What are the West Virginia income tax rates for 2026?

Five bands: 2.11% on the first $10,000 of taxable income, 2.81% to $25,000, 3.16% to $40,000, 4.22% to $60,000, and 4.58% above. The same table applies to single filers, joint filers and heads of household; married filing separately uses the same rates with every threshold halved.

What changed for West Virginia in 2026?

Senate Bill 392, signed on March 31, 2026, cut every rate by 5% retroactive to January 1, 2026. The old rates were 2.22%, 2.96%, 3.33%, 4.44% and 4.82%, and each new rate is exactly 95% of the one it replaced.

What is the West Virginia standard deduction?

There isn't one. West Virginia starts from your federal adjusted gross income and the only allowance is the personal exemption — $2,000 per exemption, so $2,000 for a single filer and $4,000 for a couple. If you claim no exemptions the form allows $500.

Why is my West Virginia taxable income so close to my salary?

Because only $2,000 comes off. Federal tax shelters $16,100 for a single filer in 2026; West Virginia shelters an eighth of that. The rates are low, but they apply to almost all of your income.

Do married couples get wider brackets in West Virginia?

No. The Tax Division publishes one table covering single filers, joint filers, heads of household and estates and trusts. Only married filing separately has its own, with every threshold halved. The exemption does double for a couple, but the bands do not widen.

Does any West Virginia city charge a local income tax?

No city levies a percentage income tax. Several municipalities charge a flat city service fee — a fixed sum per week worked in the city rather than a share of what you earn — so it does not scale with income and is not included in the figures here.

Are West Virginia payroll deductions taken from my paycheck?

Not by the state. West Virginia unemployment insurance is employer-funded and the state runs no disability or paid family leave program. Beyond the state income tax, the only deductions are federal.

Is my data sent anywhere?

No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser. There is no account, and the salary you type is never sent to a server or stored. It never leaves your device.

United States · West Virginia · Tax year 2026

West Virginia Paycheck Calculator

West Virginia cut every rate by 5% in March 2026, backdated to January. But it shelters just $2,000 of your income. Type your salary to see how those two pull against each other.

Take-home per paycheck · 2026

$2,271.02

Paid every two weeks · $59,047 a year

You keep 79% of your gross pay. West Virginia itself takes 3.4%.

This is your 2026 tax for the whole year, spread evenly across 26 paychecks and rounded to the cent. A real payslip can differ slightly from one paycheck to the next: employers withhold using tables that approximate the year's tax rather than match it, and stop taking a contribution once your wages for the year pass its cap.

Effective rate 21.3% of your gross

Marginal rate 26.6% on your next dollar

Total tax $613.60 a paycheck · $15,953 a year

Federal income tax$295.00
WV income tax$97.92
FICA$220.68
Take-home$2,271.02

Itemized deductions from gross pay, per paycheck and per year
Deduction	Rate	Per paycheckPer year	Per year
Gross payAnnual salary ÷ 26		$2,884.62$75,000.00	$75,000.00
Federal
Federal income taxAfter the $16,100 standard deduction		−$295.00−$7,670.00	−$7,670.00
Social SecurityCapped at $184,500 of wages	6.20%	−$178.85−$4,650.00	−$4,650.00
Medicare	1.45%	−$41.83−$1,087.50	−$1,087.50
West Virginia
WV income taxAfter the $2,000 personal exemption		−$97.92−$2,545.90	−$2,545.90
Total tax		−$613.60−$15,953.40	−$15,953.40
Net pay		$2,271.02$59,046.60	$59,046.60

Per paycheck, each line is its annual amount ÷ 26, rounded to the nearest cent.

What this means

On a salary of $75,000 you keep $59,047 — about 79% of what you earn. The remaining $15,953 is split across four separate deductions.

The largest is federal income tax at $7,670, roughly 48% of your total tax bill. West Virginia's own income tax takes $2,546, which is less than the $5,738 taken for Social Security and Medicare.

Your next dollar of income would be taxed at 26.6% once federal and state are combined, while the rate you actually pay across the whole salary is 21.3%. That gap is why a raise never feels as large as the headline rate suggests — and why the effective rate, not the bracket you land in, is the number worth comparing between states.

Show the working, band by band

Every figure above is computed from published 2026 rates for the whole year, then divided across 26 paychecks.

Federal — on $58,900 taxable income

Band	Rate	Taxed here	Tax
$0 – $12,400	10%	$12,400	$1,240.00
$12,400 – $50,400	12%	$38,000	$4,560.00
$50,400 – $105,700	22%	$8,500	$1,870.00

West Virginia — on $73,000 taxable income

Band	Rate	Taxed here	Tax
$0 – $10,000	2.11%	$10,000	$211.00
$10,000 – $25,000	2.81%	$15,000	$421.50
$25,000 – $40,000	3.16%	$15,000	$474.00
$40,000 – $60,000	4.22%	$20,000	$844.00
$60,000 and above	4.58%	$13,000	$595.40

West Virginia tax at a glance, 2026

State income tax: 2.11% – 4.58%; Every rate cut 5% for 2026
Personal exemption: $2,000; $4,000 joint. The only shelter
Standard deduction: None; West Virginia does not have one
Local income tax: None; But some cities charge a weekly fee

How West Virginia income tax works

West Virginia has five bands, and after the 2026 cut they run 2.11% on the first $10,000 of taxable income, 2.81% to $25,000, 3.16% to $40,000, 4.22% to $60,000 and 4.58% above.

Those rates are modest by any standard — the top one is lower than Virginia’s, Georgia’s or Kentucky’s. What makes West Virginia heavier than it looks is that almost nothing comes off first.

The state starts from your federal adjusted gross income and allows one deduction: a $2,000 personal exemption. There is no standard deduction at all.

So a single filer on $75,000 is taxed on $73,000 — not on the $58,900 the federal system would use — and pays about $2,546 for the year, an effective state rate of roughly 3.4%.

There is no local income tax anywhere in West Virginia and no employee-side payroll levy, so these figures need nothing added.

Single filers and married filing separately · 2026
Taxable income	Rate
$0 – $10,000	2.11%
$10,000 – $25,000	2.81%
$25,000 – $40,000	3.16%
$40,000 – $60,000	4.22%
$60,000 and above	4.58%

The 5% cut, backdated to January

Senate Bill 392 was passed and signed on March 31, 2026, and cuts every West Virginia income tax rate by 5% — retroactive to January 1, 2026, so it covers the whole tax year even though it became law a quarter of the way through it.

The cut is uniform, which is unusual. Most states cut one rate, or widen one band. West Virginia multiplied the whole schedule by 0.95:

Band	2025	2026
First $10,000	2.22%	2.11%
to $25,000	2.96%	2.81%
to $40,000	3.33%	3.16%
to $60,000	4.44%	4.22%
above $60,000	4.82%	4.58%

Each figure is exactly 95% of the one above it, rounded to two decimal places — a useful check that a table has been transcribed correctly.

Because the cut is proportional rather than targeted, it is worth the same percentage to everyone, which means the most in absolute terms to the highest earners. On the $73,000 a single filer on $75,000 is taxed on, the saving is $134.20 for the year.

Backdating matters practically. Withholding tables were reissued for 2026, but anyone whose employer was still using the 2025 tables in the first months of the year will have had slightly too much taken, and gets it back on filing.

There is no standard deduction

This is the single most important thing to understand about West Virginia, and it is why the low rates do not translate into a low bill.

Form IT-140 starts at federal adjusted gross income on line 1, adds and subtracts state modifications to reach West Virginia adjusted gross income on line 4, and then line 6 allows one thing: “Total Exemptions as shown above on Exemption Box (e) __ x $2,000”. Line 7 is the result.

That is the entire allowance. $2,000 for a single filer, $4,000 for a couple, another $2,000 per dependent — and $500 if you claim no exemptions at all.

Set against the federal standard deduction of $16,100, West Virginia shelters an eighth as much. It is the smallest allowance of any state that taxes wage income, and because the $2,000 is fixed in statute rather than indexed, it shrinks against wages every year without anyone voting on it.

The cost is concrete. If West Virginia allowed a federal-sized shelter, a single filer on $75,000 would pay $1,904.08 instead of $2,545.90 — a difference of $641.82 a year, which is substantially more than the entire 5% rate cut delivered.

That is the trade the state has made: rates well below its neighbors, applied to a much larger share of income. When comparing West Virginia against Virginia, Ohio or Kentucky, comparing rates alone will mislead you in West Virginia’s favor.

Take-home pay at every salary in West Virginia

After federal tax, West Virginia state tax and FICA, with the $2,000 exemption applied. With no local income tax and no state payroll levy, these figures hold anywhere in the state — Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown, Parkersburg and Wheeling alike.

Annual take-home pay by gross salary · 2026
Gross salary	Total tax	Take-home (single)	Effective rate	Take-home (married)
$30,000	−$4,442	$25,558	14.8%	$27,041
$40,000	−$6,723	$33,277	16.8%	$35,180
$50,000	−$9,089	$40,911	18.2%	$43,035
$60,000	−$11,476	$48,524	19.1%	$50,788
$75,000	−$15,953	$59,047	21.3%	$62,168
$85,000	−$19,376	$65,624	22.8%	$69,745
$100,000	−$24,511	$75,489	24.5%	$81,111
$125,000	−$33,132	$91,868	26.5%	$100,053
$150,000	−$42,190	$107,810	28.1%	$117,296
$200,000	−$59,344	$140,656	29.7%	$151,142
$250,000	−$77,379	$172,621	31.0%	$186,999

What lands in your account each payday

On $75,000 a year in West Virginia, filing single, split across the pay schedules employers actually use.

Net pay on $75,000 gross · single filer
Pay schedule	Gross	Net
Every week	$1,442	$1,136
Every two weeks	$2,885	$2,271
Twice a month	$3,125	$2,460
Every month	$6,250	$4,921

Couples use the single table

West Virginia does not widen its brackets for marriage. The Tax Division publishes one rate schedule covering “individuals (except married individuals filing separate returns), individuals filing joint returns, heads of households, and estates and trusts”.

So the 4.58% top band begins at $60,000 of taxable income whether you file singly or jointly. Two people each earning $50,000 pass through identical bands married or not, and their combined income reaches the top band far sooner as a couple than either would alone.

Married filing separately gets its own table, which is the single one halved: 2.11% to $5,000, then 2.81% to $12,500, 3.16% to $20,000, 4.22% to $30,000 and 4.58% above.

What does double for a couple is the exemption — $4,000 rather than $2,000. Against bands that do not move, that is a small offset. West Virginia therefore has one of the plainer marriage penalties in the country, of the same kind as South Carolina’s and Missouri’s.

Dates that matter for the 2026 tax year

West Virginia returns (Form IT-140) are due April 15, 2027, matching the federal deadline. Estimated payments, if required, fall quarterly in April, June, September and the following January.

The rates on this page are the post-SB 392 figures published by the West Virginia Tax Division, and apply to the whole of the 2026 tax year despite the act being signed in March.

Questions people ask

What are the West Virginia income tax rates for 2026?: Five bands: 2.11% on the first $10,000 of taxable income, 2.81% to $25,000, 3.16% to $40,000, 4.22% to $60,000, and 4.58% above. The same table applies to single filers, joint filers and heads of household; married filing separately uses the same rates with every threshold halved.
What changed for West Virginia in 2026?: Senate Bill 392, signed on March 31, 2026, cut every rate by 5% retroactive to January 1, 2026. The old rates were 2.22%, 2.96%, 3.33%, 4.44% and 4.82%, and each new rate is exactly 95% of the one it replaced.
What is the West Virginia standard deduction?: There isn't one. West Virginia starts from your federal adjusted gross income and the only allowance is the personal exemption — $2,000 per exemption, so $2,000 for a single filer and $4,000 for a couple. If you claim no exemptions the form allows $500.
Why is my West Virginia taxable income so close to my salary?: Because only $2,000 comes off. Federal tax shelters $16,100 for a single filer in 2026; West Virginia shelters an eighth of that. The rates are low, but they apply to almost all of your income.
Do married couples get wider brackets in West Virginia?: No. The Tax Division publishes one table covering single filers, joint filers, heads of household and estates and trusts. Only married filing separately has its own, with every threshold halved. The exemption does double for a couple, but the bands do not widen.
Does any West Virginia city charge a local income tax?: No city levies a percentage income tax. Several municipalities charge a flat city service fee — a fixed sum per week worked in the city rather than a share of what you earn — so it does not scale with income and is not included in the figures here.
Are West Virginia payroll deductions taken from my paycheck?: Not by the state. West Virginia unemployment insurance is employer-funded and the state runs no disability or paid family leave program. Beyond the state income tax, the only deductions are federal.
Is my data sent anywhere?: No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser. There is no account, and the salary you type is never sent to a server or stored. It never leaves your device.

Where these figures come from

Every West Virginia number on this page was read from the documents below — the state's own, not a summary of them. Nothing here is estimated. If a figure looks wrong, the source is one click away, and we would rather you checked.

Personal Income Tax Reductiontax.wv.gov
West Virginia Tax Division
The rate reductions applied to the bands and which reduction is in force.
Form IT-140, West Virginia Personal Income Tax Returntax.wv.gov
West Virginia Tax Division
The $2,000 per-exemption allowance and the structure of the return.
West Virginia Code §21A-5-14, Deduction of payments from wages prohibitedcode.wvlegislature.gov
West Virginia Legislature
That an employer shall not deduct unemployment payments, in whole or in part, from an employee's wages.