How the District taxes a paycheck
DC's income tax has seven brackets: 4% on the first $10,000 of taxable income, 6% to $40,000, 6.5% to $60,000, 8.5% to $250,000, 9.25% to $500,000, 9.75% to $1 million and 10.75% above. The 2021 budget created the 9.25%, 9.75% and 10.75% tiers; before that the top rate was 8.95%. Unusually, single and married filers use the same thresholds, so a joint return with two salaries reaches 8.5% at a combined $60,000 of taxable income.
The District conforms to the federal standard deduction, so $16,100 single and $32,200 married is subtracted before the rates apply, and there is no personal exemption. Because DC is not a state, its income tax is the entire state-and-local layer: there is no county and no city on top of it, unlike Maryland across the line, where a county tax of 2.25% to 3.2% is added to the state rate.
Federal employees, who make up a large share of DC's workforce, are taxed like everyone else. Members of Congress and their staff who maintain a residence elsewhere are exempt under federal law, which is the origin of the District's long-running complaint about commuters who earn in DC and pay tax to Virginia or Maryland. DC cannot tax non-resident income, a restriction Congress imposed in the Home Rule Act.
How much taxes are taken out of paychecks in DC?
On a $60,000 salary in 2026, a single filer in the District pays about $5,020 in federal income tax, $4,590 in Social Security and Medicare, and about $2,450 in DC income tax, leaving roughly $47,940 a year or $1,844 every two weeks. The District's share is about 4% of gross.
DC also withholds 0.62% of wages from employers, not employees, for its Paid Family Leave program, so nothing extra comes out of a paycheck for it.
DC compared with Maryland and Virginia
The three jurisdictions share a labour market and residents choose among them constantly. On a $60,000 single salary the income tax is about $2,450 in DC, $2,490 in Maryland plus a county tax of roughly $1,600, and $2,640 in Virginia with no local tax. So at that salary a Virginia resident pays slightly more than a DC resident, and a Maryland resident pays considerably more once the county is counted.
At $150,000 the order changes: DC's 8.5% bracket, which starts at $60,000 of taxable income, takes about $9,780, against Virginia's $7,810 and Maryland's roughly $6,920 plus about $4,400 of county tax. DC's schedule is gentle at the bottom and steep in the middle, which is the reverse of Virginia, where 5.75% applies from $17,000 upward.
Withholding forms and filing status in DC
DC employers withhold from Form D-4, on which employees claim allowances; non-residents file Form D-4A to certify that DC tax should not be withheld at all, since the District cannot tax them. Because DC's brackets are the same for single and joint filers, a two-earner couple reaches the 8.5% bracket on a combined $60,000 of taxable income and DC allows married filing separately on the same return to avoid it; the calculator's married figure uses the joint schedule.
The reverse of the non-resident rule also applies: DC residents who work in Maryland or Virginia pay only DC tax, under reciprocity with both, and their employers withhold for DC. Federal employees stationed in DC who keep a home state domicile pay that state, not DC.