What Is My PSD Code in PA and How Do I Find It?

Your PSD code in PA is a six-digit number that identifies your municipality for local earned income tax purposes, and the fastest way to find it is the free address search tool on the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) website. “PSD” stands for Political Subdivision. Every township, borough, and city in the state has its own code, and the code tells your employer and the local tax collector where your earned income tax (EIT) should go.¹

What the Six Digits Mean

Reading the code from left to right narrows the geography:

The first two digits are the Tax Collection District, which in most cases is your county.
The first four digits together identify the school district within that county.
All six digits together identify the specific municipality: your township, borough, or city.

Pennsylvania’s local EIT is split between your municipality and your school district, so the layered structure lets a single number route the money to the right two places at once.¹

How to Find Your PSD Code

Use the DCED Address Search

Go to apps.dced.pa.gov/munstats-public/FindLocalTax.aspx and type in your home address. You can enter your work address too. The tool returns your municipality name, your PSD code, your resident EIT rate, and contact information for the local tax collector assigned to you.²

If the search returns “Address Not Found,” look the code up manually through the DCED’s EIT/PIT/LST Tax Registers page. Select your county and then your municipality from the dropdown menus, and the report that opens will show the PSD code.³

Check Documents You Already Have

You may not need the lookup tool at all. Your PSD code appears in a few places you likely already have access to:

The Residency Certification Form you filled out when you were hired. Pennsylvania employers are required to collect it, and the form captures both your home and work PSD codes with the matching EIT rates.⁴
Your W-2, in the local tax section.
Your pay stub, often in the local withholding line.
Last year’s local earned income tax return.

Watch Out: You Probably Have Two PSD Codes

Most Pennsylvania workers have one PSD code for where they live and another for where they work. If both are the same municipality, there’s nothing to think about. If you commute across municipal lines, your employer compares the resident EIT rate at your home PSD code against the non-resident EIT rate at your work PSD code and withholds whichever is higher.⁵ The tax collected at the work location then flows back to your home municipality and school district based on your residency PSD code.

This is where a wrong code causes real trouble. If your residency PSD code is incorrect, your tax dollars go to the wrong municipality. Months later, your actual local tax collector sends a notice saying you owe money you thought had already been paid, and tracking the payments down means contacting both collectors to redirect what was misrouted.

Confirming You Have the Right One

Addresses near municipal borders occasionally trip the DCED tool, which may return a neighboring municipality. Cross-check against something that lists your legal municipality directly: your property tax bill or your voter registration both work. If the DCED result conflicts with those, use the manual Tax Registers lookup or contact the DCED.³

Don’t assume geography. Pennsylvania has roughly 2,500 municipalities, and lines don’t always follow what feels like a neighborhood. A move across the street can land you in a different municipality with a different PSD code.

When You Move, Update Your Code

A new Pennsylvania address means a new Residency Certification Form with your employer. The DCED requires employees to update the form whenever their address changes.¹ Before you hand the form in, run your new address through the DCED search so you can fill in the correct code and rate. Your employer should begin withholding at the new rate starting with the next pay cycle.

Not updating is the single most common PSD code mistake. Withholding keeps flowing to your old municipality while the new one has no record of you, and penalties can accrue before the first notice reaches you.

At tax time after a move, file a final local return with your former municipality’s tax collector for the portion of the year you lived there, and a return with your new collector for the rest. If the EIT rates differ, the withholding during the transition period probably won’t match either jurisdiction exactly, so plan to settle up with both at filing.

If You Live or Work in Philadelphia

Philadelphia runs its own local tax system and sits outside the Act 32 framework that covers the rest of Pennsylvania.⁶ The city does have a PSD code, 510101, but what you actually pay is the Philadelphia wage tax, not the standard EIT. As of July 2025, Philadelphia residents pay a wage tax of 3.75% (dropping to 3.74%), and non-residents who work in the city pay 3.44% (dropping to 3.43%).⁷

If you live in Philadelphia, your employer withholds the Philadelphia wage tax instead of running the usual Act 32 comparison. If you live outside Philadelphia but work there, your employer withholds the non-resident wage tax, and you may receive credit against your home municipality’s EIT for what Philadelphia already collected.

1
PA Department of Community & Economic Development. PSD Codes and EIT Rates
2
Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development. Taxes – Find Local Withholding Rates by Address – Municipal Statistics
3
Governor’s Center for Local Government Services. Municipal Statistics Address Search Guide
4
Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development. Residency Certification Form Local Earned Income Tax Withholding
5
PA Department of Community & Economic Development. Local Withholding Tax FAQs
6
PA Department of Community & Economic Development. Act 32 of 2008 Policy and Procedure Manual
7
City of Philadelphia. Earnings Tax (employees)