Retiring in New York

Every figure below is sourced to New York’s own publications and dated. Estimates only, and not tax advice.

Retirement tax by state

What your state actually takes from a 401(k) withdrawal, a pension, and Social Security — in dollars, not a yes/no list.

Brokerage account growth

Long-term index-fund growth after expense-ratio drag — and what your state takes from the gains at withdrawal.

Roth vs. Traditional

Decided on the two rates that actually govern it — yours now, and yours at withdrawal, in the state you'll retire in rather than the one you're in.

Contribution limit optimizer

2026 limits, employer match, the 60-63 super catch-up, and whether the Roth catch-up mandate applies to you.

Required minimum distribution

When your RMDs start under SECURE 2.0, how much this year's is, and what missing it costs.

Backdoor Roth pro-rata

What a backdoor Roth conversion would actually cost you in tax — the pro-rata rule most calculators only describe.

Self-directed IRA real estate (UDFI)

The tax a leveraged rental owes inside a self-directed IRA — computed at trust rates, not the rate you'd assume.

New York at a glance

401(k) and IRA withdrawals
Partly excluded
From age 59.5.
Social Security
Not taxed
Top marginal rate
10.9%
The top of 9 graduated brackets.
Tax year
2026
Brackets are legislated and change on a fixed calendar, so the year matters.
  • New York's retirement picture is far better than its top-line 10.9% rate suggests for a public-sector or military retiree and only modestly better than average for a private-sector one — the state exempts government and military pensions without limit but caps private pension and 401(k) relief at $20,000 a person from age 59 1/2.
  • New York City residents get the same state retirement exclusions: the city tax is computed on the same New York taxable income, so a subtraction taken for state purposes reduces the city tax too. Yonkers residents likewise benefit, since the Yonkers surcharge is a percentage of the state tax.
  • The $20,000 exclusion is not indexed. It was set decades ago and has lost most of its real value, which is why New York's effective treatment of private retirement income has quietly worsened over time without any rate change.

Local income tax applies in parts of New York

New York's local income taxes are large enough to change the answer, and only two localities levy one: New York City and Yonkers. Everywhere else in the state there is NO local income tax, so a Buffalo, Albany, or Long Island resident adds nothing. NEW YORK CITY charges its residents a separate graduated personal income tax reported on the same Form IT-201, running 3.078% / 3.762% / 3.819% / 3.876% with the top rate reached at $50,000 of city taxable income for single and married-filing-separately filers, $90,000 for married filing jointly, and $60,000 for head of household. Because the top city bracket starts so low, essentially every full-time NYC worker pays close to the full 3.876% at the margin, which is why that rate is the one to disclose. Nonresidents who merely work in New York City pay NO city income tax. YONKERS is structured completely differently and cannot be expressed as a rate on income: a Yonkers RESIDENT pays a surcharge of 16.75% of their New York STATE tax, not a percentage of income, so the effective burden rises with the state marginal rate rather than being flat. A Yonkers NONRESIDENT who works in Yonkers pays an earnings tax of 0.5% of wages and net earnings from self-employment. The 16.75% resident surcharge is deliberately NOT in the examples array, because the array's ratePct is a rate on income and putting 16.75 there would overstate the burden by roughly a factor of three.