The locality name on a W-2 is the city, county, school district, or tax collection agency that withheld local income tax from your paycheck. It sits in Box 20, at the bottom of the form, and it tells you exactly which local government received the money shown in Box 19. If the box is blank, no local income tax applied to your earnings; if it holds a name or code you don’t recognize, that code points to a specific taxing jurisdiction you may need to file a return with.
How Box 20 Fits With Boxes 18 and 19
The bottom of the W-2 handles all local tax reporting in a single row of three boxes:
- Box 18 shows the wages subject to that locality’s income tax. It often matches Box 1 but can differ when the local jurisdiction excludes certain kinds of income.
- Box 19 shows the dollar amount your employer withheld and sent to that local government.
- Box 20 shows the name or code identifying which local authority received it.
If more than one locality taxed your wages, you’ll see multiple rows. When an employer runs out of room, they may issue a second W-2 to cover the remaining jurisdictions.1Internal Revenue Service. 2026 General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3 Check that every jurisdiction where you lived or worked during the year appears somewhere across your W-2s.
What You Might See in Box 20
Box 20 won’t always spell out a familiar city name. What appears depends on the jurisdiction and on how your employer’s payroll system labels it. Common formats include:
- A city or municipality name, sometimes abbreviated (for example, “NYC” or “Philadelphia”).
- A county name, in states where counties levy their own income tax.
- A school district name or number, in states that let districts impose income tax. There is no standardized federal format for these.1Internal Revenue Service. 2026 General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3
- A collection agency abbreviation. Many municipalities outsource collection, so you may see “RITA” (Regional Income Tax Agency), “CCA” (Central Collection Agency), or “EIT” (Earned Income Tax) instead of the municipality’s own name. These agencies collect on behalf of one or more local governments.
- A numeric code. Some payroll systems use four-digit or other numeric identifiers rather than names.
If the entry doesn’t look familiar, start with your employer’s payroll department. The tax authority’s website for your city or county typically publishes the codes it uses in W-2 reporting as well.
When Box 20 Is Blank
A blank Box 20, with empty Boxes 18 and 19 alongside it, means no local income tax applied to your earnings. That is the norm for most workers in the United States. Roughly 15 states allow cities, counties, or school districts to levy their own income taxes, and even inside those states, not every locality does. If yours doesn’t, your tax obligations are limited to your federal and state returns.
One situation to watch: if you moved during the year into a jurisdiction that does impose local tax, confirm that your employer updated your withholding when the move happened. You could owe local tax for the months you lived or worked there even if Box 20 shows nothing.
What to Do When Box 20 Lists More Than One Locality
Commuters and remote workers see the most complex Box 20 entries. If you live in one taxing jurisdiction and work in another, your employer may need to withhold for both, producing two rows in Boxes 18 through 20. Each row is a separate line to reckon with when you file your local returns.
Remote work complicates this further. The general rule is that local income tax follows the place where you physically perform the work, so if you work from home in a city that levies local tax, that city expects to collect regardless of where the employer is located. A handful of jurisdictions apply a “convenience of the employer” rule instead, taxing you based on the employer’s office location unless working remotely is a genuine job requirement rather than a personal choice. Two localities can end up claiming the same income.
When they do, the resident credit is what protects you from paying twice. Most local jurisdictions that impose income tax offer a credit for tax paid to another locality on the same wages, typically the lesser of the tax paid elsewhere or the tax owed at home. The mechanics differ from place to place, but the principle holds: you shouldn’t pay full local tax to two governments on the same dollar. If your W-2 shows more than one locality, look for that credit line on each jurisdiction’s return.
What to Do If Box 20 Is Wrong or Missing
Errors in Box 20 are common after a mid-year move or when an employer runs payroll across several local jurisdictions. The wrong locality name routes your withholding to the wrong government, so you end up underpaid where you should have paid and overpaid where you shouldn’t have.
Only your employer can fix it. They issue a corrected W-2 on Form W-2c showing the previously reported locality and the correct one, and both the IRS and Social Security Administration instruct employers to file the correction as soon as the error is discovered.2Social Security Administration. Helpful Hints to Forms W-2c/W-3c Filing3Internal Revenue Service. Form W-2c (Rev. January 2026) Corrected Wage and Tax Statement Request the W-2c in writing so there’s a record.
Don’t hold up your local return waiting for the corrected form. If the filing deadline arrives without a W-2c, file using the numbers you know to be correct, attach a note explaining the discrepancy, and amend later once the W-2c is in hand. Filing the wrong information and untangling it afterward usually creates the bigger problem.
The point that surprises people: even when the employer mishandles withholding or leaves a locality off entirely, you still owe the tax. Federal regulations establish that an employee remains liable for the correct amount until it’s collected, regardless of what the employer did.4eCFR. 26 CFR 31.3202-1 – Collection of, and Liability for, Employee Tax Local jurisdictions apply the same rule. If you lived in a city with a local income tax and your employer never set up withholding, the city will still expect payment when you file. Waiting for a notice is the more expensive path, because interest keeps running while the jurisdiction catches up.
Using Box 19 on Your Federal Return
The local income tax shown in Box 19 is deductible on your federal return if you itemize. Local income taxes fall under the state and local tax (SALT) deduction on Schedule A of Form 1040.5Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 503, Deductible Taxes
For tax year 2026, the SALT deduction is capped at $40,400 for most filers, or $20,200 if married filing separately. That cap covers your state income tax, local income tax, and property tax combined. Taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income above $505,000 see the cap phase down to a floor of $10,000. The cap matters most in high-tax jurisdictions where state income tax and property tax already fill most of the room.
If you take the standard deduction instead, the local tax in Box 19 doesn’t produce any separate federal benefit. It reduces your take-home pay during the year but doesn’t lower your federal bill. For many filers, the standard deduction is worth more than itemizing, so the SALT deduction never comes into play even though local tax was withheld all year.