Nevada has no state income tax
Nevada 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 $5,100 a year against neighboring California, which taxes the same income at a top marginal rate of 13.3%.
It joins Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming in this group.
What a Nevada salary actually keeps
Because there is no state income tax, the only deductions from a Nevada 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 California would give up about $3,700 a year to that state, roughly $141 out of every biweekly paycheck. That gap is the whole of what living in Nevada saves a wage earner, before any of the offsetting costs below.
How gaming pays for Nevada
Nevada funds itself largely through gaming and tourism, taxes substantially paid by visitors rather than residents. That is the mechanism behind having no individual income tax and no corporate income tax.
The trade-off appears at the register. Nevada's combined state and local sales tax is among the higher rates in the country, and sales tax is regressive: it takes a larger share of a modest income than a high one. A high earner gains most from the no-income-tax structure; a lower earner may find the sales tax cancels much of it.
Businesses are not entirely exempt either. Nevada levies a Commerce Tax on gross revenue above a threshold, with rates varying by industry, a gross receipts tax rather than a profits tax, so it applies even to businesses making no money.
Nevada taxes payroll: the employer's, not yours
Nevada charges employers a Modified Business Tax on the wages they pay, above a quarterly exemption. It is not withheld from your paycheck and it will never appear on a pay stub, but it is a tax on employment levied at a percentage of payroll, and economists generally expect a meaningful share of any such tax to be passed to workers in wages over time rather than absorbed by the employer.
It matters most if you employ people here. A small business relocating to Nevada for the absence of a corporate and personal income tax should price the MBT and the Commerce Tax on gross revenue above a threshold into the comparison, because neither is an income tax and both are easy to miss when reading a list of what the state does not charge.
For an employee the position is simple and genuinely good: nothing is withheld for Nevada, and the state's revenue comes substantially from visitors. The trade shows up at the register rather than on the payslip.
What Nevada charges instead
Nevada's statewide sales tax is 6.85% (the 8th highest of the 51 jurisdictions), and local jurisdictions add more on top of that.
Living or working across the Nevada border
Because Nevada 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. A California resident commuting into Nevada on $85,000 owes California roughly $3,700 for the year with nothing taken out along the way, so quarterly estimated payments are not optional. Living in Nevada and working remotely for an employer elsewhere is the reverse and usually the better case.
Retirement income in Nevada
With no tax on wage income, Nevada 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 California about $1,600 on that income, and owes Nevada nothing. California exempts Social Security benefits, so the gap applies to the pension and withdrawal side rather than to benefits.
How Nevada compares
Against neighboring states the contrast is stark. California taxes income up to 13.3%. Arizona taxes income up to 2.5%. Utah taxes income up to 4.45%. Oregon taxes income up to 9.9%.
Filing and deadlines
Nevada'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 Nevada'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.