Idaho's rate schedule has two entries: 0% on the first slice of taxable income and 5.3% on everything above it. That makes it a flat tax with a floor rather than a graduated one, and the shape matters more than either number.
What keeps the bill moderate is not the rate. It is the standard deduction of $16,100 — the federal figure, which Idaho matches rather than legislating its own smaller amount.
On $85,000 a single filer pays $3,519 and takes home $65,108.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Federal figures are tax year 2026, from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 and the Social Security Administration; Idaho's rate, deduction and retirement rules come from this site's own sourced 50-state dataset, citing Idaho Code Title 63 chapter 30 and the State Tax Commission's Form 40 and Form 39R instructions. Every dollar figure is computed by the same engine the site's calculators use, on a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependents or pre-tax deferrals unless stated. Sales tax and property tax are discussed qualitatively.
1. What Idaho takes
| Amount on $85,000 | |
|---|---|
| Gross salary | $85,000 |
| Federal income tax | −$9,870 |
| Social Security (6.2%) | −$5,270 |
| Medicare (1.45%) | −$1,233 |
| Idaho income tax | −$3,519 |
| Take-home | $65,108 |
Across incomes, single filer:
| Salary | Idaho tax | Effective ID rate | Take-home |
|---|---|---|---|
| $30,000 | $604 | 2.01% | $24,681 |
| $45,000 | $1,399 | 3.11% | $36,939 |
| $60,000 | $2,194 | 3.66% | $48,196 |
| $85,000 | $3,519 | 4.14% | $65,108 |
| $120,000 | $5,374 | 4.48% | $87,876 |
| $175,000 | $8,289 | 4.74% | $122,590 |
The statutory rate is 5.3% and the effective rate never gets close. At $175,000 it is 4.74%; at $30,000 it is 2.01%, well under half. The $16,100 deduction plus the zero bracket account for the whole of that gap.
Run your own salary against Idaho's rate2. A flat tax that is not called one
Idaho's schedule is technically graduated — two brackets, 0% and 5.3% — but functionally it behaves like a flat tax with a generous floor.
For a single filer:
- The standard deduction shelters $16,100.
- The first $2,500 of taxable income is taxed at 0%.
- Everything above $18,600 of gross is taxed at 5.3%.
So Idaho's real zero-tax threshold is $18,600 of salary, and above that a single rate applies to every additional dollar. There is no second step, no third bracket, no threshold to plan around.
Compare it with a genuinely graduated schedule. Minnesota's rates are 5.35%, 6.8%, 7.85% and 9.85%, so an $85,000 earner's marginal rate is 6.8% and their next raise is taxed at more than their average. In Idaho your marginal rate and your rate on the next dollar are the same 5.3% whether you earn $25,000 or $2,500,000.
One consequence worth naming. A flat rate above a fixed floor means that every dollar of deduction is worth exactly 5.3% to every Idahoan above the floor — the same $53 per $1,000 to a teacher and to a surgeon. In graduated states a deduction is worth more the more you earn.
The zero bracket is smaller than it looks
$2,500 of taxable income at 0% is worth $132.50 to anyone above it — 5.3% of $2,500. That is a real number and a small one, and it is worth setting against what other states do with the same idea.
North Dakota's zero bracket runs to $49,575 of taxable income. Arkansas's runs to $5,600 and Mississippi's to $10,000. Idaho's $2,500 is at the modest end.
What Idaho does instead is match the federal standard deduction, which shelters $16,100 — six times what the zero bracket does. So the great majority of Idaho's relief comes from the deduction rather than from the bracket, and a state that raised the zero bracket to $10,000 would change an Idahoan's bill by less than $400.
The practical version: if you want to know what Idaho will take, subtract $18,600 from your salary and multiply by 5.3%. That is the whole calculation, and it is right to within a dollar or two at any income.
3. Filing jointly
| Salary | Single ID tax | Joint ID tax | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| $30,000 | $604 | $0 | $604 |
| $45,000 | $1,399 | $413 | $986 |
| $60,000 | $2,194 | $1,208 | $986 |
| $85,000 | $3,519 | $2,533 | $986 |
| $120,000 | $5,374 | $4,388 | $986 |
| $175,000 | $8,289 | $7,303 | $986 |
A flat $986 at every income above $45,000. Both the standard deduction and the zero bracket double for a couple — $32,200 and $5,000 — and 5.3% of the extra $18,600 is $985.80.
At $30,000 a couple owes Idaho nothing at all, because $30,000 falls below the $32,200 joint standard deduction before the zero bracket is even reached.
That $986 sits in the middle of the range. Georgia's joint benefit is $748, Hawaii's $1,587, Arkansas's $97. The size tracks how much a state doubles: Idaho doubles both its deduction and its zero bracket, so it lands above the flat-rate states that double only a deduction and below the graduated states that double a whole schedule.
4. What the paycheck actually looks like
On $85,000 as a single filer:
| Pay schedule | Gross per cheque | Net per cheque |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly (52) | $1,634.62 | $1,252.08 |
| Biweekly (26) | $3,269.23 | $2,504.17 |
| Semi-monthly (24) | $3,541.67 | $2,712.85 |
| Monthly (12) | $7,083.33 | $5,425.69 |
Biweekly and semi-monthly are not the same thing. Biweekly is 26 cheques — every other Friday — so two months a year carry three paydays. Semi-monthly is 24, on fixed dates, so every month carries exactly two. The annual total is identical; the monthly cash flow is not, and a biweekly earner budgeting on "two cheques a month" is under-counting by $5,008 a year.
Idaho uses Form ID W-4, and because the state standard deduction matches the federal one, a correctly completed federal W-4 translates across more cleanly here than in most states. That is a small convenience of matching the federal figure and worth knowing if you have been filling both in blind.
Withholding is an estimate, not the tax. Over-withholding produces a refund; under-withholding a bill.
5. The $10 that is not a local tax
No Idaho county, city or school district levies a tax on personal income. Form 40 has no local income tax line, no locality field and no local schedule.
There is exactly one non-income add-on on the return, and it is worth naming so it is not mistaken for one. Line 31 carries a flat $10 Permanent Building Fund tax — a fixed dollar levy on filers, not a rate on income, funding state building maintenance and construction.
It is $10. It is deliberately not modelled as a local rate in the figures above, because it is not a rate and it is not local. But it appears on every Idaho return and someone reading their form for the first time deserves to know what it is.
Idaho local government revenue comes from property tax and from the local option sales tax that some resort communities are authorised to levy — Sun Valley, Ketchum, McCall and a handful of others. Those are sales taxes on lodging and retail, not taxes on residents' income.
An Idaho take-home figure needs no local asterisk, which is a genuine simplification relative to Oregon next door, where local transit taxes apply, or Washington, where the question has been litigated.
6. Retirement: the deduction that does not reach your 401(k)
This is the standard Idaho error and it is expensive to get wrong.
Social Security is fully exempt. No threshold, no phase-out, no age condition. Idaho begins from federal AGI, so any federally taxable portion of benefits enters the Idaho base and is then subtracted under Idaho Code 63-3022(l), claimed on Form 39R Part B.
Everything else is where it goes wrong.
Idaho's retirement benefits deduction is granted by NAMED SYSTEM, not by age and not by account type. The list is short:
- Federal Civil Service retirement annuities
- Foreign Service retirement annuities
- Benefits from the State of Idaho firefighters' retirement fund
- Idaho city police officer retirement benefits paid from a city fund or the public employee retirement system
- United States military retirement
A private-sector 401(k) does not appear on that list. Neither does a traditional IRA, a 403(b), or a private pension.
| Source | Idaho treatment |
|---|---|
| Social Security | Exempt in full |
| Federal Civil Service annuity (age 65+) | Partial exclusion |
| Idaho firefighter or city police retirement | Partial exclusion |
| Military retirement | Partial exclusion |
| Private pension | Fully taxed at 5.3% |
| 401(k), 403(b), traditional IRA | Fully taxed at 5.3% |
There is no age at which a 401(k) becomes deductible in Idaho. Not 59½, not 65, not 70. The deduction is a list of systems, and your account is not on it.
| Retirement income, single | Idaho tax |
|---|---|
| $40,000 all Social Security | $0 |
| $40,000 all 401(k) withdrawals | About $1,134 |
| $70,000 — $30,000 SS + $40,000 401(k) | About $1,134 |
Why this matters for anyone comparing Idaho with its neighbours. Montana taxes 401(k) distributions too. But Utah's taxpayer credit reaches them, Oregon has no exclusion either, and Washington, Wyoming and Nevada take nothing at all. A retiree with a large 401(k) balance and no public pension is in one of Idaho's least favourable positions, and it is the position an increasing share of retirees are in.
The public-versus-private split here is not the usual one. Most states that favour public pensions do so broadly. Idaho names four specific systems and a federal one, so an Idaho state employee outside those systems gets nothing either — the label "public pension exclusion" overstates what is actually on offer.
7. Where Idaho ranks
At $85,000, Idaho's $3,519 is twenty-fourth of the 41 income-tax states — just above the midpoint.
| State | Tax on $85,000 |
|---|---|
| Montana | $3,442 |
| Georgia | $3,493 |
| Idaho | $3,519 |
| Wisconsin | $3,537 |
| California | $3,660 |
| Utah | $3,685 |
Against its six neighbours:
| Salary | ID | MT | UT | OR | WA / WY / NV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $30,000 | $604 | $653 | $522 | $2,051 | $0 |
| $45,000 | $1,399 | $1,358 | $1,385 | $3,364 | $0 |
| $85,000 | $3,519 | $3,442 | $3,685 | $6,864 | $0 |
| $175,000 | $8,289 | $8,527 | $7,788 | $15,280 | $0 |
Idaho, Montana and Utah are within $250 of each other at $85,000, which is a striking amount of convergence for three states with quite different structures — a two-bracket schedule, a two-bracket schedule with different thresholds, and a flat rate with a phasing credit.
Oregon is the outlier by a wide margin, taking roughly double what Idaho does at every level. For anyone in the Boise–Ontario or Lewiston–Clarkston border areas, that is the comparison worth running: Oregon has no sales tax and a much heavier income tax, Idaho the reverse.
Washington, Wyoming and Nevada all take nothing, so Idaho's $3,519 at $85,000 is the full cost of the border. Against Washington in particular — a short drive from north Idaho — it is a real number, offset by Washington's higher housing costs in the Spokane-adjacent corridor and by its sales tax.
8. What Idaho charges besides income tax
Sales tax applies at a single statewide rate, with resort communities permitted a local option on top. Idaho is one of the states that taxes groceries rather than exempting them — but it offsets that with a grocery tax credit claimed on the income tax return, a per-person amount intended to refund the tax on a basic food budget.
That credit mechanism is unusual and worth understanding. Taxing groceries and refunding the tax through a flat per-person credit is more progressive than exempting groceries outright, because the credit is the same dollars for everyone while an exemption is worth more to whoever spends more on food. It also means you have to file to get it, which is a real barrier for people who otherwise would not.
Property tax is comparatively modest. Idaho's effective rates on owner-occupied housing sit below the national middle, and the state's homeowner's exemption removes a portion of a primary residence's value from the taxable base.
Taken together: a moderate income tax, a moderate sales tax with a grocery credit, and below-average property tax. Idaho's overall burden is unremarkable — which is a change from a decade ago, and a large part of why its population has grown as fast as it has.
9. What you can control
Pre-tax deferrals save 5.3% at state level on top of your federal rate. A $10,000 traditional 401(k) contribution saves an $85,000 earner $2,200 federally plus $530 in Idaho tax.
But read section 6 first. That deferral is taxed at 5.3% when it comes out, because Idaho grants no 401(k) exclusion at any age. In Idaho a traditional deferral genuinely defers rather than avoids the state tax — where in Georgia, Colorado or Louisiana the same money can come out under a retirement exclusion and never face state tax at all.
That makes the Roth case relatively stronger in Idaho. Forgo the 5.3% deduction now and the money leaves the state tax system permanently, rather than reappearing in it at 5.3% thirty years later.
HSA contributions through payroll cut federal tax, Idaho tax and FICA. On $4,400 that is roughly $968 federal, $233 Idaho and $337 FICA — about $1,538, or 35% of the amount contributed.
Capital gains: read the fine print. Idaho taxes long-term gains as ordinary income at 5.3%, because it begins from federal AGI, which includes net capital gain in full. Idaho does have a 60% capital gains deduction — but it applies to gains on qualifying Idaho property, chiefly real property and certain tangible personal property used in an Idaho business, not to a portfolio of shares. Reading it as a general capital gains break is the common mistake.
If you are moving to Idaho with a large 401(k) balance, the retirement position in section 6 should feature in the decision. It is the least favourable part of Idaho's tax code and the one most likely to matter over a thirty-year retirement.
Frequently asked questions
What is Idaho's income tax rate? Two brackets: 0% on the first $2,500 of taxable income and 5.3% above it. In practice it behaves as a flat 5.3% above a zero-tax threshold of $18,600 of salary for a single filer.
What is take-home pay on $85,000 in Idaho? $65,108 for a single filer taking the standard deduction, after $9,870 federal income tax, $6,503 FICA and $3,519 Idaho income tax.
Why is my effective Idaho rate below 5.3%? Because the $16,100 standard deduction and the $2,500 zero bracket come off first. At $85,000 the effective rate is 4.14%; at $30,000 it is 2.01%.
Does Idaho tax Social Security? No. Benefits are fully exempt with no threshold, no phase-out and no age condition, subtracted on Form 39R Part B.
Does Idaho tax my 401(k) or IRA? Yes, in full at 5.3%, at every age. Idaho's retirement benefits deduction is granted by named system — federal Civil Service and Foreign Service annuities, Idaho firefighter and city police retirement, and military retirement — and a private-sector 401(k), 403(b) or IRA is not on the list.
Can an Idaho city or county tax my income? No. The only non-income item on Form 40 is a flat $10 Permanent Building Fund tax, which is a fixed dollar levy rather than a rate. Resort communities may levy a local option sales tax, but not an income tax.
Does Idaho have a capital gains break? Not a general one. Long-term gains are taxed as ordinary income at 5.3%. Idaho's 60% capital gains deduction applies to qualifying Idaho property — chiefly real property and certain business tangible property — not to a share portfolio.
How does Idaho compare with Oregon? Oregon takes roughly double at every income level — $6,864 against $3,519 at $85,000. Oregon has no sales tax and a much heavier income tax; Idaho the reverse.
What to do next
Idaho's paycheck answer is simple: one rate above a federal-sized floor, no local layer. The complicated part is retirement, and it is worth understanding before you plan around it.
- Idaho take-home pay calculator — your salary with every deduction shown separately.
- Your Paycheck in the USA in 2026 — all fifty states on one salary.
- Take-Home Pay in Washington — the no-income-tax neighbour to the north-west.
- Take-Home Pay in Wyoming — the no-income-tax neighbour to the east.
- 50/30/20 budget calculator — built on take-home rather than salary.
Every figure on this site is sourced and dated. How we source every number.
Figures in this article are illustrations computed by this site's own tax engine for tax year 2026, on a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependents or pre-tax deferrals unless stated. Federal figures come from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 and the Social Security Administration; Idaho's rate, deduction, retirement rules and capital gains treatment from this site's sourced 50-state dataset, citing Idaho Code Title 63 chapter 30 and the Idaho State Tax Commission. The $10 Permanent Building Fund tax, the grocery tax credit, sales tax and property tax are discussed qualitatively rather than computed. This is general education and not tax advice; consult a licensed tax professional for your own situation.