Retiring in Texas

Every figure below is sourced to Texas’s own publications and dated. Estimates only, and not tax advice.

Retirement tax by state

What your state actually takes from a 401(k) withdrawal, a pension, and Social Security — in dollars, not a yes/no list.

Brokerage account growth

Long-term index-fund growth after expense-ratio drag — and what your state takes from the gains at withdrawal.

Roth vs. Traditional

Decided on the two rates that actually govern it — yours now, and yours at withdrawal, in the state you'll retire in rather than the one you're in.

Contribution limit optimizer

2026 limits, employer match, the 60-63 super catch-up, and whether the Roth catch-up mandate applies to you.

Required minimum distribution

When your RMDs start under SECURE 2.0, how much this year's is, and what missing it costs.

Backdoor Roth pro-rata

What a backdoor Roth conversion would actually cost you in tax — the pro-rata rule most calculators only describe.

Self-directed IRA real estate (UDFI)

The tax a leveraged rental owes inside a self-directed IRA — computed at trust rates, not the rate you'd assume.

Texas at a glance

Texas has no state income tax, so none of your retirement income — 401(k) and IRA withdrawals, pensions, or Social Security — is taxed at the state level. Federal tax is a separate matter these pages do not model.

  • Texas has no individual income tax, and since November 5, 2019 Article VIII, Section 24-a of the Texas Constitution has forbidden the legislature from imposing one. That is a materially stronger guarantee than the statutory absence found in most no-income-tax states: reinstating a Texas income tax would require a constitutional amendment approved by voters, not an ordinary bill.
  • Texas voters have since extended the prohibition to two adjacent tax bases: Article VIII, Section 25 (added November 7, 2023) prohibits a wealth or net worth tax, and Article VIII, Section 24-b (added November 4, 2025) prohibits a tax on realized or unrealized capital gains.
  • The trade-off is not free and should not be presented as though it were: Texas funds local government primarily through property tax, and its effective property tax rates are among the highest in the country. A household comparing Texas with an income-tax state is trading one levy for another, not escaping taxation.