Reading to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · ADAMS to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.7%
Reading, residents
Work rate
3.43%
Philadelphia, non-residents
You pay
3.43%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$1,038
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsPhiladelphia charges commuters more than Reading 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
- This commute costs money. Work locally and Reading would charge you about 1.7%. But Philadelphia charges non-residents about 3.43%, and the higher rate applies. The difference is $1,038 a year, for a decision about where the office is.
- This route is one of 94 into Philadelphia tracked here, ranking 45 by how many people travel it. Around 1,016 make the trip. Seen from the other end, Philadelphia is Reading's number 5 destination of 8.
- The Reading to Philadelphia pairing produces a workplace-driven liability. Against a resident rate of about 1.7%, Philadelphia's non-resident rate of about 3.43% is higher and therefore controls, giving about 3.43% and $2,058 annually. The workplace-attributable increment is $1,038. Workers frequently discover this only through withholding rather than in advance.
- Of 94 recorded inflows to Philadelphia, this route ranks 45 by worker count, carrying 1,016 commuters from Reading. Viewed from the origin it is that municipality's 5 destination of 8 recorded — neither the largest catchment nor a marginal one.
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 Reading | $1,020 |
|---|---|
| Working in Philadelphia | $2,058 |
| Difference | $1,038 |
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 Reading 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.
- 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 Reading and Philadelphia. This page is about the layer that does.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for Reading. 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.
- Check two things. A Reading 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.
- The two rates applicable to a Reading–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.
- 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 Reading–Philadelphia municipal boundary, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison.
- 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 Reading to Philadelphia differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it.
- Verify two things before relying on these figures. Municipal taxing boundaries do not track postal geography, so the applicable jurisdiction for a Reading 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?
No — you pay the higher of the two rates and never the sum. Reading levies about 1.7% 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 $1,038 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Reading, and it exists purely because the boundary sits between them.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you work. Philadelphia levies more than Reading 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?
1,016 workers make it. The pairing comes from federal commuting data rather than from guesswork, and thin routes are excluded rather than estimated.
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 1.7%) 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 $1,038 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 1,016 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.