510,000 Retirement Monte Carlo Paths Across All 51 U.S. Jurisdictions: The State-Tax Cost of Retirement in 2026

Name: 51-State Retirement Monte Carlo Results 2026
Creator: QuantCalc Research
Published: 2026-05-12
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords: retirement, Monte Carlo simulation, state income tax, Roth conversion, IRMAA, retirement success rate

Which states are best and worst for retirement taxes, on a full Monte Carlo plan?

Lowest: the 16 jurisdictions where this couple's median state income tax is $0 in every year — the 9 with no income tax, plus Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota and Pennsylvania. On the planner's median path they pay $162,597 of federal income tax and Medicare IRMAA surcharges over 30 years, and no state tax. Highest: Oregon $309,718 ($146,914 of it state tax); Maryland $293,936 ($130,740 of it state tax); Massachusetts $272,613 ($109,984 of it state tax); Indiana $271,227 ($108,552 of it state tax); Kansas $262,883 ($98,769 of it state tax). Every jurisdiction's success rate lands between 80.61% and 84.05%, a 3.44-percentage-point spread: for this couple the state changes the tax bill far more than the odds of the money lasting. One married couple, both 60, $2,000,000, 60/40, $80,000 a year to spend after tax for 30 years, run through QuantCalc's planner 10,000 times in each of the 51 jurisdictions (v2026.3, 2026-10-12).

Key numbers — each row links to the section that carries the full table.

Key number	Value	Where on this page
Lowest median lifetime tax (federal + state income tax and IRMAA, 30 years)	$162,597 — 16 jurisdictions tie	No state tax
Highest median lifetime tax — Oregon	$309,718	Highest 10
Most state income tax over 30 years — Oregon	$146,914	Full ranking
Success-rate range across all 51	80.61%–84.05% (3.44 pp)	Full ranking
Jurisdictions where this couple pays no state income tax	16 of 51	No state tax
Simulated retirements	510,000 paths (10,000 per jurisdiction, 30 years)	Methodology

Headline finding: identical couple, identical portfolio, identical after-tax spending. In Oregon the planner's median path pays $309,718 of income tax and IRMAA over 30 years — $147,121 more than in the 16 jurisdictions that charge this couple no state tax. The success rate moves much less: 80.61% to 84.05% across all 51.

This study was re-run on 2026-10-12 (v2026.3), and every figure changed. Earlier versions priced tax with a shortcut: a flat 13% federal rate on 70% of each withdrawal and 75% of each state's top bracket rate. QuantCalc's own tax engines disagree by multiples. The shortcut charged New York $4,578 of state tax a year; the planner charges this couple $1,366 in its first year and $60,156 over 30 years. It charged California $154,980 over 30 years; the planner, $31,115. The study now runs the planner itself, so its answer is the one the calculator gives. What moved is in the changelog.

The 16 jurisdictions that charge this couple no state income tax

The 9 jurisdictions with no income tax, plus Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota and Pennsylvania, where the couple's median state income tax is $0 in every one of the 30 years. With no state tax in view the planner makes the same choices in each, so the 16 share one result: $162,597 of median lifetime tax, 84.05% success.

Rank	Jurisdiction	Median lifetime tax (30y)	State income tax (30y)	State tax, first year	Success rate	Median balance at 90
1 (tied, 16)	Alaska	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Florida	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Illinois	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Iowa	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Maine	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Michigan	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Mississippi	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Nevada	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	New Hampshire	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	North Dakota	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Pennsylvania	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	South Dakota	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Tennessee	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Texas	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Washington	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Wyoming	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150

The 10 highest-tax jurisdictions for this couple

Rank	Jurisdiction	Median lifetime tax (30y)	State income tax (30y)	State tax, first year	Success rate	Median balance at 90
51	Oregon	$309,718	$146,914	$5,838	80.61%	$1,801,272
50	Maryland	$293,936	$130,740	$6,122	80.98%	$1,835,682
49	Massachusetts	$272,613	$109,984	$4,090	81.55%	$1,899,750
48	Indiana	$271,227	$108,552	$4,168	81.57%	$1,902,105
47	Kansas	$262,883	$98,769	$3,352	81.89%	$1,933,080
46	Alabama	$256,225	$92,709	$3,705	81.96%	$1,940,393
45	District of Columbia	$245,365	$83,152	$3,174	82.18%	$1,964,215
44	Minnesota	$242,498	$80,629	$3,153	82.21%	$1,968,316
43	West Virginia	$240,108	$78,098	$3,118	82.29%	$1,977,343
42	Delaware	$230,767	$67,301	$1,931	82.68%	$2,009,680

A state's top rate is a poor guide to what this couple pays: the planner prices their actual return, so deductions, exemptions, retirement-income exclusions and the lower brackets all apply, and the planner chooses withdrawals and Roth conversions with the state's tax in view.

The full ranking

All 51 jurisdictions, ordered by median lifetime tax. The two tax columns are different statistics: lifetime tax is the 30-year total on the median path, while state income tax adds up each year's median, so the two can rank a jurisdiction differently — most visibly where the planner chose a different withdrawal order (Virginia). Download the CSV for every column, including the 10th-percentile balance and the policy the planner chose.

This ranking is for one couple. To rank every state with your own numbers, use the best states to retire for taxes calculator.

Rank	Jurisdiction	Median lifetime tax (30y)	State income tax (30y)	State tax, first year	Success rate	Median balance at 90
1 (tied, 16)	Alaska	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Florida	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Illinois	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Iowa	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Maine	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Michigan	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Mississippi	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Nevada	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	New Hampshire	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	North Dakota	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Pennsylvania	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	South Dakota	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Tennessee	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Texas	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Washington	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
1 (tied, 16)	Wyoming	$162,597	$0	$0	84.05%	$2,153,150
17	Georgia	$168,646	$5,951	$2,960	83.84%	$2,132,207
18	Colorado	$184,926	$20,278	$637	83.73%	$2,113,337
19	Virginia	$192,403	$77,730	$1,648	83.64%	$2,148,799
20	California	$193,609	$31,115	$1,398	83.37%	$2,082,829
21	New Jersey	$193,780	$29,398	$1,988	83.71%	$2,103,155
22	Kentucky	$194,462	$30,602	$620	83.58%	$2,094,844
23	Louisiana	$196,443	$34,492	$1,872	83.27%	$2,073,589
24	Arizona	$198,933	$36,841	$1,383	83.27%	$2,073,138
25	Wisconsin	$207,973	$45,404	$3,130	82.87%	$2,039,668
26	Ohio	$212,088	$49,025	$1,640	83.01%	$2,048,292
27	South Carolina	$212,092	$49,028	$1,861	83.14%	$2,051,661
28	Connecticut	$214,398	$49,240	$0	83.82%	$2,091,127
29	Arkansas	$217,007	$53,353	$1,839	82.88%	$2,037,578
30	Vermont	$219,517	$55,568	$2,071	82.75%	$2,028,429
31	Nebraska	$220,155	$56,418	$2,269	82.73%	$2,026,202
32	Montana	$220,187	$56,848	$2,669	82.68%	$2,021,872
33	New Mexico	$220,485	$56,441	$2,024	82.77%	$2,028,437
34	Rhode Island	$221,318	$57,639	$2,078	82.72%	$2,024,924
35	Missouri	$222,394	$58,935	$2,241	82.70%	$2,021,503
36	New York	$224,712	$60,156	$1,366	82.88%	$2,032,659
37	Idaho	$226,742	$63,735	$2,485	82.58%	$2,011,253
38	Hawaii	$229,302	$66,000	$3,311	82.73%	$2,011,628
39	North Carolina	$229,695	$66,569	$2,527	82.57%	$2,007,678
40	Oklahoma	$230,508	$67,196	$1,978	82.63%	$2,009,249
41	Utah	$230,744	$68,418	$2,701	82.44%	$1,998,541
42	Delaware	$230,767	$67,301	$1,931	82.68%	$2,009,680
43	West Virginia	$240,108	$78,098	$3,118	82.29%	$1,977,343
44	Minnesota	$242,498	$80,629	$3,153	82.21%	$1,968,316
45	District of Columbia	$245,365	$83,152	$3,174	82.18%	$1,964,215
46	Alabama	$256,225	$92,709	$3,705	81.96%	$1,940,393
47	Kansas	$262,883	$98,769	$3,352	81.89%	$1,933,080
48	Indiana	$271,227	$108,552	$4,168	81.57%	$1,902,105
49	Massachusetts	$272,613	$109,984	$4,090	81.55%	$1,899,750
50	Maryland	$293,936	$130,740	$6,122	80.98%	$1,835,682
51	Oregon	$309,718	$146,914	$5,838	80.61%	$1,801,272

Download CSV (51 rows) Download JSON (household, request, results)

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The findings above are linkable, citable, and licensed for reuse. If you cover retirement, Roth conversions or state-by-state tax migration, you can quote any number on this page or reuse the dataset directly — please link back to this page as the source.

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QuantCalc Research (2026). 51-State Retirement Monte Carlo Results 2026. 510,000 simulated retirements. https://quantcalc.app/research/51-state-tax-mc-2026/

Reuse is licensed under CC BY 4.0 — the only condition is a visible credit linking back to this page.

Methodology

Engine: QuantCalc's retirement planner — the C Monte Carlo engine behind the calculator (POST /api/simulate) with tax-aware withdrawals on. Federal engine 2.5.1, state engine 1.21.0. Every year of every path is priced by the planner's federal and state tax engines; each later year's dollar amounts move the way the law moves them (indexed by the plan's inflation, held flat, or on an enacted schedule).
Household: a married couple filing jointly, both 60, planning to 90 (30 years). $2,000,000: $1,400,000 in traditional IRAs and 401(k)s, $600,000 in Roth IRAs. They spend $80,000 a year after tax, held level in today's dollars; the tax is withdrawn on top. Income on the state return is split evenly between the spouses. Social Security, pensions and earnings are not modelled: the portfolio funds the whole plan.
Withdrawals and Roth conversions: the planner chooses them for each jurisdiction, from its own candidate policies, to minimise the present value of lifetime tax, plus any spending the portfolio fails to fund and the tax heirs would owe on what is left in traditional accounts. It chose: Traditional first, then Roth, then taxable in 50 jurisdictions; Traditional to the top of the 10% bracket each year, then taxable, then Roth in 1 jurisdiction (Virginia).
Portfolio: 60/40 — US stocks 45%, international stocks 15%, bonds 40%.
Markets: the capital-market assumptions the calculator opens with (the source and its as-of date are recorded in summary.json): expected returns and correlations from the forecast source the planner names jpmorgan, with historical volatilities. Inflation is the planner's default. 10,000 quasi-Monte Carlo (Sobol) paths per jurisdiction, seed 42, the same paths in every jurisdiction.
What is counted: federal and state income tax and the Medicare IRMAA surcharge. Indiana and Maryland include the engine's default county income tax rate; other local income taxes (New York City, Ohio and Pennsylvania municipalities, and others) are not included. The ACA premium tax credit is not modelled: the couple is 60 to 64 for five years, and the ACA cliff study prices that separately.
The figures: success rate is the share of paths that fund all 30 years. Median lifetime tax is the 30-year total on the median path (today's dollars). State income tax (30y) adds up the median state tax of each of the 30 years. State tax, first year is the tax in the plan's first year, at 60. Median balance at 90 is today's dollars.
Reproducibility: summary.json carries the exact request sent for every jurisdiction (only state changes). Every figure on this page is read from the CSV and JSON above, which are the planner's output. Before release each jurisdiction's first plan year is re-priced with the website's copy of the federal and state engines and must agree to the cent.
Limitations: one household. A couple with Social Security, a pension, a taxable brokerage account or a different spending level would see different state rules apply (8 jurisdictions tax some Social Security; many exclusions are capped). A success rate near 84% from 10,000 paths has a sampling standard error of about 0.4 percentage points; the paths are the same in every jurisdiction, so the differences between jurisdictions are less noisy than that, but a gap of a few hundredths of a point is not a ranking.

Run your own state-by-state retirement plan

The QuantCalc planner prices your plan in any of the 51 jurisdictions, with Roth conversions, IRMAA and stochastic markets. Free simulation, no signup (100 paths per run; 10,000 with PRO).

Run a free simulation →

FAQ

What is the best state to retire in 2026 for tax purposes?

For this couple, any of the 16 jurisdictions that charge them no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. They tie at $162,597 of median lifetime tax (federal income tax and IRMAA only). Choosing among them is about cost of living, property tax and family, not income tax.

What is the worst state to retire in for tax purposes?

Oregon: the planner's median path pays $309,718 of federal and state income tax and IRMAA over 30 years, $147,121 more than in the jurisdictions that charge no state tax. The most state income tax over 30 years is Oregon's $146,914.

How much does state income tax affect retirement success?

Little, for this couple: every jurisdiction lands between 80.61% and 84.05% (a 3.44-point spread). California's success rate is 83.37%, New York's 82.88%, Hawaii's 82.73%. The dollars differ more than the odds: California's 30-year state income tax is $31,115, New York's $60,156, Hawaii's $66,000.

Are the results financial advice?

No. These results are educational research using a single household. Real retirement outcomes depend on individual portfolio composition, spending patterns, Social Security timing, healthcare costs, and the state rules each household's own income reaches. Consult a qualified advisor before making retirement decisions.

Per-state retirement tax guides

Each jurisdiction has a dedicated guide with this study's figures, a state-specific Roth conversion example priced by the state engine, a live ACA cliff widget and a capital-gains paragraph:

Related research

Monte Carlo ACA Cliff 2026 — the cost of the 400% FPL premium-credit cliff for early retirees, which this study leaves out.
The 4% Rule Under 6 Forward-Looking Forecasts — how the success rate moves with the capital-market assumptions this study holds fixed.

Related calculators

Interactive state tax calculator — one household's state tax in all 51 jurisdictions.
ACA cliff calculator — the premium-credit cliff this study does not model.
Full QuantCalc methodology.

Changelog

v2026.1 — 2026-05-12, initial release. 510,000 paths across 51 jurisdictions, with each state's tax rate and retirement-income treatment taken from a separately maintained table.
v2026.2 — 2026-08-23. The per-state tax inputs (each state's top bracket rate and whether it exempts retirement income) were corrected from the state-tax engine's published 2026 dataset and the study re-run. Nineteen jurisdictions had carried an input that differed from the published schedule; Hawaii and Louisiana moved the most, both having been treated as exempting 401(k) and IRA withdrawals. The model itself was unchanged: state tax was still 75% of the top bracket rate on 70% of each withdrawal.
2026-09-07 — answer-first summary added at the top of the page. No figure changed.
2026-09-27 — Maine's 2% surcharge above $1,000,000 recorded in the surtax_rate column. No figure changed.
v2026.3 — 2026-10-12. The study now runs QuantCalc's planner itself, and every figure changed. Until this version it ran its own simulation and priced tax with a shortcut: a flat 13% federal rate on 70% of each withdrawal ($218,400 over 30 years in every state) and 75% of each state's top bracket rate. Each jurisdiction is now one tax-aware planner run: the couple's accounts are named (traditional and Roth), spending is after tax, the planner's federal and state engines price every year and the planner picks the withdrawals and Roth conversions. The ranking is now by median lifetime tax, because the success rate separates the jurisdictions far less than the tax bill does (3.44 points from best to worst, previously 8.08). California's 30-year state income tax moved from $154,980 to $31,115, New York's from $137,340 to $60,156, Hawaii's from $138,600 to $66,000. The six insight images published with v2026.2 were withdrawn with the figures they showed.

Published 2026-05-12; re-run 2026-10-12. Dataset license: CC-BY-4.0. QuantCalc is an independent retirement-planning research project. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any state or federal agency or any named asset manager. Not financial, tax, or legal advice.