Living in Virginia, working in West Virginia
Reciprocal agreement · tax year 2026
You pay Virginia
$3,264
on a seventy-thousand wage
West Virginia would want
$2,317
The agreement is worth
$0
in money — the gain is one return, not two
File this
WV/IT-104NR
with your employer
What the agreement does for you
- Between Virginia and West Virginia the arithmetic is a wash. A seventy-thousand-dollar wage owes $3,264 at home against $2,317 in West Virginia, and the home figure is the bigger of the two. So your total does not move. One return instead of two, and correct withholding from day one — that is what you actually get.
- The size of this depends on your pay. Virginia charges $1,827 on forty-five thousand dollars and $4,989 on a hundred thousand. Against that, West Virginia would have taken $3,691 at the higher figure. Check it against your own salary rather than the middle one.
- None of this happens by itself. Living in Virginia, you have to hand your employer the exemption form for West Virginia, and keep doing it. Most states want it again each year. Miss it and West 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.
- This pairing yields no reduction in total liability — $3,264 at home against $2,317 in West Virginia on seventy thousand dollars — because the home state's larger charge would have fully absorbed a credit for the work state's tax. ⭐ What the agreement removes is the nonresident return and the year-long over-withholding that precedes its refund, a cash-flow effect rather than a liability one.
- Liability under each schedule diverges with income: $1,827 and $4,989 in Virginia at forty-five and one hundred thousand dollars respectively, against $3,691 in West Virginia 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.
- 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 West Virginia tax regardless of the agreement's existence, and recovery then requires a nonresident return in West 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
$2,232per paycheck
| Take-home, year | $58,041 |
|---|---|
| Tax, year | $16,959 |
| Share of pay taxed | 22.61% |
This is an average rate across all your pay — not the rate on your next dollar.
Virginia against West Virginia
A $75,000 salary
Compare with
+$8,165a year in West Virginia, once local prices are leveled
| Measure | Virginia | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $58,041 | $59,047 |
| Worth after local prices | $57,609 | $65,774 |
| Share of pay taxed | 22.61% | 21.27% |
| State sales tax | 5.3% | 6% |
| Groceries exempt here | No | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 0.73% | 0.53% |
| Price level | 100.7 | 89.8 |
| Housing prices | 105.5 | 56.1 |
| Fuel tax | 32.6¢ | 20.5¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $0.60 | $1.20 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Virginia, Statewide average; West Virginia, Statewide average. Clothing: one $100 item; higher prices can change tax.
What you would need there
A $75,000 salary
Moving to
$64,205in West Virginia, for the same life
| To match take-home only | $73,470 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$10,795 |
| Prices in West Virginia | 90 vs 101 |
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 West Virginia's whole charge.
| Wage | Virginia charges | West Virginia would charge | Agreement is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| $45,000 | $1,827 | $1,233 | $0 |
| $70,000 | $3,264 | $2,317 | $0 |
| $100,000 | $4,989 | $3,691 | $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 West 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.
- Every agreement in this dataset applies to wages and salaries only. Business, rental, gain and investment income sourced to West Virginia remains taxable there under ordinary nonresident rules, and a commuter with such income may still owe a West 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.