What Delaware actually takes from a 401(k) withdrawal, a pension, and Social Security — in dollars, against the state’s own brackets and exclusions rather than a yes-or-no list.
Long-term index-fund growth after expense-ratio drag — and what your state takes from the gains at withdrawal.
When your RMDs start under SECURE 2.0, how much this year's is, and what missing it costs.
2026 limits, employer match, the 60-63 super catch-up, and whether the Roth catch-up mandate applies to you.
A required minimum distribution is ordinary income, taxed at your top bracket and often pushing you into the next one. Here is the federal tax on RMDs from $20,000 to $75,000 at different income levels, why the default 10% withholding usually leaves a bill, how to avoid an underpayment penalty, and the three side effects that make the real rate higher than the bracket.
The required minimum distribution on every common balance at every age from 73 to 95, worked from the IRS table, plus what happens to the account over twenty years of withdrawals at 0%, 5% and 7% returns. The short version: the share you must take rises every year, and at good returns the dollar amount keeps rising with it.
What moving actually saves, on your own income mix rather than a headline rate — and how to establish domicile so the state you left cannot follow you.
Which account to draw first, priced. The three cliffs a withdrawal can cross without warning, the conversion window almost nobody uses, and why the order is the last big decision you can still change.
Delaware guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Delaware takes $2,125 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $2,152 on the state's $398,585 median home, and insurance another $1,375. The three together come to $5,652, placing Delaware 6th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Delaware figure comes from this site's own fifty-state income-tax dataset and its retirement tax engine, computed for a single filer aged 70 unless stated otherwise; property tax, median home price and insurance figures come from the site's core state dataset. Rates are for tax year 2025. Property tax is assessed locally in most states, so the effective rate here is a statewide figure rather than your county's.
On Social Security. Fully exempt, with no income threshold and no age condition. Delaware's PIT-RES instructions state it directly at Line 8a: Social Security and Railroad Retirement benefits are not taxable in Delaware and therefore should not be included in taxable income; the filer enters the total of any federally taxable payments on Line 8a as a subtraction. Because the exclusion operates by backing out whatever the federal return taxed, a Delaware retiree whose benefits are wholly untaxed federally simply has nothing to enter. Railroad Retirement benefits receive identical treatment.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. 401(k), 403(b), Keogh, IRC 457 government deferred compensation and traditional IRA distributions all count as eligible retirement income under Delaware's pension exclusion. The age gate is the whole story, and it is age 60, not 59 1/2 OR 65. under age 60 a non-military filer gets only $2,000. It is per taxpayer, not per return: Delaware states that each taxpayer may receive only one pension exclusion even if receiving more than one pension, but that spouses who each receive pensions are entitled to one exclusion each — which is why the married-joint figure is $25,000. Delaware's own worked example makes the ceiling behaviour explicit: a couple both over 60, one with $14,500 of eligible retirement income and one with $4,500, get $12,500 + $4,500 = $17,000, and the second spouse cannot absorb the amount by which the first exceeded the cap. The 60-and-over calculation is broader than the pension itself: the filer adds the pension amount to 'eligible retirement income' — dividends, capital gains net of capital losses, interest, net rental income from real property, and qualified plan distributions — and excludes the lesser of that total or $12,500.
Read the full Delaware guide →18 min read · Updated 2026-09-03