VIRGINIA PAYCHECK CALCULATOR

4 brackets: 2% to 5.75%, top rate starts at just $17,000 No city or county income tax anywhere in the state

Virginia’s top income tax bracket kicks in at $17,000 of taxable income, one of the lowest thresholds for a top rate anywhere in the country. That means almost every full-time worker in the state ends up paying 5.75% on the bulk of their paycheck within their first few months on the job, long before they’d hit a comparable top bracket in most other states. It sounds steep on paper, but Virginia balances it out with no local income tax, no estate tax, and a standard deduction that just got a boost for 2026.

A Virginia paycheck runs through federal withholding, Social Security, and Medicare, plus Virginia’s own state income tax, and that’s it. No Richmond city tax, no Fairfax County add-on, nothing extra layered in the way Maryland or New York City residents deal with. If you’re weighing a Virginia offer against something in the DC metro area, check out the Maryland paycheck calculator, the North Carolina paycheck calculator, the Washington DC paycheck calculator, or the West Virginia paycheck calculator.

Every Deduction on a Virginia Paycheck

• Federal income tax: Based on the 2026 IRS brackets, 10% to 37%, after the $16,100 single / $32,200 joint standard deduction.
• Virginia state income tax: Four brackets, 2% to 5.75%, applied after Virginia’s own standard deduction ($8,750 single, $17,500 married filing jointly for 2026) and a $930 personal exemption per filer.
• Social Security: 6.2% of gross wages up to $184,500 for 2026. Withholding stops for the rest of the year once you cross that number.
• Medicare: 1.45% of all wages, no cap, plus an extra 0.9% on wages above $200,000 (single) or $250,000 (married filing jointly).
• No local income tax: Richmond, Virginia Beach, Arlington, and every other Virginia locality rides on the same statewide brackets. Vehicle owners do pay a separate annual personal property tax, typically 3% to 4% of assessed value, set by the county or city.
• Pre-tax deductions (optional): 401(k) contributions, traditional IRA, HSA, and employer health premiums reduce taxable wages before any of the above taxes are calculated.

Virginia’s 2026 Tax Brackets

Virginia is unusual in that it applies the exact same bracket thresholds no matter your filing status, single, married jointly, or head of household all use this table. What changes by filing status is the standard deduction, not the brackets themselves.

Rate	Taxable Income
2%	$0 to $3,000
3%	$3,001 to $5,000
5%	$5,001 to $17,000
5.75%	$17,001 and up

Virginia’s own example shows how the layering works on $25,000 of taxable income: 2% on the first $3,000, 3% on the next $2,000, 5% on the next $12,000, and 5.75% on the remaining $8,000. Because that top bracket starts at just $17,000, the vast majority of a typical Virginia salary gets taxed at 5.75%, which is really the whole story of Virginia income tax in one sentence. The standard deduction is $8,750 for single filers and married individuals filing separately, and $17,500 for married filing jointly, for 2026. That enhanced amount is currently scheduled to sunset after 2026, reverting to $3,000 single / $6,000 joint unless the General Assembly extends it again, worth watching if you’re doing multi-year tax planning.

Virginia vs. the DC Metro Area: $70,000, Single Filer

Here’s how Virginia compares to the states people actually cross-shop it against, all at $70,000 in gross salary for a single filer, 2026 rates.

State	State Tax Owed	Est. Net Pay*
Virginia	~$3,211	~$54,864
North Carolina (flat 3.99%)	~$2,284	~$55,791
Maryland (with county tax)	~$5,000	~$53,075
Washington DC	~$3,250	~$54,825

*Net pay is after federal tax, state tax, Social Security, and Medicare, before pre-tax deductions. Maryland’s figure is approximate: it depends heavily on which county you live in (the local piggyback tax runs 2.25% to 3.2%) and on a standard deduction that phases in as a percentage of income with sources reporting slightly different caps, treat it as a ballpark using a Montgomery County-style 3.2% local rate. DC’s figure is also approximate, since sources disagree on whether DC’s 2026 standard deduction fully conforms to the federal amount ($16,100) or uses its own figure closer to $13,850 to $15,700, confirm the exact number with the DC Office of Tax and Revenue before publishing.

North Carolina’s flat 3.99% rate, the final step in a multi-year phase-down from 5.499%, comes out cheaper than Virginia at this income level despite Virginia’s lower headline top rate on paper. That’s the effect of Virginia’s top bracket starting so early: a $70,000 earner in Virginia is deep into the 5.75% bracket, while the same earner in North Carolina pays one flat rate on everything. Maryland’s county piggyback tax is the real story for anyone commuting into DC from the Maryland side, it can add more to a paycheck than the state rate itself.

Virginia Tax Burden: The Full Picture

Tax Type	Virginia	National Average
Top income tax rate	5.75% (starts at $17,000)	~5.0%
State sales tax	5.3% (plus 1% mandatory local add-on)	~5.1%
Combined sales tax (avg.)	5.77%	~7.5%
Effective property tax rate	0.78%	~1.02%
Estate tax	None	Most states: none
Overall Tax Competitiveness rank	30th of 50	–

Virginia’s headline income tax rate isn’t especially high, it’s the low threshold where the top bracket kicks in that catches people off guard. Everywhere else, Virginia runs closer to average or better: sales tax is genuinely low at 5.77% combined, property taxes sit meaningfully below the national norm at 0.78% effective, and there’s no estate or inheritance tax to plan around at all. Vehicle owners are the exception, Virginia’s separate personal property tax on cars, administered by each county or city, runs 3% to 4% of assessed value annually and can add up fast on a newer vehicle.

Retirees in Virginia: Age Deduction and Military Pay

Virginia doesn’t tax Social Security benefits at all, a real advantage for retirees weighing this state against ones that do. Other retirement income gets a smaller but still meaningful break: residents 65 and older can claim an age deduction of up to $12,000 per person against any income, not just retirement income specifically.

That deduction phases out dollar for dollar above $50,000 in adjusted federal AGI for single filers or $75,000 for married couples filing jointly, disappearing entirely around $62,000 single or $99,000 joint. A married couple where both spouses are 65 or older can claim up to $24,000 combined if their income stays under the threshold, which makes timing IRA withdrawals and Roth conversions around that cliff genuinely worth planning for.

Military retirees get a separate, more generous break. Since 2022, Virginia has phased in a military retirement income subtraction that lets qualifying retirees exclude a substantial amount of military pension income from state tax regardless of age, a meaningful benefit given how many military retirees settle in Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia, and around Quantico. The exact cap and phase-in schedule has changed with recent legislation, so anyone relying on this deduction should confirm the current-year figure directly with Virginia Tax before filing.

Federal Tax: A Worked Example

Take a single filer earning $70,000 in 2026. Subtract the federal standard deduction of $16,100, and taxable income comes to $53,900. Here’s how that runs through the brackets:

• 10% on the first $12,400 = $1,240
• 12% on $12,400 to $50,400 ($38,000) = $4,560
• 22% on $50,400 to $53,900 ($3,500) = $770

Total federal tax: $6,570, an effective rate of about 9.4% on the full $70,000, even though the marginal bracket is 22%. Add Virginia’s state tax on top, and because Virginia’s brackets max out so early, nearly $2,491 of that $3,211 in state tax comes from income taxed at the 5.75% rate alone.

Special Case: Federal Workers and Northern Virginia Commuters

Virginia is home to more federal civilian employees than any other state, roughly 140,000, concentrated in the Fairfax and Arlington corridor around the Pentagon, intelligence agencies, and defense contractors. Unlike a few perks federal workers sometimes assume exist, Virginia does not exempt federal salaries from state tax. Federal employees pay Virginia income tax on their wages just like anyone else, up to that same 5.75% top rate.

Where it matters more for this group: federal retirees drawing a CSRS or FERS pension benefit from the same 65-and-older age deduction available to any Virginia retiree, up to $12,000 per person, subject to the same income phase-out. For active Northern Virginia commuters weighing an offer against a DC or Maryland-based role, the bigger variable usually isn’t the state income tax rate at all, it’s whether the Maryland county piggyback tax or DC’s steeper upper brackets change the math more than Virginia’s early-onset top rate does.

Frequently Asked Questions

Virginia’s tax code rewards understanding one quirk more than any other: that low $17,000 threshold for the top bracket. Once you know most of your paycheck gets taxed at 5.75% regardless of whether you earn $60,000 or $600,000, the rest of the planning shifts toward the things that actually move the needle, maxing pre-tax retirement contributions, timing withdrawals around the age deduction cliff if you’re near retirement, and knowing that the state’s low property and sales taxes are doing more heavy lifting for your overall burden than the income tax bracket table ever will.