US State Rules Lookup
Minimum wage, income tax, sales tax and front-plate rules for all 50 states and DC — with a plain note that regulations change.
All states — click a column to sort
2025 state-level figures. Minimum wages: many cities set higher local rates (Seattle, Denver, NYC), and most indexed states adjust every January — the state labor site has the current number. Sales tax is the state base rate; local additions often apply (Alaska has no state rate but allows local sales taxes). Front-plate rules change occasionally (Ohio dropped it in 2020, Utah in 2025) — your DMV is the authority.
Four questions, and almost no two answer them the same way
Taken one at a time these rules look like ordinary variation. Taken as a set they are nearly a fingerprint. Across all 51 jurisdictions there are 50 distinct combinations of minimum wage, income-tax regime, sales-tax rate and front-plate requirement.
Exactly one pair agrees on all four: North Dakota and Wisconsin — $7.25 an hour, a graduated income tax, 5% sales tax, front plate required. Everybody else is one of a kind. Drop the wage and the other three fields alone leave 43 groups, so it is the wage that does most of the separating.
The minimum wage is bimodal, not spread out
The range runs $7.25 to $17.50, but the distribution is not a smooth spread. 20 of 51 sit exactly on the federal floor of $7.25 — which is not a state decision so much as the absence of one. The other 31 are scattered above it, with a median across everyone of $11.50.
And the top of the list is not a state. District of Columbia pays $17.50; the highest actual state is Washington at $16.66.
Every flat-tax state picked its own number
15 states charge a single flat rate. Between them they use 13 different rates, and only 2 of those are shared by anybody at all.
| Rate | States |
|---|---|
| 2.5% | AZ |
| 3% | IN, LA — shared |
| 3.07% | PA |
| 3.8% | IA |
| 4% | KY |
| 4.25% | MI |
| 4.4% | CO, MS — shared |
| 4.5% | NC |
| 4.55% | UT |
| 4.95% | IL |
| 5% | MA |
| 5.39% | GA |
| 5.695% | ID |
They are not round numbers either. 6 of the 13 carry two or more decimal places. A flat tax is meant to be the simple option, and every state that adopted one arrived at its own figure to three significant digits rather than copying a neighbour.
The trade-off everyone assumes is not in the data
The folk theory is that states with no income tax make it back on sales tax. Across these figures they do not.
| States | Mean sales tax | Median | |
|---|---|---|---|
| No income tax | 9 | 4.53% | 6% |
| Has an income tax | 42 | 5.23% | 6% |
The no-income-tax states average less sales tax, and the medians are identical, so it is not an artefact of one outlier pulling a mean around. Alaska and New Hampshire levy neither. Read that as a fact about state-level policy rather than about what you pay at a till — as the note under the table says, local rates stack on top, which is most of the story in Alaska.
And the front plate, which should be about nothing
29 require a front licence plate and 22 do not. It looks like a coin flip on a purely administrative question — how many pieces of stamped aluminium your registration comes with. I expected it to correlate with nothing, and checked in order to say so.
| Count | Mean minimum wage | |
|---|---|---|
| Front plate required | 29 | $12.65 |
| Not required | 22 | $9.26 |
The correlation with the minimum wage is r = 0.47. Put the other way: 71% of the states paying above the federal floor require a front plate, against 35% of the states sitting on it.
It is specific rather than a general "states with more rules have more rules". Run the same test against the sales-tax rate and it vanishes: r = -0.046, essentially zero. The front plate tracks the labour-policy axis and not the revenue one, which is why it reads as a political tell rather than a fiscal measure.
A tendency, not a rule: 7 states pair the federal floor with a front-plate requirement anyway — Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
How to use
- Find your state.
- Read the figures for the categories you need.
- Check the date the data reflects.
- Verify against the official source before acting on it.
Frequently asked questions
How current is this data?
It reflects a point in time and states change these figures regularly — minimum wages in particular are adjusted annually in many states, often on 1 January. Always confirm against the state's own source before relying on a figure for anything consequential.
Why do state minimum wages differ from the federal one?
Because states may set a higher minimum, and many have. Where a state's minimum exceeds the federal figure, the higher one applies. Some cities set higher local minimums still, which this does not cover.
Which states have no income tax?
Several, and the list is stable but not fixed. States without an income tax generally raise revenue elsewhere — through higher sales or property taxes — so a headline of no income tax does not mean a lower overall burden. Comparing total tax load is more informative.
Why is sales tax so complicated?
Because it stacks. State, county, city and special district rates combine, producing thousands of distinct jurisdictions with boundaries that do not follow postal codes. Which goods are exempt varies too — groceries and clothing being common exceptions in some states and not others.
What is the front plate rule about?
Whether a vehicle must display a licence plate at the front as well as the rear. Roughly two-thirds of states require both, and the rest require only a rear plate. It matters when buying a car from out of state or fitting a front-plate-free bumper.
Can I rely on this for a legal or tax decision?
No. This is a convenience reference that will drift out of date, and state law is genuinely intricate. For anything with money or compliance attached, the state's own published information and a qualified professional are the sources that count.
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