Buffalo Has No City Income Tax: State, Federal, and Filing

Buffalo does not have a city income tax. Only New York City and Yonkers have the legal authority to tax personal income at the local level in New York State, so nothing on your Buffalo paycheck goes to a municipal income tax line.¹ You still owe New York State income tax, with 2026 rates running from 3.9 percent to 10.9 percent, plus federal income tax. The city itself is funded mostly through property taxes.

Why Buffalo Doesn’t Tax Your Income

New York’s Tax Law hands local income-taxing power to just two places. New York City charges its residents a separate personal income tax at rates up to 3.876 percent, and Yonkers layers a resident surcharge on top of the state tax along with a wage tax on nonresidents who work within its borders.¹ Every other city and county in the state, Buffalo included, has a local income tax rate of zero.

Two things sometimes confuse people. First, references to a “Buffalo Payroll Expense Tax” circulate online, but Chapter 263 of the Buffalo City Code deals with licensing for specific businesses, not payroll taxation. Second, New York does levy a payroll-based tax called the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Mobility Tax, but it applies only to employers within the New York City metropolitan commuter transportation district. Erie County and Buffalo sit well outside that district.²

The practical result: two people earning the same salary in Buffalo and Manhattan will see meaningfully different take-home pay, because the Manhattan resident owes both the state tax and NYC’s local tax.

What You Owe New York State

Buffalo residents are still New York State residents, and Article 22 of the Tax Law reaches every dollar of their taxable income. For the 2026 tax year, single filers pay according to this bracket structure:³

3.90% on taxable income up to $8,500
4.40% from $8,500 to $11,700
5.15% from $11,700 to $13,900
5.40% from $13,900 to $80,650
5.90% from $80,650 to $215,400
6.85% from $215,400 to $1,077,550
9.65% from $1,077,550 to $5,000,000
10.30% from $5,000,000 to $25,000,000
10.90% on income over $25,000,000

Married couples filing jointly use the same rate schedule with wider brackets, starting with 3.90 percent on the first $17,150 of taxable income.³ The bottom rate dropped from 4 percent to 3.9 percent for 2026 compared to the 2023–2025 schedule.

The New York standard deduction is $7,400 for single filers and $7,950 for married joint filers, both notably smaller than the federal standard deduction.

Who Counts as a New York Resident

Since “no city tax” doesn’t mean “no state tax,” it matters whether the state considers you a resident. Two tests apply. You’re a resident if you are domiciled in New York, meaning the state is your permanent home and the place you intend to return to after time away. You’re also a resident even without New York domicile if you maintain a permanent place of abode in the state and spend more than 183 days here during the tax year.⁴

A “permanent place of abode” is a home with cooking and bathing facilities that you keep available year-round. Seasonal cottages and camps don’t qualify. Full-time undergraduates get a specific carve-out: a dorm or apartment used while attending school is not treated as a permanent place of abode for that student.⁴

A narrow exception exists for people domiciled in New York who spend heavy time overseas. You avoid resident status if you spend at least 450 days in a foreign country within a 548-day period, maintain no permanent place of abode in New York, and your spouse and minor children spend no more than 90 days in the state during that window.⁴ For most people living and working in Buffalo, the result is straightforward: full-year state resident.

How Buffalo Funds Itself Instead

With no city income tax collecting revenue, Buffalo leans on property taxes to fund city operations and schools. For the 2025–2026 tax year, homestead properties are taxed at a combined rate of roughly $6.52 per $1,000 of assessed value, split between a city levy of $4.03 and a school levy of $2.48. Non-homestead property, which covers commercial buildings, rental properties, and vacant land, is taxed at about $13.08 per $1,000. A sewer rent of roughly $1.30 per $1,000 applies on top.⁵

If you own the home you live in, you get the lower homestead rate. Investment property and commercial buildings pay roughly double. The rates apply to the assessor’s value, not market value, and assessed values in Buffalo often sit well below what a home would actually sell for. Sales tax revenue and state aid make up the rest of the city’s funding.

Federal Income Tax

Federal income tax applies the same way it does anywhere else in the country. For 2026, the federal standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers, $32,200 for married joint filers, and $24,150 for heads of household.⁶ Federal rates run from 10 percent to 37 percent.

Buffalo homeowners who itemize can potentially deduct state income tax and property tax on their federal return, subject to the federal cap on the state and local tax deduction. Lower- and middle-income filers should check eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. The Child Tax Credit is worth up to $2,200 per qualifying child, with the refundable portion capped at $1,700.⁷

Filing, Deadlines, and Penalties

Buffalo residents who lived in New York all year file Form IT-201, the full-year resident return.⁸ One detail worth flagging: the form asks for your school district name and code as of December 31 of the tax year, and using the wrong code can delay processing. Look yours up on the state’s school district code page rather than guessing.⁹

Both the federal and state returns are due April 15, 2026, for calendar-year filers.¹⁰ You can request an automatic extension using Form IT-370 for the state (pushing the deadline to October 15, 2026) and Form 4868 for the federal return.¹¹

The trap: an extension gives you more time to file, not more time to pay. You still owe an estimate of your tax by April 15. Underpayment triggers interest and penalties from the original deadline.

New York’s late-filing penalty is 5 percent of tax due for each month (or partial month) the return is late, capped at 25 percent. Returns more than 60 days late carry a minimum penalty equal to the lesser of $100 or the total tax owed. Late payment adds a separate 0.5 percent monthly penalty on the unpaid balance, also capped at 25 percent.¹² The federal side works the same way structurally, with a minimum $525 penalty for federal returns more than 60 days late in 2026.¹³

If you leave a state tax bill unpaid, the Department of Taxation and Finance has real enforcement teeth, including tax warrants, bank levies, wage garnishment, and driver’s license suspension.¹⁴ Filing on time, even with an extension request and a partial payment, avoids most of that exposure.

1
NYC Comptroller. The NYC Personal Income Tax Before and After the Pandemic
2
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Mobility Tax
3
New York State Senate. New York Tax Law 601 – Imposition of Tax
4
New York State Senate. New York Tax Law 605 – General Provisions and Definitions
5
City of Buffalo, NY. City of Buffalo 2025-2026 Tax Rates
6
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026
7
Internal Revenue Service. Child Tax Credit
8
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Full-Year New York State Resident Forms and Instructions
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New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. School District Codes
10
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Announces First Day of 2026 Filing Season
11
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Instructions for Form IT-370
12
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Interest and Penalties
13
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 653, IRS Notices and Bills, Penalties and Interest Charges
14
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Audits, Bills, and Collections