Bethlehem Township to Allentown
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LEHIGH to LEHIGH County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Bethlehem Township, residents
Work rate
1.28%
Allentown, non-residents
You pay
1.28%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$168
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsAllentown charges commuters more than Bethlehem 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
- This commute costs money. Work locally and Bethlehem Township would charge you about 1%. But Allentown charges non-residents about 1.28%, and the higher rate applies. The difference is $168 a year, for a decision about where the office is.
- This route is one of 12 into Allentown tracked here, ranking 11 by how many people travel it. Around 569 make the trip. Seen from the other end, Allentown is Bethlehem Township's number 10 destination of 10.
- The Bethlehem Township to Allentown pairing produces a workplace-driven liability. Against a resident rate of about 1%, Allentown's non-resident rate of about 1.28% is higher and therefore controls, giving about 1.28% and $768 annually. The workplace-attributable increment is $168. Workers frequently discover this only through withholding rather than in advance.
- Of 12 recorded inflows to Allentown, this route ranks 11 by worker count, carrying 569 commuters from Bethlehem Township. Viewed from the origin it is that municipality's 10 destination of 10 recorded — neither the largest catchment nor a marginal one.
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 Bethlehem Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Allentown | $768 |
| Difference | $168 |
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
- To be explicit, since the arrangement invites confusion. The rates for Bethlehem Township and Allentown are not stacked. Pennsylvania takes the larger one. What is collected then gets divided between the two municipalities. That division does not change what comes out of your pay.
- Everything here is the local earned income tax and nothing else. State income tax applies on top, as do federal tax and Social Security. None of those change when you cross a municipal line between Bethlehem Township and Allentown. This page is about the layer that does.
- Sixty thousand a year is a benchmark. It is not a guess at what people in Bethlehem Township earn. No published wage figure exists for single municipalities. The rate is the durable part of this page. The dollars scale straight up and down with whatever you earn in Allentown.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Bethlehem Township while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the Allentown end. Philadelphia is a special case too, with its own wage tax.
- The two rates applicable to a Bethlehem Township–Allentown commute are alternatives, not addends. The statute fixes the employee's liability at the greater of them and then apportions the proceeds, with the residence receiving up to its own rate and the excess passing to the work location. The apportionment is fiscally significant to the municipalities and immaterial to the worker.
- Figures cover the local earned income tax exclusively. Pennsylvania's flat state income tax, federal income tax and FICA apply in addition and are invariant to the Bethlehem Township–Allentown municipal boundary, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison.
- The reference salary is a stated benchmark, not an estimate of Bethlehem Township earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Allentown commute scale linearly with income and the rate comparison holds at every salary.
- Two caveats bear on accuracy. First, postal addresses and municipal taxing boundaries diverge frequently in Pennsylvania, so a Bethlehem Township address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Bethlehem 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?
No — you pay the higher of the two rates and never the sum. Bethlehem Township levies about 1% on residents and Allentown levies about 1.28% on people who work there; whichever is larger is what you owe, and your employer withholds it.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
Working across the line costs $168 a year here. The same salary earned in Bethlehem Township would not carry it.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you work. Allentown levies more than Bethlehem Township does, so its rate is the one applied and the difference is distributed between them afterwards.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
569 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it is.
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 1.28%); 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 $168 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 measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 569 workers per Census LODES, above the publication floor but below the dataset's upper quartile. Liability is determined by jurisdictional rates and residence rules alone; commuter volume has no bearing on it and is reported only as context.