What Is the PA Residency Certification Form?

The PA Residency Certification Form, officially CLGS-32-1, is the one-page document you give your Pennsylvania employer so they withhold the correct local Earned Income Tax (EIT) from your paycheck. It identifies your home municipality and school district through a six-digit Political Subdivision (PSD) code, and that code determines which local tax rate applies and where the money ends up. Every employee working at a Pennsylvania location fills one out, and you fill out a new one any time you move.¹

The form stays with your employer. You do not file it with any tax collector or state agency.²

When You Need to Complete It

You complete the form when you are first hired at a Pennsylvania worksite, and again whenever your home address changes.¹ A short move can matter more than it looks. Pennsylvania has 2,555 municipalities, each potentially with its own rate,³ and a move across town can shift you into a different school district with a different combined rate. Update the form promptly after any move, even one within the same borough.

Finding Your PSD Code

Your PSD code is the heart of the form. The only reliable way to find it is the DCED’s official address search tool on the Municipal Statistics site. Enter your full residential street address and the tool returns your six-digit PSD code, your Total Resident EIT Rate, and your local tax collector’s contact information.⁴ The form itself points you to this tool.¹

Do not guess based on your zip code or mailing address. Post office boundaries routinely cross municipal lines, and a mailing address in one borough can correspond to a physical location in a different township. One wrong digit can route your tax dollars to the wrong jurisdiction entirely. Use your street address in the lookup tool.

Filling Out the Form

The form has two main parts. The employee section asks for your full name, Social Security Number, home street address (not a P.O. Box), municipality, county, and phone number. You then enter the six-digit Resident PSD Code and the Total Resident EIT Rate you pulled from the DCED tool.¹

The employer section lists the business name as it appears on the Federal Employer Identification Number, the street address where you physically report to work, and the employer’s FEIN. The work location has its own PSD code, which drives the non-resident EIT rate. Your employer usually fills in the work location details, but verify they match where you actually work.¹

Sign and date it. An unsigned form is incomplete, and your employer cannot process it.

How Your Paycheck Withholding Is Set

Once the form is on file, your employer compares your Total Resident EIT Rate (where you live) against the Non-Resident EIT Rate at your work location. They withhold at whichever rate is higher.⁵

A quick example. If you live somewhere with a 1.6% combined resident rate and work somewhere with a 1.0% non-resident rate, your employer withholds 1.6%. Flip the numbers, with a 0.5% resident rate and a 1.0% non-resident rate at work, and the employer withholds the higher 1.0%.⁵ The full amount goes to the tax collector for the work location, and that collector distributes your home municipality’s share back to it.

Out-of-State, Philadelphia, and Remote Work

If you live outside Pennsylvania but work at a Pennsylvania location, you still complete the form. Your employer enters a Resident PSD Code of 880000 and a Total Resident EIT Rate of 0%, and withholds at the non-resident rate for the municipality where you work.⁶

Philadelphia runs its own wage tax system through the City of Philadelphia Department of Revenue, outside the Act 32 framework. If you both live and work in Philadelphia, the standard CLGS-32-1 does not apply to Philadelphia’s earned income tax. If you live in Philadelphia and work elsewhere in Pennsylvania, or live elsewhere and work in Philadelphia, your employer still uses the form for the Act 32 side of withholding, while the Philadelphia wage tax is handled through the city’s own process.

Remote work adds a wrinkle. If you work from a home office in Pennsylvania, your home address can count as your work location for EIT purposes, since the DCED recognizes employee residences as business worksites. In that case your resident and work PSD codes may be the same, and only the resident rate applies. Hybrid arrangements, where you split time between a home office and an employer office in a different municipality, are less tidy. Pennsylvania does not have a bright-line statewide rule for hybrid workers. Some employers follow a “convenience of the employer” approach, treating the office as your work location unless the employer specifically requires remote work. If your situation is unclear, ask payroll which work location PSD code they are using and whether it matches where you actually work most of the time.

Fixing a Wrong PSD Code

If you spot an error on your form, fix it right away. Complete a new form with the correct information and give it to your employer. Withholding changes going forward, but the new form does not retroactively repair what was already withheld and sent to the wrong jurisdiction.

For the period the wrong code was in effect, you sort it out on your annual local earned income tax return. Report your correct residential information and the tax collector can process a credit or refund from the jurisdiction that received the misdirected funds. If the error meant you underpaid your actual home municipality, you owe the difference when you file. The sooner you catch it, the smaller the mess at year-end.

Penalties for Bad Information

Supplying false information carries real consequences. Under Act 32, a taxpayer who knowingly files a false or fraudulent return, or tries to avoid disclosing income to evade local tax, faces a fine of up to $2,500 per offense and up to six months of imprisonment if the fine goes unpaid.² Criminal prosecution over a bad PSD code is rare in practice, but deliberately claiming residency in a lower-tax municipality is the kind of thing that draws enforcement attention.

There is a practical cost even without prosecution. If you give an incorrect address and the wrong amount is withheld, your employer may be shielded from liability for the shortfall because the error started with you.² You owe the difference personally, and chasing a refund from the municipality that received the wrong payment can take months.

You Still File an Annual Local Return

This surprises people. Even with correct withholding every pay period, you are still required to file an annual local earned income tax return by April 15 of the following year. The requirement applies even if your employer withheld the right amount and you expect no refund.

The annual return reconciles what was withheld against what you actually owe. If you moved mid-year, worked for more than one employer, or had income not subject to withholding, the numbers may not line up. Filing is how any overpayment gets refunded and any underpayment gets settled. Your local tax collector’s website has the form and filing instructions for your Tax Collection District.

1
PA Department of Community & Economic Development. Residency Certification Form – Local Earned Income Tax Withholding
2
PA Department of Community & Economic Development. Act 32 of 2008 Policy and Procedure Manual
3
PA Department of Community & Economic Development. Municipalities in PA
4
PA Department of Community & Economic Development. Find Local Withholding Rates by Address
5
PA Department of Community & Economic Development. FAQ – Act 32, Earned Income Tax Collection Reform
6
PA Department of Community & Economic Development. Local Withholding Tax FAQs