Ridley Park Borough to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · DELAWARE to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Ridley Park Borough, 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 Ridley Park Borough 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 Ridley Park Borough into Philadelphia raises your local tax. Home rate: about 1%. Work rate for non-residents: about 3.43%. You pay the higher. That works out at $2,058 a year, or $1,458 more than earning the same at home.
- Ridley Park Borough is one of 94 places sending workers into Philadelphia, ranking 58 by size with about 855 commuters. It is Ridley Park Borough's 1 destination of 1.
- Philadelphia's non-resident rate of about 3.43% exceeds Ridley Park Borough's resident rate of about 1%, so the effective rate for this commute is about 3.43% — $2,058 at the reference salary, an increment of $1,458 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, Ridley Park Borough ranks 58 at 855 workers, and this is that municipality's 1 destination of 1. 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 Ridley Park Borough | $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
- One thing worth being clear about, because it catches people out. You are not charged by both places. Ridley Park Borough 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.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Ridley Park Borough and Philadelphia levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Ridley Park Borough. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Philadelphia conclusion holds.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Ridley Park Borough 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 Ridley Park Borough 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.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Ridley Park Borough and Philadelphia and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Ridley Park Borough. The flat structure of the local tax means the Philadelphia comparison is scale-invariant, so the rate difference rather than the dollar difference is the transferable result.
- Two caveats bear on accuracy. First, postal addresses and municipal taxing boundaries diverge frequently in Pennsylvania, so a Ridley Park Borough address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Ridley Park Borough 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 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?
About $1,458 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Ridley Park Borough, 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 Ridley Park Borough 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?
855 workers make this journey — enough to be published, but not a major corridor. The tax rules do not depend on how many people travel a route, so the figures hold regardless; the count only tells you how typical this pairing 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 855 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.