Living in North Dakota, working in Minnesota
Reciprocal agreement · tax year 2026
You pay North Dakota
$106
on a seventy-thousand wage
Minnesota would want
$3,237
The agreement is worth
$3,131
a year
File this
MWR
with your employer
What the agreement does for you
- This one pays. Living in North Dakota and working in Minnesota, a seventy-thousand-dollar wage owes $106 at home. Minnesota would have charged $3,237. The agreement means you pay the lower one, keeping $3,131 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 North Dakota bill is $0; on a hundred thousand it is $691. Minnesota would have charged $5,277 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.
- The agreement only works if you claim it. As a North Dakota resident, give your employer the exemption certificate for Minnesota, and expect to sign a fresh one most years. Without it on file, Minnesota takes tax from every paycheck. Then you must file there to get it back.
- The North Dakota–Minnesota agreement delivers a substantive reduction for this direction of travel. On seventy thousand dollars of wages the home charge is $106 and the work state's would be $3,237, a spread of $3,131. ⚠️ 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. North Dakota's liability runs $0 at forty-five thousand dollars and $691 at one hundred thousand, against $5,277 in Minnesota 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.
- 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, Minnesota 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
$2,361per paycheck
| Take-home, year | $61,389 |
|---|---|
| Tax, year | $13,611 |
| Share of pay taxed | 18.15% |
This is an average rate across all your pay — not the rate on your next dollar.
North Dakota against Minnesota
A $75,000 salary
Compare with
−$10,361a year in Minnesota, once local prices are leveled
| Measure | North Dakota | Minnesota |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $61,389 | $58,016 |
| Worth after local prices | $69,310 | $58,949 |
| Share of pay taxed | 18.15% | 22.65% |
| State sales tax | 5% | 6.88% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | Yes |
| Property tax rate | 0.99% | 1.02% |
| Price level | 88.6 | 98.4 |
| Housing prices | 69.4 | 90.6 |
| Fuel tax | 23¢ | 32.6¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $0.44 | $3.04 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: North Dakota, Statewide average; Minnesota, Statewide average. Clothing: one $100 item; higher prices can change tax.
What you would need there
A $75,000 salary
Moving to
$91,045in Minnesota, for the same life
| To match take-home only | $80,308 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$16,045 |
| Prices in Minnesota | 98 vs 89 |
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 Minnesota's whole charge.
| Wage | North Dakota charges | Minnesota would charge | Agreement is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| $45,000 | $0 | $1,589 | $1,589 |
| $70,000 | $106 | $3,237 | $3,131 |
| $100,000 | $691 | $5,277 | $4,586 |
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 Minnesota.
- ⚠️ 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 Minnesota remains taxable there under ordinary nonresident rules, and a commuter with such income may still owe a Minnesota 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 North Dakota's and Minnesota'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.