New Jersey income tax rates and brackets: 1.4% to 10.75%

What are the New Jersey income tax rates?

New Jersey income tax rates are 1.4%, 1.75%, 2.45%, 3.5%, 5.525%, 6.37%, 8.97% and 10.75%. The 2.45% rate exists only for married couples filing jointly, heads of household and qualifying widow(er)s, so single filers have seven brackets and everyone else has eight. Residents report the tax on Form NJ-1040, New Jersey Resident Return.

New Jersey calls its tax the Gross Income Tax, and the name is a clue: it does not start from federal adjusted gross income. It builds its own total from categories of income, subtracts New Jersey exemptions and a few New Jersey deductions, and applies the rates to what remains. For a broader comparison with other states, see state income tax rates.

NJ tax brackets by filing status

The NJ tax brackets below come from the Division of Taxation's current rate schedules, labeled "2020 and After". Each schedule gives a multiply-and-subtract shortcut: multiply your New Jersey taxable income by the rate for your bracket, then subtract the amount shown. The result equals the tax you would get by adding up each bracket separately.

Tax table under $100,000, rate schedule above it

If your New Jersey taxable income is under $100,000, the NJ-1040 booklet tells you to look up the tax in the New Jersey Tax Table, which lists tax in $50 income bands. At $100,000 or more you must use the rate schedules above. The two methods land within a few dollars of each other.

The brackets are not indexed for inflation. The $75,000 point where single filers move from 5.525% to 6.37% has not moved since the schedule took effect, which differs from the federal system explained in how tax brackets work, where the IRS resets the thresholds every year.

Exemptions and deductions that lower New Jersey income tax

New Jersey has no standard deduction. Instead, the 2025 Form NJ-1040 instructions list fixed exemptions on lines 6 through 12, and these amounts are written into law rather than adjusted each year.

Property Tax Deduction

Homeowners and renters whose home was their main residence can take either a Property Tax Deduction of up to $15,000 of property taxes paid ($7,500 for married couples filing separately who share a home) or a Property Tax Credit. Worksheet H in the NJ-1040 instructions compares the two and tells you which one saves more. For most middle-income homeowners the deduction wins, because it is taken against income taxed at 5.525% or 6.37%.

Pension and retirement income exclusion

Residents age 62 or older, or disabled, can exclude pension, annuity and IRA income on line 28a. The maximum is $100,000 for a joint return, $75,000 for single, head of household and qualifying widow(er), and $50,000 for married filing separately when total income is $100,000 or less. It shrinks to a percentage of that limit between $100,001 and $150,000 and disappears above $150,000.

Does New Jersey have local income taxes?

No. New Jersey counties and municipalities do not charge a personal income tax on residents, and Form NJ-1040 has no line for one. Local governments in New Jersey are funded mainly through property taxes, which is why the Property Tax Deduction and the Property Tax Credit carry so much weight on the state return.

Commuters are the exception worth knowing. A New Jersey resident who works in New York City does not pay the city's resident income tax, but does pay New York State tax as a nonresident and then claims a credit on Schedule NJ-COJ for income taxes paid to another jurisdiction. The New York income tax rates page covers the New York side of that return.

Did New Jersey change its income tax rates for 2026?

No rate change has been made for 2026. As of September 2026, the rate schedule on the Division of Taxation's tax tables page is still the one labeled "2020 and After", which first applied to tax year 2020 when the 10.75% rate began at $1,000,000 instead of $5,000,000.

The 2026 Form NJ-1040 and its instructions are usually posted in January 2027, so treat any 2026 figure not listed above as not yet announced. Because the exemptions and brackets are fixed dollar amounts, the main year-to-year changes tend to be new credits and income limits rather than new rates.

Worked example: New Jersey income tax on $85,000

Take a single New Jersey homeowner with $85,000 of wages, no other income, no dependents and $9,000 of property tax paid on the home. The steps below follow the NJ-1040 order using the Table A rate schedule; the tax table would give a figure a few dollars different.

1. New Jersey gross income: $85,000 of wages.
2. Subtract the $1,000 regular exemption: $84,000.
3. Subtract the Property Tax Deduction of $9,000 (less than the $15,000 cap): $75,000 taxable income.
4. Apply Table A for the $40,000 to $75,000 band: $75,000 x 5.525% = $4,143.75.
5. Subtract $1,492.50: New Jersey tax of $2,651.25.

Without the Property Tax Deduction, taxable income would be $84,000, which falls in the 6.37% band: $84,000 x 6.37% minus $2,126.25 equals $3,224.55. The deduction saves $573.30, which is why it should not be skipped. On the federal side, the same property tax counts toward the SALT deduction cap if you itemize.

The effective New Jersey rate here is about 3.1% of wages, well under the 5.525% marginal rate. A household in a flat-rate state such as Illinois would pay a single rate on nearly every dollar, so the comparison depends heavily on income level.