How New Jersey taxes a paycheck
New Jersey's schedule has seven brackets for single filers, from 1.4% on the first $20,000 of taxable income to 10.75% above $1 million, with 5.53% starting at $40,000 and 6.37% at $75,000. Married couples get a different, wider schedule with eight rates, including a 2.45% bracket that single filers do not have. The 10.75% top rate, applied above $1 million since 2020, is the second highest in the country after California's 13.3%.
There is no standard deduction; a $1,000 personal exemption per filer and $1,500 per dependent are the only amounts excluded, which is why New Jersey taxes from nearly the first dollar. The gentle low brackets are what keep the bill down at ordinary salaries. Employee contributions to unemployment, disability and family leave insurance (together well under 1% of wages, capped) appear as separate lines and are not included here.
No New Jersey municipality taxes employee wages. Newark's 1% payroll tax is paid by employers; Jersey City's was repealed. The reverse commute matters more: New Jersey residents who work in New York pay New York tax on those wages and take a credit against New Jersey tax, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey have a reciprocal agreement so cross-border commuters pay only their home state.
How much taxes are taken out of paychecks in New Jersey?
On a $60,000 salary in 2026, a single filer in New Jersey pays about $5,020 in federal income tax, $4,590 in Social Security and Medicare, and about $1,770 in New Jersey income tax, leaving roughly $48,620 a year or $1,870 every two weeks. The state share is 2.9% of gross, the lowest in the Northeast at that salary.
The picture changes above $75,000, where 6.37% applies: at $150,000 the tax is about $7,370, an effective rate of 4.9%, and at $500,000 the 8.97% bracket takes the effective rate to about 6.6%.
New Jersey compared with its neighbours
On a $60,000 single salary the state tax is about $1,770 in New Jersey, $2,640 in New York (before New York City's 3.078% to 3.876%), $1,840 in Pennsylvania (before local earned income tax, or 3.74% in Philadelphia) and $2,650 in Delaware. New Jersey is the cheapest of the four at that level.
At $150,000 the order changes: New Jersey's $7,370 is below New York's $7,810 and Delaware's $8,560 but far above Pennsylvania's flat $4,600. New Jersey's structure is progressive in a way its neighbours' are not, light at the bottom and heavy at the top.
Withholding forms and filing status in New Jersey
New Jersey employers withhold from Form NJ-W4, on which employees choose one of five withholding rate tables (A through E) based on filing status and expected combined income; the tables exist because New Jersey's married schedule differs from its single one rather than simply doubling it. A one-earner couple on $60,000 pays about $1,370 against a single filer's $1,770, and the married 2.45% bracket between $50,000 and $70,000 has no single-filer counterpart.
New Jersey's reciprocal agreement with Pennsylvania means residents of either state working in the other pay only their home state; a 2016 attempt to end it was reversed before it took effect. There is no agreement with New York, so New Jersey residents working in Manhattan pay New York State tax and credit it at home, usually leaving little or no New Jersey tax due on those wages.