What an employer has to set up in each state for 2026

An employer running payroll in a new state does not need a rate first. It needs three things the rate does not tell it: which withholding certificate to collect from the employee, whether a local tax applies on top of the state one, and which state payroll programs must be deducted — some of which the employer co-pays.

Every row below names the document it was read from, and the date it was read. Where a state has no certificate of its own, that is said rather than filled in.

What an employer has to set up, state by state

Three things decide an employer’s payroll setup in a state, and none of them is the tax rate: the withholding certificate you must collect, whether a local tax applies on top, and the state payroll programs you must deduct and sometimes co-pay. Across the 46 states on file, 37 name a state withholding certificate, 8 levy a local income tax somewhere, and 13 run a state payroll program with its own rate. Read between 2026-08-05 and 2026-08-12, from the documents linked in each row.

The tables themselves

This page is the setup. The withholding table each state publishes for 2026, with what changed this year and the law that made each change, is on the 2026 state withholding tables page. The two do not repeat each other: that one carries the tables and their changes, this one carries what an employer has to put in place around them.

Both are built from the same watch over official state and federal documents, which flags a source for a human re-check when it changes rather than republishing on its own. How that watch works, and what it does not cover, is on the methodology page.