Swarthmore Borough to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · DELAWARE to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
0%
Swarthmore Borough, residents
Work rate
3.43%
Philadelphia, non-residents
You pay
3.43%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$2,058
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsPhiladelphia charges commuters more than Swarthmore 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
- A resident of Swarthmore Borough pays no local income tax at all. Then they take a job in Philadelphia, and the rate becomes about 3.43%. That is $2,058 a year. The tax follows the workplace, not the front door.
- Swarthmore Borough is one of 94 places sending workers into Philadelphia, ranking 61 by size with about 802 commuters. It is Swarthmore Borough's 1 destination of 1.
- No resident earned income tax applies in Swarthmore Borough. Philadelphia's non-resident rate of about 3.43% therefore governs under Pennsylvania's greater-of test, producing an effective about 3.43% and $2,058 at the reference salary. This is the starkest form the rule takes: the entire liability is a function of the work location, and a resident who changed jobs without moving would see it appear from nothing.
- Across 94 inflows to Philadelphia tracked here, Swarthmore Borough ranks 61 at 802 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 Swarthmore Borough | $0 |
|---|---|
| Working in Philadelphia | $2,058 |
| Difference | $2,058 |
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 Swarthmore Borough 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Swarthmore Borough or Philadelphia takes sits on top of state tax, federal tax and Social Security. Those three do not care where you live or work.
- Sixty thousand a year is a benchmark. It is not a guess at what people in Swarthmore Borough 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 Philadelphia.
- Check two things. A Swarthmore Borough 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 Swarthmore Borough–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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Swarthmore Borough 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.
- The reference salary is a stated benchmark, not an estimate of Swarthmore Borough earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Philadelphia 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 Swarthmore Borough 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. Swarthmore Borough levies about 0% 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?
Working across the line costs $2,058 a year here. The same salary earned in Swarthmore Borough would not carry it.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Philadelphia sets it here. Its non-resident rate exceeds your home rate, so that is what is withheld.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
802 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it is.
My own town charges no income tax — so why is any taken?
The work district has its own claim. Swarthmore Borough takes nothing from residents, but about 3.43% is levied where the job 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 0%) 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 $2,058 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 802 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.
How does a zero residence rate interact with a work-district levy?
A zero residence rate removes the residence claim but not the work-district claim. Philadelphia levies about 3.43% on non-resident earnings sourced within it, and with no residence tax there is no credit mechanism to offset it against.