Living in Maryland, working in District of Columbia
Reciprocal agreement · tax year 2026
You pay Maryland
$2,961
on a seventy-thousand wage
District of Columbia would want
$3,104
The agreement is worth
$142
a year
File this
D-4A
with your employer
What the agreement does for you
- Commuting from Maryland into District of Columbia is one of the cases where this genuinely saves you something. At seventy thousand dollars, home wants $2,961 and District of Columbia wanted $3,104. You pay home. The difference, $142, stays in your pocket.
- The size of this depends on your pay. Maryland charges $1,774 on forty-five thousand dollars and $4,386 on a hundred thousand. Against that, District of Columbia would have taken $5,532 at the higher figure. Check it against your own salary rather than the middle one.
- The agreement only works if you claim it. As a Maryland resident, give your employer the exemption certificate for District of Columbia, and expect to sign a fresh one most years. Without it on file, District of Columbia takes tax from every paycheck. Then you must file there to get it back.
- District of Columbia taxes wages more heavily than Maryland at this income, so the agreement is worth money rather than merely administration: $2,961 against $3,104 on seventy thousand dollars, a difference of $142. ⚠️ Note the direction-dependence — the reverse commute between the same two states carries no dollar benefit at all, because the credit mechanism already equalizes it.
- Liability under each schedule diverges with income: $1,774 and $4,386 in Maryland at forty-five and one hundred thousand dollars respectively, against $5,532 in District of Columbia at the upper point. The relevant figure for any individual is therefore the one at their own wage — the mid-ladder comparison is illustrative of direction, not of magnitude.
- Reciprocity operates by employee election rather than automatically. The exemption certificate must be lodged with the employer and is generally renewable each year; absent it, District of Columbia withholding continues and a nonresident return becomes necessary to recover it. ⚠️ Employers do not apply the agreement on the basis of a home address alone, so a commuter who never files the certificate obtains none of the benefit while remaining fully eligible for it.
What lands in your account
A $75,000 salary
Filing as
Paid
$2,246per paycheck
| Take-home, year | $58,394 |
|---|---|
| Tax, year | $16,606 |
| Share of pay taxed | 22.14% |
This is an average rate across all your pay — not the rate on your next dollar.
Maryland against District of Columbia
A $75,000 salary
Compare with
−$3,674a year in District of Columbia, once local prices are leveled
| Measure | Maryland | District of Columbia |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $58,394 | $58,164 |
| Worth after local prices | $56,167 | $52,493 |
| Share of pay taxed | 22.14% | 22.45% |
| State sales tax | 6% | 6% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 0.97% | 0.59% |
| Price level | 104 | 110.8 |
| Housing prices | 119.9 | 168.5 |
| Fuel tax | 23.5¢ | 23.5¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $5.00 | $5.08 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Maryland, Statewide average; District of Columbia, Statewide average. Clothing: one $100 item; higher prices can change tax.
What you would need there
A $75,000 salary
Moving to
$81,546in District of Columbia, for the same life
| To match take-home only | $75,360 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$6,546 |
| Prices in District of Columbia | 111 vs 104 |
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 District of Columbia's whole charge.
| Wage | Maryland charges | District of Columbia would charge | Agreement is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| $45,000 | $1,774 | $1,534 | $0 |
| $70,000 | $2,961 | $3,104 | $142 |
| $100,000 | $4,386 | $5,532 | $1,145 |
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 District of Columbia.
- ⚠️ 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 District of Columbia remains taxable there under ordinary nonresident rules, and a commuter with such income may still owe a District of Columbia 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 Maryland's and District of Columbia'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.