Kentucky local income tax
Tax year 2026
Places listed
5
listed so far — not every one
Lowest rate
2%
of income
Highest rate
2.75%
of income
Coverage: partial.
Only 5 Kentucky jurisdictions are modeled (Louisville, Lexington, Bowling Green, Owensboro, Paducah). Hundreds of Kentucky cities and counties levy an occupational license fee — if yours is not listed, this calculation shows no local tax and understates your true cost.
What this list tells you
- Kentucky has 5 entries in this table. Whether that is the whole story depends on the coverage note, which says so plainly.
- This list is not complete, and we would rather say so. Places in Kentucky that are missing here may still charge you. Treat a blank as unknown, not as zero.
- There is a range in Kentucky, but a modest one: about 2% at the low end and about 2.75% at the high end.
- 5 different sources feed the Kentucky table. Each one is named underneath, with the date we last checked it, so you can follow any number back to where it came from.
- This dataset holds 5 Kentucky jurisdictions. Whether that constitutes complete coverage is a separate question from how many rows there are, and the note below answers it explicitly instead of letting row count stand in for completeness.
- Coverage of Kentucky is partial, so absence from this table carries no information. An unlisted jurisdiction may levy a real tax that this model reports as nothing, which means the figures here are a floor rather than an answer for anyone outside the rows below. Stating that is the alternative to presenting an understatement with the confidence of a measurement.
- Local rates in Kentucky vary from about 2% to about 2.75% — real variation, but compressed. The practical consequence is that a reader who knows only their county rather than their municipality is still close to the right answer.
- Provenance for Kentucky spans 5 sources. Each is listed with its label, URL and as-of date, because a merged dataset whose citation names only the largest contributor is unverifiable for exactly the rows most likely to be wrong.
What lands in your account
A $75,000 salary
| Take-home, year | $59,085 |
|---|---|
| Tax, year | $15,915 |
| Share of pay taxed | 21.22% |
This is an average rate across all your pay — not the rate on your next dollar.
Where the money goes
A $75,000 salary
- Federal income tax$7,670
- Social Security and Medicare$5,738
- State income tax$2,507
- Yours$59,085
| Federal income tax10.23% | $7,670 |
|---|---|
| Social Security and Medicare7.65% | $5,738 |
| State income tax3.34% | $2,507 |
| Yours78.78% | $59,085 |
Every Kentucky jurisdiction
| Jurisdiction | Rate |
|---|---|
| Bowling Green (city 2% + Warren County Public Schools 0.5%) | 2.5% |
| Lexington-Fayette (LFUCG 2.25% + Fayette County Public Schools 0.5%) | 2.75% |
| Louisville Metro (city + county + school boards) | 2.2% |
| Owensboro (city 1.78% + Daviess County 0.35%) | 2.13% |
| Paducah (city only — McCracken County levies outside city limits) | 2% |
Questions people ask
If my town is not listed, does that mean it charges nothing?
It might, or it might not be modeled. With partial coverage — 5 jurisdictions here — absence is genuinely ambiguous, which is why the page says so rather than implying zero.
Does this affect most people in the state?
Not most. With 5 levying jurisdictions, this is a localised charge rather than a statewide one — invisible in any state-to-state comparison.
Where do these rates come from?
5 published sources, all cited below. No one authority covers every jurisdiction in Kentucky, so the table is assembled rather than copied.
What does absence from this table indicate?
Coverage for Kentucky is partial: 5 jurisdictions are modeled. ⛔ Absence from the table is therefore ambiguous between "levies nothing" and "not yet modeled". Both render as an identical silent zero, so absence must not be relied on as evidence of no liability.
How concentrated is local income taxation here?
5 jurisdictions levy locally in Kentucky, so exposure is concentrated rather than statewide. ⚠️ State-level effective-rate comparisons exclude local income tax entirely and therefore understate liability for residents of levying jurisdictions.
What is the provenance of this table?
Rates derive from 5 distinct published sources, each cited with its own as-of date. No single authority publishes complete local rate data for Kentucky, so the table is compiled; divergent as-of dates across sources are stated rather than harmonised.