How Maine taxes a paycheck
Maine has three brackets and the bottom one starts at 5.8%, the highest entry rate in the country. For a single filer 6.75% applies from $27,399 of taxable income and 7.15% from $64,849; married thresholds are roughly double. Rates were cut from 7.95% in 2015 and have not changed since, though the brackets are indexed. Maine allows a $5,300 personal exemption per filer ($10,600 married) and a $305 credit per dependent.
The standard deduction is where 2026 is uncertain. Maine ties its deduction to the federal amount as of a conformity date in statute, and the Tax Foundation's 2026 table shows $8,350 single and $16,700 married, the figure under pre-2025 federal law. Maine's legislature normally updates conformity each session; if it adopts the 2026 federal $16,100, Maine tax on a $60,000 salary falls by about $520. The calculator follows the published figure until Maine Revenue Services updates it. The deduction also phases out above about $100,000 of income, which is not modelled.
Maine employees pay 0.5% of wages into the state's new Paid Family and Medical Leave programme, which began collecting in 2025 and pays benefits from May 2026; it is a separate payroll line not included here. There are no local income taxes.
How much taxes are taken out of paychecks in Maine?
On a $60,000 salary in 2026, a single filer in Maine pays about $5,020 in federal income tax, $4,590 in Social Security and Medicare, and about $2,870 in Maine income tax, leaving roughly $47,520 a year or $1,828 every two weeks. Paid leave would take a further $300. The state share is 4.8% of gross, second only to Oregon among states at that salary.
At $150,000 Maine's tax is about $9,230, an effective rate of 6.2%, since the 7.15% bracket applies to most of the income above $64,849.
Maine compared with its neighbours
Maine's only land neighbour is New Hampshire, which taxes no wages at all, and the contrast along the Piscataqua River is the sharpest state-line tax difference in New England: a $60,000 earner in Kittery pays about $2,870 that a neighbour in Portsmouth does not, and at $150,000 the difference is about $9,230.
Against the rest of New England, Maine's $2,870 on $60,000 is above Massachusetts's $2,780, Connecticut's $2,550 and Vermont's $1,580. Maine's answer to the comparison is its property tax relief and its lack of a general sales tax on groceries, neither of which appears on a paycheck.
Withholding forms and filing status in Maine
Maine employers withhold from Form W-4ME, on which employees claim allowances; Maine's tables apply the three brackets after the standard deduction and exemptions. Married couples get doubled bracket thresholds ($54,849 and $129,749), a doubled deduction and a $10,600 exemption, so a one-earner couple on $60,000 pays about $1,910 against a single filer's $2,870. Maine's deduction phase-out above about $100,000 applies to both schedules.
Maine has no reciprocal agreements. New Hampshire residents working in Maine pay Maine tax on those wages, and Maine residents working in New Hampshire owe Maine tax with no credit, which is the arrangement along the Portsmouth-Kittery line. Maine's paid leave premium is withheld from all wages earned in Maine regardless of residence.