Updated August 6, 2026. Quick answer: there is no best state to retire in, and this page will not rank them. What it does is show every state on every dimension that matters, separately — because the state that is best for a pension is not the state that is best for an estate, and blending them into one score would hide exactly the trade-off you are trying to see.
Why there is no score
A single “retirement friendliness” number requires weights — how much income tax matters against estate tax, against probate cost. Those weights are editorial judgements wearing arithmetic, and they differ for every reader: a renter with a pension and no estate has almost nothing in common with an owner with a taxable estate and no pension.
So the matrix is the scorecard. Read the column you care about. The honest form of the question is “best state FOR X”, never “best state”.
Income tax and Social Security
9 states levy no income tax at all: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming.
And the fact that surprises most people: Eight jurisdictions tax Social Security benefits in some circumstance — Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah and Vermont. The other 43 do not tax them at all. Seven of the eight exempt the benefits entirely below an income threshold, so most retirees in those states still pay nothing on them; Montana is the exception, taxing whatever portion is taxable federally. New Mexico’s exemption is a hard cliff at $100,000 of AGI (single) and $150,000 (joint), not a phase-out. “Moving somewhere that does not tax Social Security” is therefore a much weaker reason to move than it sounds, because you are almost certainly already in one.
13 states exempt defined-benefit pension income outright, which is a far more selective benefit and matters enormously if you have one.
Estate and inheritance tax
13 jurisdictions levy an estate tax: Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington. Thresholds vary by an order of magnitude and several are not indexed, so they tighten every year without legislation — the thresholds in full.
5 levy an inheritance tax, charged to the recipient by relationship rather than to the estate: Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Iowa is no longer among them — its tax is repealed for deaths on or after 1 January 2025, and a great deal of published writing has not caught up. The by-state detail, and why the relationship classes matter more than the rates.
Maryland is the only state that levies both.
Probate
The dimension most comparisons omit entirely, because it is not a tax. Probate cost and process vary by state model, and for many estates it is a larger number than any state death tax — what probate costs by state, and where it can be skipped altogether.
The matrix
Every state, every dimension, with a per-state anchor so a single row can be linked directly. This is a static reference. To model your own move between two specific states, use the comparison tool — it does the personalised arithmetic this table deliberately does not.
| State | Income tax | Social Security | Pension exempt | Estate tax | Inheritance tax | Probate model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | graduated to 5% (3 brackets: 2%/4%/5%) | not taxed | — | — | — | hybrid |
| Alaska | none | not taxed | yes | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Arizona | flat 2.5% | not taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Arkansas | graduated to 3.9% (2 brackets: 2%/3.9%) | not taxed | — | — | — | statutory-percentage |
| California | graduated to 13.3% (plus existing 1% mental health surtax included in that top rate; | not taxed | — | — | — | statutory-percentage |
| Colorado | flat 4.4% | taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Connecticut | graduated to 6.99% (6 brackets, 2%-6.99%) | taxed | — | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| Delaware | graduated to 6.6% (6 brackets, 2.2%-6.6%) | not taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| District of Columbia | graduated to 10.75% (7 brackets, 4%-10.75%) | not taxed | — | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| Florida | none | not taxed | yes | — | — | statutory-percentage |
| Georgia | Flat 4.99% (HB 463, signed May 11, 2026, cut the rate retroactively to January 1, 2026; | not taxed | — | — | — | hybrid |
| Hawaii | graduated to 11% (12 brackets, 1.4%-11%) | not taxed | — | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| Idaho | flat 5.3% (cut from 5.695% by HB 40, 2025) | not taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Illinois | flat 4.95% | not taxed | yes | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| Indiana | flat 2.95% for 2026 (down from 3% in 2025; | not taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Iowa | flat 3.8% (SF 2442, effective TY2025; | not taxed | yes | — | — | statutory-percentage |
| Kansas | graduated, 2 brackets: 5.2% / 5.58% (top bracket starts at $23,000 single / $46,000 joint) | not taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Kentucky | flat 3.5% for 2026 (cut from 4% by HB 1, signed Feb 2025, via 2022 trigger mechanism) | not taxed | — | — | yes | hybrid |
| Louisiana | flat 3% (Act 11, 2024 Third Extraordinary Session, effective TY2025) | not taxed | — | — | — | hybrid |
| Maine | graduated to 7.15% (3 brackets, 5.8%-7.15%) | not taxed | — | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| Maryland | graduated to 6.5% (10 brackets; | not taxed | — | yes | yes | hybrid |
| Massachusetts | flat 5% plus 4% surtax on taxable income over ~$1,107,750 (2026, indexed) — effectively 2 brackets (5%/9%) | not taxed | — | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| Michigan | flat 4.25% | not taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Minnesota | graduated to 9.85% (4 brackets, 5.35%-9.85%) | taxed | — | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| Mississippi | flat 4% for 2026 (final cut under prior schedule; | not taxed | yes | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Missouri | graduated to 4.7% (top rate, after trigger reductions; | not taxed | — | — | — | statutory-percentage |
| Montana | graduated, 2 brackets: 4.7% / 5.65% for 2026 (top rate cut from 5.9% by HB 337; | taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Nebraska | graduated, 2.46% to 4.55% top rate for TY2026 (LB 754 of 2023 schedule; | not taxed | — | — | yes | reasonable-fee |
| Nevada | none | not taxed | yes | — | — | statutory-percentage |
| New Hampshire | none (Interest & Dividends Tax repealed for taxable periods beginning after 12/31/2024) | not taxed | yes | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| New Jersey | graduated, 1.4% to 10.75% top rate | not taxed | — | — | yes | hybrid |
| New Mexico | graduated, 1.5% to 5.9% top rate (bracket structure restructured effective TY2025 by HB 252 of 2024) | taxed above $100k single / $150k joint AGI | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| New York | graduated, ~4% to 10.9% top rate (top 10.9% bracket in effect through 2027; | not taxed | — | yes | — | hybrid |
| North Carolina | flat 3.99% for TY2026 (down from 4.25% in 2025 per S.L. | not taxed | — | — | — | hybrid |
| North Dakota | graduated, three brackets: 0%, 1.95%, 2.5% top rate (HB 1158, 2023) | not taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Ohio | flat 2.75% for TY2026 on income over $26,050 (0% below); | not taxed | — | — | — | hybrid |
| Oklahoma | graduated, top rate 4.5% for TY2026 (HB 2764, 2025: cut from 4.75% and consolidated brackets; | not taxed | — | — | — | hybrid |
| Oregon | graduated, 4.75% to 9.9% top rate | not taxed | — | yes | — | hybrid |
| Pennsylvania | flat 3.07% | not taxed | yes | — | yes | reasonable-fee |
| Rhode Island | graduated, 3.75% / 4.75% / 5.99%; | taxed | — | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| South Carolina | restructured for TY2026 by H.4216 (signed March 30, 2026): 1.99% on income under $30,000; | not taxed | — | — | — | hybrid |
| South Dakota | none | not taxed | yes | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Tennessee | none (Hall tax on interest/dividends fully repealed as of TY2021) | not taxed | yes | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Texas | none (constitutionally prohibited since 2019 amendment) | not taxed | yes | — | — | hybrid |
| Utah | flat 4.45% for TY2026 (SB 60, 2026 session; | taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Vermont | graduated, 3.35% to 8.75% top rate | taxed | — | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| Virginia | graduated, 2% to 5.75% top rate (top bracket starts at $17,000) | not taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Washington | none on wages or retirement income (state levies a 7% excise on long-term capital gains above an inflation-adjusted deduction (~$270k+), plus a 2.9% surtax on gains over $1M enacted 2025 – retirement- | not taxed | yes | yes | — | reasonable-fee |
| West Virginia | graduated; | not taxed | — | — | — | reasonable-fee |
| Wisconsin | graduated, four brackets 3.5% to 7.65% top rate (2025 Act 15 widened the 4.4% second bracket) | not taxed | — | — | — | hybrid |
| Wyoming | none | not taxed | yes | — | — | statutory-percentage |
Methods
No composite score, and no ranking. Each cell is a factual property of a state’s law. There are no weights because we would have to invent them.
Every dimension comes from data this site already publishes — the same dataset behind the comparison tool, cross-checked against our claims register. No new research was done for this page. The estate-tax count here (13) is the count of jurisdictions with a published threshold, and it reconciles exactly with the 13 state estate-exemption figures carried in our register.
Sources
Per-state statutory citations sit on the pages linked above; figures are carried in this site’s claims register with retrieval dates. Read 2026-08-06. Free to reuse with attribution — our research.
Honest gaps. Income-tax treatment is summarised at the top-rate level; brackets, credits and local taxes are not modelled here. Probate is shown as a model rather than a cost, because cost depends on estate size and county. Several estate thresholds are not indexed and tighten annually. This table describes law, not your outcome.
See methodology and corrections. General information about published law, not tax or legal advice. No advertising appears on this page.