive reading is intuitive and would overstate the charge by roughly a factor of two. What is divided between the municipalities is the remittance, not the worker's liability.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Bensalem Township and Philadelphia and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- Dollar amounts are computed against a stated reference salary rather than a municipal wage average, which does not exist for Pennsylvania municipalities in any published source. Because the local tax is flat, the rate is invariant to income and the figures scale linearly — the Bensalem Township to Philadelphia differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it.
- Two caveats bear on accuracy. First, postal addresses and municipal taxing boundaries diverge frequently in Pennsylvania, so a Bensalem Township address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Bensalem Township rate. Second, Philadelphia administers its wage tax outside this framework, with its own resident and non-resident rates and its own credit arrangements, so any pairing touching it should be checked against the city's own schedule.
Questions people ask
Do I pay local tax twice — once where I work and once where I live?
Only once, at the higher rate. Between Bensalem Township's about 1% and Philadelphia's about 3.43%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
$1,458 a year more than if you worked where you live. It is not a commuting charge and it buys you nothing — it is what falls out of two jurisdictions both having a claim and only one of them yielding.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you work. Philadelphia levies more than Bensalem Township does, so its rate is the one applied and the difference is distributed between them afterwards.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 5,784 people make this exact journey, according to the federal employment survey that tracks where workers live against where they work. Routes below a volume floor are not published, so a page existing here means the commute is real and measured.
How does Pennsylvania's local earned income tax law allocate liability between two districts?
Pennsylvania's local earned income tax law assigns the higher of the residence rate (about 1%) and the non-resident work rate (about 3.43%); liabilities are never summed. The employer withholds at the governing rate and remits through the work district's collector, which then distributes to the residence district.
What is the marginal local tax cost of this commute?
Marginal annual liability attributable to working outside the residence jurisdiction is $1,458 at the reference salary. This is a tax cost rather than a commuting expense and is not deductible as one. It scales with income and with the rate differential, not with distance traveled.
Which district's rate governs on this route?
The work district's non-resident rate exceeds the residence rate and therefore governs. Withholding occurs at that rate, and distribution between the two districts happens after collection without further employee liability.
What is the basis for including this route?
Route volume is 5,784 workers, sourced from Census LODES origin-destination data. Pairs below the publication threshold are excluded rather than imputed, so page existence reflects measured commuting volume.