Virginia income tax rates and brackets for 2026

Virginia taxes income at four rates: 2%, 3%, 5% and 5.75%. Each rate applies only to the part of your Virginia taxable income that falls inside its bracket, and the top rate of 5.75% applies to taxable income above $17,000. The brackets are written into the Code of Virginia, § 58.1-320, and have not changed since 1990, so the 2026 schedule on Virginia Tax’s Form 760ES is the same as the one for 2025.

There is one schedule for every filing status, so a married couple filing jointly reaches the 5.75% rate at the same $17,000 as a single filer. To make up for that, a couple filing jointly in which both spouses have taxable income can claim the Spouse Tax Adjustment, worth up to $259 on a 2025 return, so that the joint return costs no more than two separate ones would.

Virginia Tax’s own example, from its 2025 instructions: on $90,000 of taxable income the tax is $720 on the first $17,000 plus 5.75% of the other $73,000, or $4,917.50, which rounds to $4,918, about 5.5% of taxable income. Cities and counties cannot add an income tax on top: the Code of Virginia says no county, city, town or other political subdivision “shall impose any tax or levy upon incomes.”

For 2026, as for 2025, Virginia’s standard deduction is $8,750 for a single filer or a married person filing separately and $17,500 for a married couple filing jointly. On top of that, Virginia subtracts personal exemptions of $930 each for you, your spouse and each dependent, and another $800 for each filer who is 65 or older and for each who is blind. The standard deduction was due to fall back to $3,000 and $6,000 after 2026; the 2026 Appropriation Act instead raises it to $9,200 for single filers and $18,400 for joint filers in 2027, and to $9,300 and $18,600 in 2028 and 2029.

You must use the same method as on your federal return: the standard deduction in Virginia if you took it federally, or Virginia Schedule A if you itemized. Virginia’s Schedule A starts from the federal one but takes out the state and local income taxes you deducted and allows real and personal property taxes in full. On 2025 returns it also counted medical expenses only above 10% of federal AGI, the federal cap on state and local taxes made no difference for most itemizers, and Virginia’s own overall limit on itemized deductions applied only above federal AGI of $332,700, or $399,200 on a joint return.

Filers 65 and older can also take an age deduction of up to $12,000 each for 2025 and 2026. Anyone born on or before January 1, 1939 gets the full amount. For everyone else it shrinks by $1 for each $1 of adjusted federal AGI, which is federal AGI minus taxable Social Security and Tier 1 railroad benefits, above $50,000 for a single filer or $75,000 for a married couple, counting both spouses’ income even on separate returns. On 2025 returns it covered filers born on or before January 1, 1961. It cannot be combined with the disability income subtraction, and claiming it rules out the Virginia earned income credit and the low-income credit.

No. Virginia does not tax Social Security benefits. Virginia Tax says state law exempts Social Security and Tier 1 Railroad Retirement benefits, so whatever part of your benefits was taxable on your federal return is subtracted on the Virginia return, on line 5 of the 2025 Form 760. Taxable Social Security is also left out of the income test for the age deduction.

Other retirement income is taxed. Virginia has no general subtraction for pensions, annuities or IRA and 401(k) withdrawals, so for filers 65 and older the age deduction is the main break on that income. The narrower subtractions cover retirement income from contributions another state already taxed, Tier 2 railroad retirement benefits, and the military retirement pay of Medal of Honor recipients.

Military retirees get more. For 2025 and later years, Virginia lets you subtract up to $40,000 a year of military benefits, at any age: military retirement pay, and Survivor Benefit Plan and other military benefits paid to a veteran’s surviving spouse. On a joint return, each spouse who receives military benefits can subtract up to $40,000. Active-duty pay and several other kinds of income have their own subtractions for 2025 and 2026, listed below.

You must file a Virginia return for 2025 or 2026 if your Virginia adjusted gross income, which is federal AGI plus Virginia additions minus Virginia subtractions, is $11,950 or more as a single filer or a married person filing separately, or $23,900 or more combined on a joint return. The same thresholds apply to nonresidents, measured on their whole income, if any of it came from Virginia sources. Below them you owe no Virginia tax, but you still have to file to get back tax that was withheld or paid in estimates.

Virginia starts from your federal return: line 1 of Form 760 is your federal adjusted gross income. Virginia has three filing statuses, single, married filing jointly and married filing separately, and a head of household files as single and fills in the head of household oval. You are a resident, taxed on all your income wherever it comes from, if Virginia is your domicile, or if you live in Virginia or keep a place of abode there for more than 183 days of the year. A couple in which one spouse is a resident and the other a nonresident can file jointly only if both choose to be taxed as residents.

If you move into or out of Virginia during the year, you are a part-year resident and usually file Form 760PY. It taxes what you received while a resident and subtracts the income from the rest of the year; the standard deduction is prorated by the share of your federal AGI received as a resident, and exemptions by the days you lived in Virginia. Leaving takes more than a move: Virginia Tax says moving out and returning within six months generally shows no intent to make another state home, and a Virginian who takes a job abroad stays a resident until establishing domicile in another state.

Virginia returns are due May 1, not April 15, and a due date that falls on a weekend or holiday moves to the next business day. For 2026 returns, May 1, 2027 is a Saturday, so the return and any tax owed are due Monday, May 3, 2027. If you are living or traveling outside the United States and Puerto Rico on the due date, you have until July 1 to file, with a statement explaining why; Virginia Tax says civilians abroad must still pay by the May due date.

Every filer gets an automatic six-month extension to file, to November 1, with no form to send. It is not more time to pay: pay at least 90% of your tax by the original due date, online or with Form 760IP if you pay by check. If the tax still due with an extended return is more than 10% of your total tax, Virginia adds an extension penalty of 2% a month, up to 12%, plus interest, and a return filed more than six months late owes a 30% late filing penalty. For 2025 returns on extension, November 1, 2026 is a Sunday, so the deadline is Monday, November 2, 2026.

From 2026, you must pay estimated tax, or have more withheld, if you expect your Virginia tax after withholding and credits to be more than $1,000; for 2025 the trigger was $150. To avoid the addition to tax for underpaying, withholding and estimates generally need to cover the smaller of 90% of this year’s tax or 100% of last year’s.

Virginia’s earned income tax credit is 20% of your federal earned income credit. For 2025 and 2026 it is refundable, so it can be paid to you even if you owe no Virginia tax, and Virginia Tax reports that the 2026 Appropriation Act extended it through 2029. Only full-year residents get the refundable credit; part-year residents and nonresidents cannot claim it.

The alternative is the credit for low-income individuals: $300 for each person on the return if your family’s Virginia adjusted gross income, counting your spouse and dependents, is no more than the federal poverty guidelines, which on 2025 returns meant $15,650 for one person and $32,150 for four. It only reduces tax you owe. You can claim one of these credits, not both, and neither is allowed if anyone on the return claims the age deduction, the extra exemption for age or blindness, or the subtraction for military basic pay, Virginia National Guard pay or a federal or state salary of $15,000 or less.

If you are a Virginia resident and pay income tax to another state on wages, business income or a capital gain, Schedule OSC gives a credit of up to the Virginia tax on that income; file it with a copy of the other state’s return. For income from Arizona, California or Oregon, you claim the credit on that state’s nonresident return instead. Virginia allows no credit for tax paid to the District of Columbia, or on wages that Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania or West Virginia exempt; you ask that jurisdiction to refund its withholding. Nor is there a credit for tax paid to a city or county, or to another country except on foreign pension income.

The July 2025 tax law (Public Law 119-21) created federal deductions, for 2025 through 2028, for qualified tips, overtime pay, interest on loans for new personal vehicles, and an extra $6,000 for people 65 and older. Virginia does not allow any of them. The IRS has filers claim them on the new Schedule 1-A, where they reduce taxable income rather than adjusted gross income, and the Virginia return starts from federal adjusted gross income, so they never reach it.

The General Assembly did act on the rest of the law. Legislation enacted February 20, 2026 replaced Virginia’s suspended rolling conformity with a fixed date: Virginia now follows the Internal Revenue Code as it stood on December 31, 2025, which brings in most of the 2025 law’s changes to federal adjusted gross income and itemized deductions. Virginia did not adopt some business provisions, including immediate expensing of qualified production property and of domestic research costs, and the higher expensing limits for certain business assets.

Virginia Tax told the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee in September 2025 that the tips, overtime and car loan deductions would need Virginia-specific legislation, and its July 2026 summary of the 2026 sessions lists no such law. So on 2025 and 2026 Virginia returns, tips and overtime pay stay taxable, car loan interest is not deductible, and there is no extra senior deduction beyond Virginia’s own age deduction and $800 exemption. The same goes for the federal deduction, starting with 2026, of up to $1,000 of cash gifts to charity, or $2,000 on a joint return, for people who do not itemize.

Virginia has reciprocity with the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. If you live in one of them, your only Virginia income is salary or wages, and your home state taxes that pay, Virginia does not tax it and you do not file a Virginia return. The conditions differ: residents of DC and Kentucky must commute to Virginia daily and have no place of abode in Virginia, while residents of Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia must be in Virginia 183 days or less in the year and keep no abode there, such as a house or apartment.

To keep Virginia tax out of your paycheck, give your employer Form VA-4 claiming the exemption, and give a new one every year. If tax was withheld anyway, file Form 763-S by the May 1 due date to get it back; spouses who both had tax withheld file one each. The exemption covers only salaries and wages, so rent from Virginia property, business income or a gain on Virginia real estate still goes on a nonresident Form 763.

It works the other way too. Virginia Tax says a Virginian who works in DC without becoming a DC resident pays income tax only to Virginia; that covers individual income tax, not DC’s unincorporated business franchise tax. Virginians who commute daily to Kentucky, or who work in Maryland, Pennsylvania or West Virginia under the same 183-day and no-abode conditions with only wage income there, are exempt in that state, and if it withholds its tax anyway, you ask it for a refund rather than claiming a Virginia credit.