Florida has no state income tax
Florida levies no individual income tax on wages, salaries or self-employment income. Your only income-based withholding is federal, plus Social Security and Medicare. On a $100,000 salary that is worth about $4,100 a year against neighboring Alabama, which taxes the same income at a top marginal rate of 5%.
It joins Alaska, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming in this group.
What a Florida salary actually keeps
Because there is no state income tax, the only deductions from a Florida paycheck are federal. On an $85,000 salary a single filer pays roughly $9,900 in federal income tax and $6,503 in FICA, keeping about $68,600.
The same salary just over the line in Alabama would give up about $3,500 a year to that state, roughly $135 out of every biweekly paycheck. That gap is the whole of what living in Florida saves a wage earner, before any of the offsetting costs below.
Property tax and the homestead exemption
Florida's constitution bars a personal income tax, so the revenue comes from sales tax, tourism and property tax. For residents the property side is where the real planning happens.
The homestead exemption removes a slice of assessed value from taxation on your primary residence, and the Save Our Homes cap limits how fast that assessed value can rise each year while you keep the homestead. Long-time owners can end up assessed far below market value, and that benefit is portable if you move within the state.
The offsetting cost is insurance rather than tax. Property insurance in coastal Florida has risen sharply and is not a deductible expense for most homeowners, so a relocation calculation that counts only the income tax saving will overstate the benefit.
Florida also has no estate or inheritance tax, which is a significant part of why it attracts retirees with substantial assets.
Proving you actually left the state you came from
A great many people move to Florida for the tax treatment, and high-tax states know it. New York in particular audits claimed departures aggressively, and the burden of proof sits with the person who says they left. Changing your address is not the test; domicile is, and it turns on where your life actually is.
Auditors look at days counted in each state, where the home you treat as primary sits and what it is worth relative to the one you kept, where your family lives, where your doctors and dentists are, where your cars and boats are registered, where you vote, and where the possessions you would not replace are kept. A residual apartment in the old state, kept for convenience, is frequently what loses the case.
Florida makes its side straightforward: a Declaration of Domicile can be filed with the county clerk, and the homestead exemption is itself strong evidence, but none of that binds the state you left. The move has to be real, and the year it happens is the one to keep records for.
What Florida charges instead
Florida's statewide sales tax is 6% (the 18th highest of the 51 jurisdictions), and local jurisdictions add more on top of that.
Living or working across the Florida border
Because Florida withholds no state income tax, a resident of a neighboring state who works here still owes tax at home, and nothing is withheld to cover it. An Alabama resident commuting into Florida on $85,000 owes Alabama roughly $3,500 for the year with nothing taken out along the way, so quarterly estimated payments are not optional. Living in Florida and working remotely for an employer elsewhere is the reverse and usually the better case.
Retirement income in Florida
With no tax on wage income, Florida also takes nothing from Social Security benefits, pensions, IRA withdrawals or 401(k) distributions.
Put a number on it: a retiree drawing $60,000 a year from a pension and an IRA would owe Alabama about $2,500 on that income, and owes Florida nothing. Alabama exempts Social Security benefits, so the gap applies to the pension and withdrawal side rather than to benefits.
How Florida compares
Against neighboring states the contrast is stark. Georgia taxes income up to 4.99%. Alabama taxes income up to 5%.
Filing and deadlines
Florida's return is due in mid-April with your federal return. Deadlines and extensions covers the off-cycle states and what an extension does not buy you.
What this estimate covers
The figure applies Florida's published 2026 rates and deductions to wage income, alongside federal tax and FICA (a well-sourced estimate, not a return). See what these calculators do and do not model.