Philadelphia to Haverford Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · PHILADELPHIA to DELAWARE County · tax year 2026
Home rate
3.74%
Philadelphia, residents
Work rate
0%
Haverford 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 Haverford 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
- Good news for this commute. Working in Haverford Township costs you nothing extra. Philadelphia charges residents about 3.74%, at least as much as Haverford Township asks of people who work there but live elsewhere. The higher rate wins, so your home rate is simply the rate. That is $2,244 a year, wherever you work.
- A busy route. Haverford Township takes about 1,904 workers from Philadelphia, which puts it 20 out of 69 destinations for the municipality. Not a corner case.
- For the Philadelphia to Haverford Township commute the residence governs. Philadelphia's resident rate of about 3.74% equals or exceeds Haverford Township's non-resident rate, so Pennsylvania's greater-of test resolves to the resident rate and the effective burden is about 3.74%, or $2,244 at the reference salary. The workplace adds nothing; the entire amount is remitted to the residence. This is the majority outcome and the one most commuters need confirmed.
- Haverford Township ranks 20 of 69 destinations recorded for Philadelphia, at 1,904 workers. This places the route among the municipality's primary employment links and gives the rate treatment above broad application.
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 Haverford 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
- One thing worth being clear about, because it catches people out. You are not charged by both places. Philadelphia and Haverford Township 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.
- 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 Haverford 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 Haverford Township.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Philadelphia while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the Haverford Township 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 Philadelphia resident working in Haverford Township 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.
- 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–Haverford 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 Haverford Township 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 Philadelphia address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia's about 3.74% and Haverford Township's about 0%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
On this route, nothing. You owe exactly what you would have owed working at home — the boundary is real on a map and invisible on your pay stub, which is not true of every pair of towns here.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Philadelphia's, because it is the higher of the two. Where you live sets the rate on this route, so working across the boundary does not raise what you owe — it only changes who collects it.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 1,904 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.
The town I work in charges nothing — does that help me?
It does not save you. Haverford Township takes nothing, but Philadelphia taxes you as a resident at about 3.74% regardless of where the job sits.
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%); 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 1,904 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.
What is the effect of a zero work-district rate?
A zero work-district rate eliminates the source-based claim but leaves residence-based liability intact at about 3.74%. Residence liability is unaffected by where earnings are sourced.