Living in District of Columbia, working in Virginia
Reciprocal agreement · tax year 2026
You pay District of Columbia
$3,104
on a seventy-thousand wage
Virginia would want
$3,264
The agreement is worth
$161
a year
File this
VA-4
with your employer
What the agreement does for you
- This one pays. Living in District of Columbia and working in Virginia, a seventy-thousand-dollar wage owes $3,104 at home. Virginia would have charged $3,264. The agreement means you pay the lower one, keeping $161 a year that would otherwise have gone across the border.
- It does not stay the same as you earn more. On forty-five thousand dollars the District of Columbia bill is $1,534; on a hundred thousand it is $5,532. Virginia would have charged $4,989 at that higher wage. The two states pull apart as the salary rises, which is why this matters more to a senior job than a starter one.
- None of this happens by itself. Living in District of Columbia, you have to hand your employer the exemption form for Virginia, and keep doing it. Most states want it again each year. Miss it and Virginia withholds from every paycheck as though no agreement existed. You would get it back by filing there, which is the very thing the agreement was meant to spare you.
- The District of Columbia–Virginia agreement delivers a substantive reduction for this direction of travel. On seventy thousand dollars of wages the home charge is $3,104 and the work state's would be $3,264, a spread of $161. ⚠️ The spread, not the work state's gross figure, is the correct measure: the ordinary resident-credit mechanism would otherwise leave a commuter paying approximately the higher of the two amounts in total across both returns.
- The differential is income-dependent rather than fixed. District of Columbia's liability runs $1,534 at forty-five thousand dollars and $5,532 at one hundred thousand, against $4,989 in Virginia at the upper figure. Where one state applies a flat rate and the other a graduated schedule the gap widens or narrows monotonically with income, so a single-salary comparison understates how much the pairing matters across a career.
- The exemption is elective and employee-initiated: the certificate must be filed with the employer, and most agreement states require renewal annually. ⚠️ Without it on file the employer is obliged to withhold Virginia tax regardless of the agreement's existence, and recovery then requires a nonresident return in Virginia — restoring precisely the compliance burden the agreement removes, with the cash held by the wrong state until the claim is processed.
What lands in your account
A $75,000 salary
Filing as
Paid
$2,237per paycheck
| Take-home, year | $58,164 |
|---|---|
| Tax, year | $16,836 |
| Share of pay taxed | 22.45% |
This is an average rate across all your pay — not the rate on your next dollar.
District of Columbia against Virginia
A $75,000 salary
Compare with
+$5,116a year in Virginia, once local prices are leveled
| Measure | District of Columbia | Virginia |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $58,164 | $58,041 |
| Worth after local prices | $52,493 | $57,609 |
| Share of pay taxed | 22.45% | 22.61% |
| State sales tax | 6% | 5.3% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | No |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 0.59% | 0.73% |
| Price level | 110.8 | 100.7 |
| Housing prices | 168.5 | 105.5 |
| Fuel tax | 23.5¢ | 32.6¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $5.08 | $0.60 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: District of Columbia, Statewide average; Virginia, Statewide average. Clothing: one $100 item; higher prices can change tax.
What you would need there
A $75,000 salary
Moving to
$67,020in Virginia, for the same life
| To match take-home only | $75,191 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$7,980 |
| Prices in Virginia | 101 vs 111 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
What each state would charge, across the ladder
Reference wages for a single filer, not a claim about anyone's salary. The last column is the difference the agreement actually removes — which is the gap between the two states, not Virginia's whole charge.
| Wage | District of Columbia charges | Virginia would charge | Agreement is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| $45,000 | $1,534 | $1,827 | $293 |
| $70,000 | $3,104 | $3,264 | $161 |
| $100,000 | $5,532 | $4,989 | $0 |
What this page cannot tell you
- This covers wages from a job. It does not cover self-employment, rent or investment income — those follow the ordinary rules for Virginia.
- ⚠️ And it is a deal between two states. City and county taxes are not part of it, and several of these states have them.
- The comparison here assumes a single filer and treats both states as taxing the same income. Your own numbers will differ.
- Every agreement in this dataset applies to wages and salaries only. Business, rental, gain and investment income sourced to Virginia remains taxable there under ordinary nonresident rules, and a commuter with such income may still owe a Virginia return notwithstanding the agreement.
- ⚠️ Reciprocity binds the state layer only and commonly does NOT extend to municipal or county income taxes — Pennsylvania's local earned income tax is the standard example, remaining payable at the place of employment despite the state-level agreement. Local liabilities are excluded from every figure on this page.
- Figures are computed for a single filer at the stated wage, treating District of Columbia's and Virginia's definitions of taxable income as equivalent and modeling the resident credit as limited to the home state's own liability. Real returns diverge on filing status, deductions each state allows separately, and credit limitation rules — so these are comparative magnitudes, not a computation of anyone's liability.