What Hawaii 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.
Hawaii guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Hawaii takes $2,832 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $2,019 on the state's $747,660 median home, and insurance another $900. The three together come to $5,751, placing Hawaii 8th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Hawaii 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 2026. 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. Hawaii does not tax Social Security benefits, or first-tier Railroad Retirement Act benefits. The federally taxable portion reported on federal Form 1040 line 6b is subtracted in full on Form N-11. There is no income test, no threshold, and no phase-out of any kind.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. Hawaii's test is the source of funding, not age and not a dollar cap, and getting this backwards is the classic Hawaii error. There is no exclusion amount, no age trigger, and no income limit. Instead: the portion of a distribution attributable to employer contributions is exempt, and the portion attributable to the employee's own elective contributions is fully taxed at the ordinary rates above. A 401(k) is therefore the bad case, not the good one: elective salary deferrals are employee-funded, so 401(k) elective-deferral money is taxable in Hawaii even though a traditional employer pension is not. The same taxable treatment applies to SARSEP deferrals, the federal Thrift Savings Plan, and section 457 plans including the State of Hawaii Deferred Compensation Plan. What is still exempt inside a 401(k): the employer match and any profit-sharing component are employer-funded and remain excludable, so a hybrid plan is apportioned by an exclusion ratio computed on Schedule J.
Read the full Hawaii guide →18 min read · Updated 2026-09-03