Philadelphia to Bristol Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · PHILADELPHIA to BUCKS County · tax year 2026
Home rate
3.74%
Philadelphia, residents
Work rate
0.5%
Bristol Township, non-residents
You pay
3.74%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxPhiladelphia already charges its residents more than Bristol Township charges commuters, so the home rate governs and the job adds nothing at all. 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
- Nothing changes for this commute. A resident of Philadelphia pays about 3.74% either way. It makes no difference whether they work at home or travel to Bristol Township. The home rate is the higher of the two, and the higher one wins. That is $2,244 a year.
- This is the dearest way into Bristol Township. Out of 3 routes tracked here, Philadelphia has the highest local rate. Same office, same salary, and you pay more local tax than colleagues who travel in from anywhere else on this list.
- The Philadelphia to Bristol Township commute is tax-neutral. Philadelphia's resident rate of about 3.74% is not exceeded by Bristol Township's non-resident rate, so under the state's rule the resident rate applies and the effective figure is about 3.74% — $2,244 annually at the reference salary. Withholding is remitted to the residence in full and the work location receives no share.
- Of 3 routes into Bristol Township in this dataset, Philadelphia produces the highest effective rate. Because the local tax attaches to residence and workplace rather than to the employer, colleagues at one workplace routinely carry materially different local burdens, and this residence is at the top of that range.
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 Philadelphia | $2,244 |
|---|---|
| Working in Bristol Township | $2,244 |
| Difference | $0 |
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 Philadelphia and Bristol Township 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.
- 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 Philadelphia and Bristol Township. This page is about the layer that does.
- Sixty thousand a year is a benchmark. It is not a guess at what people in Philadelphia 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 Bristol Township.
- Check two things. A Philadelphia 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 Bristol Township.
- Workers commuting from Philadelphia to Bristol Township 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.
- 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 Philadelphia–Bristol Township 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 Philadelphia earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Bristol Township 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 Philadelphia 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 Bristol Township 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 3.74% where you live, about 0.5% where you work, and you pay the greater of the two.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
Nothing extra. The tax is redirected rather than increased, so this particular crossing costs you no more than working in Philadelphia would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Philadelphia sets it. Your residence rate is the larger, so it governs regardless of where the job is.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
It is. 2,518 workers travel this pair, per the federal origin-destination survey; smaller routes fall below the publication floor and get no page.
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 3.74%) and the non-resident work rate (about 0.5%); 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.
Why is the marginal cost of this crossing zero?
Marginal liability from working outside the residence jurisdiction is zero on this route. The crossing alters the distribution of revenue between jurisdictions but not the employee's total. ⚠️ This is route-specific and does not generalise to other pairs in the same dataset.
Which district's rate governs on this route?
The residence rate equals or exceeds the work district's non-resident rate and therefore governs. Working outside the residence district does not increase employee liability on this route; it affects only inter-district distribution.
What is the basis for including this route?
Route volume is 2,518 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.