Darby Township to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · DELAWARE to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Darby 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 Darby 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. Darby 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 1,374 people commute from Darby Township to Philadelphia, which makes this route number 30 out of 94 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- On the Darby Township to Philadelphia commute the work location governs. Darby 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 1,374 workers, ranking 30 among 94 recorded routes into Philadelphia and 2 of 2 destinations recorded for Darby Township. The rate outcome above therefore applies to a meaningful but not dominant share of that workplace's inbound commuters.
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 Darby 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
- To be explicit, since the arrangement invites confusion. The rates for Darby Township and Philadelphia 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Darby Township or Philadelphia takes sits on top of state tax, federal tax and Social Security. Those three do not care where you live or work.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for Darby 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 Darby 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.
- The two rates applicable to a Darby Township–Philadelphia 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Darby Township to Philadelphia commute. State and federal liabilities are constant across Pennsylvania municipalities and are excluded so the municipal differential is visible rather than buried inside a larger total.
- 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 Darby 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 Darby Township address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Darby 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. Darby Township levies about 1% on residents and Philadelphia levies about 3.43% 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?
About $1,458 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Darby Township, and it exists purely because the boundary sits between them.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Philadelphia's, because it is the higher of the two. Where you work sets the rate on this route, and your home town receives its share out of what is collected rather than charging you separately.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 1,374 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 1,374 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.