Living in West Virginia, working in Maryland
Reciprocal agreement · tax year 2026
You pay West Virginia
$2,317
on a seventy-thousand wage
Maryland would want
$2,961
The agreement is worth
$644
a year
File this
MW507
with your employer
What the agreement does for you
- If you live in West Virginia and work in Maryland, this agreement is worth real money. On a wage of seventy thousand dollars, West Virginia asks $2,317 and Maryland would have taken $2,961. You pay the West Virginia figure and stop there. That is a gap of $644 a year, every year you make the trip.
- It does not stay the same as you earn more. On forty-five thousand dollars the West Virginia bill is $1,233; on a hundred thousand it is $3,691. Maryland would have charged $4,386 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 West Virginia, you have to hand your employer the exemption form for Maryland, and keep doing it. Most states want it again each year. Miss it and Maryland 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.
- For a West Virginia resident earning wages in Maryland, the agreement produces a genuine liability reduction rather than a purely procedural one. At seventy thousand dollars of wages, West Virginia levies $2,317 against Maryland's $2,961 on the same income, a difference of $644. ⚠️ Absent the agreement the saving would NOT be Maryland's full charge: you would file there as a nonresident and West Virginia would credit the tax paid, capped at its own liability on that income — so the counterfactual total is approximately the higher of the two figures, and the agreement's value is the spread between them.
- The differential is income-dependent rather than fixed. West Virginia's liability runs $1,233 at forty-five thousand dollars and $3,691 at one hundred thousand, against $4,386 in Maryland 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 Maryland tax regardless of the agreement's existence, and recovery then requires a nonresident return in Maryland — 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
$2,271per paycheck
| Take-home, year | $59,047 |
|---|---|
| Tax, year | $15,953 |
| Share of pay taxed | 21.27% |
This is an average rate across all your pay — not the rate on your next dollar.
West Virginia against Maryland
A $75,000 salary
Compare with
−$9,607a year in Maryland, once local prices are leveled
| Measure | West Virginia | Maryland |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $59,047 | $58,394 |
| Worth after local prices | $65,774 | $56,167 |
| Share of pay taxed | 21.27% | 22.14% |
| State sales tax | 6% | 6% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 0.53% | 0.97% |
| Price level | 89.8 | 104 |
| Housing prices | 56.1 | 119.9 |
| Fuel tax | 20.5¢ | 23.5¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $1.20 | $5.00 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: West Virginia, Statewide average; Maryland, Statewide average. Clothing: one $100 item; higher prices can change tax.
What you would need there
A $75,000 salary
Moving to
$90,226in Maryland, for the same life
| To match take-home only | $75,995 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$15,226 |
| Prices in Maryland | 104 vs 90 |
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 Maryland's whole charge.
| Wage | West Virginia charges | Maryland would charge | Agreement is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| $45,000 | $1,233 | $1,774 | $541 |
| $70,000 | $2,317 | $2,961 | $644 |
| $100,000 | $3,691 | $4,386 | $695 |
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 Maryland.
- ⚠️ 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 Maryland remains taxable there under ordinary nonresident rules, and a commuter with such income may still owe a Maryland 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 West Virginia's and Maryland'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.