Montgomery Township to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · MONTGOMERY to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Montgomery 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 Montgomery 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. Montgomery 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 636 people commute from Montgomery Township to Philadelphia, which makes this route number 79 out of 94 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- On the Montgomery Township to Philadelphia commute the work location governs. Montgomery 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 636 workers, ranking 79 among 94 recorded routes into Philadelphia and 1 of 1 destinations recorded for Montgomery 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 Montgomery 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
- A common worry, answered. You do not pay Montgomery Township and Philadelphia both. Only one rate applies, the higher of the two. The two councils then sort out between themselves who gets what, and your bill is unaffected.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Montgomery Township and Philadelphia levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- Sixty thousand a year is a benchmark. It is not a guess at what people in Montgomery 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 Philadelphia.
- Check two things. A Montgomery Township postal address may not match your taxing municipality. That catches out plenty of people near a boundary, and the state has an official lookup for it. Philadelphia is the other one to watch. It runs its wage tax separately, outside the pattern used for Philadelphia.
- Workers commuting from Montgomery Township to Philadelphia are subject to one rate, not two. The statute directs the employer to withhold the greater of the resident and non-resident rates; the allocation between the two taxing bodies is a remittance mechanic invisible to the employee. Treating the two rates as cumulative is the most common misreading of the statute.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Montgomery Township and Philadelphia and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- The reference salary is a stated benchmark, not an estimate of Montgomery Township earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Philadelphia commute scale linearly with income and the rate comparison holds at every salary.
- Verify two things before relying on these figures. Municipal taxing boundaries do not track postal geography, so the applicable jurisdiction for a Montgomery Township address should be confirmed through the state's official lookup. Separately, Philadelphia's wage tax operates outside this framework and is not governed by the greater-of rule applied here, which affects any pairing involving the city rather than Philadelphia generally.
Questions people ask
Do I pay local tax twice — once where I work and once where I live?
The rates compete rather than stack. about 1% where you live, about 3.43% where you work, and you pay the greater of the two.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
Working across the line costs $1,458 a year here. The same salary earned in Montgomery Township would not carry it.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you work. Philadelphia levies more than Montgomery 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?
636 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 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 measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 636 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.