Warrington Township to Philadelphia

Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · BUCKS to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Warrington Township, 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 Warrington Township 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 Warrington Township would charge you about 1%. But Philadelphia charges non-residents about 3.43%, and the higher rate applies. The difference is $1,458 a year, for a decision about where the office is.
- Roughly 1,310 people commute from Warrington Township to Philadelphia, which makes this route number 32 out of 94 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- The Warrington Township to Philadelphia pairing produces a workplace-driven liability. Against a resident rate of about 1%, 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 $1,458. Workers frequently discover this only through withholding rather than in advance.
- This flow carries 1,310 workers, ranking 32 among 94 recorded routes into Philadelphia and 1 of 2 destinations recorded for Warrington Township. The rate outcome above therefore applies to a meaningful but not dominant share of that workplace's inbound commuters.
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 Warrington Township | $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
- A common worry, answered. You do not pay Warrington Township and Philadelphia both. Only one rate applies, the higher of the two. The two councils then sort out between themselves who gets what, and your bill is unaffected.
- 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 Warrington Township and Philadelphia. This page is about the layer that does.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Warrington Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Philadelphia conclusion holds.
- A postal address in Warrington Township does not prove which municipality taxes you. Boundaries and postcodes disagree often enough here that the state publishes a lookup. Philadelphia is a special case too. Its wage tax sits outside the rules that govern Philadelphia.
- Workers commuting from Warrington Township to Philadelphia are subject to one rate, not two. The statute directs the employer to withhold the greater of the resident and non-resident rates; the allocation between the two taxing bodies is a remittance mechanic invisible to the employee. Treating the two rates as cumulative is the most common misreading of the statute.
- 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 Warrington Township–Philadelphia municipal boundary, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Warrington Township. 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.
- Municipal taxing jurisdiction is determined by boundary rather than by postal address, and the two diverge frequently enough in Pennsylvania that the DCED lookup should be treated as authoritative for Warrington Township. Philadelphia is additionally outside this regime, administering its own wage tax on residents and non-residents under separate authority, so it does not follow the treatment described for Philadelphia.
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?
$1,458 a year more than if you worked where you live. It is not a commuting charge and it buys you nothing — it is what falls out of two jurisdictions both having a claim and only one of them yielding.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you work. Philadelphia levies more than Warrington Township 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. 1,310 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 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 basis for including this route?
Route volume is 1,310 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.