Pittsburgh to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · ALLEGHENY to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
3%
Pittsburgh, residents
Work rate
3.43%
Philadelphia, non-residents
You pay
3.43%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$258
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsPhiladelphia charges commuters more than Pittsburgh 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
- Commuting from Pittsburgh into Philadelphia raises your local tax. Home rate: about 3%. Work rate for non-residents: about 3.43%. You pay the higher. That works out at $2,058 a year, or $258 more than earning the same at home.
- Pittsburgh is one of 94 places sending workers into Philadelphia, ranking 42 by size with about 1,129 commuters. It is Pittsburgh's 9 destination of 23.
- Philadelphia's non-resident rate of about 3.43% exceeds Pittsburgh's resident rate of about 3%, so the effective rate for this commute is about 3.43% — $2,058 at the reference salary, an increment of $258 over the home-only position. The state consolidated collection but did not equalise rates, which is why the workplace remains capable of raising the bill.
- Across 94 inflows to Philadelphia tracked here, Pittsburgh ranks 42 at 1,129 workers, and this is that municipality's 9 destination of 23. Rate and volume are independent: a large catchment is not necessarily a high-rate one, and the two rankings frequently disagree.
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 Pittsburgh | $1,800 |
|---|---|
| Working in Philadelphia | $2,058 |
| Difference | $258 |
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. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Pittsburgh 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 Pittsburgh. 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 Pittsburgh 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.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Pittsburgh resident working in Philadelphia 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Pittsburgh 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 Pittsburgh 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 Pittsburgh address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Pittsburgh 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?
The rates compete rather than stack. about 3% 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 $258 a year here. The same salary earned in Pittsburgh would not carry it.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you work. Philadelphia levies more than Pittsburgh does, so its rate is the one applied and the difference is distributed between them afterwards.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
It is. 1,129 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%) 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 $258 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 1,129 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.