Roughly eleven states actively enforce what’s commonly called the jock tax, and they’re the states with a personal income tax, major professional franchises, and the enforcement infrastructure to track visiting earners: California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Nine states have no personal income tax on wages and therefore no mechanism to tax visiting athletes at all. A handful of cities add a separate local tax on top. If you’re an athlete, entertainer, or someone who travels with them, the state you’re playing in and the city hosting the venue both matter.
States That Actively Enforce a Jock Tax
Any state with a personal income tax has the legal authority to tax non-residents on income earned within its borders. Enforcement is a different question, because it costs money to track visitors, and states focus their efforts where the revenue justifies the paperwork. The eleven listed above all host major professional franchises or large entertainment venues, which is what drives them to build the systems needed to identify and bill non-resident earners.
California is the most aggressive of the group. The Franchise Tax Board requires withholding agents to collect 7% of California-sourced payments to non-residents once those payments exceed $1,500 in a calendar year.1California Franchise Tax Board. Withholding on Nonresidents The state’s involvement in this area traces back to the 1991 NBA Finals, when California collected tax from Michael Jordan on his earnings for games played there. Illinois responded in 1992 with its own non-resident athlete tax, informally nicknamed “Michael Jordan’s Revenge,” and the practice spread.
Illinois still takes an unusual approach. Its jock tax is reciprocal: it only applies to athletes whose home states impose a similar non-resident tax on members of Illinois-based teams.2Illinois General Assembly. Public Act 094-0247 The design was aimed at pressuring other states to drop their non-resident athlete taxes rather than at raising revenue.
Most of the remaining states on the list don’t have statutes labeled “jock tax.” They rely on general non-resident income tax laws that apply to anyone earning money in the state. When someone earns millions per year, even a few days of taxable presence produces meaningful revenue, which is why states with pro franchises put resources into enforcement.
States Without a Jock Tax
Nine states impose no personal income tax on wages, so they have no way to tax visiting athletes or entertainers: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. For a player, road games in any of these states are a tax non-event.
Tennessee is worth a specific note. The state once imposed a “professional privilege tax” directly on athletes instead of a traditional income tax. That tax ended for NHL players for games played after April 24, 2014, and for NBA players after June 1, 2016.3TN.gov. Professional Privilege Tax for Athletes Tennessee also phased out its Hall Income Tax on investment income by 2021, leaving it with no individual income tax of any kind.
Florida and Texas are the two most consequential names on the no-tax list because both host multiple major professional franchises. Players on teams based in those states owe no state tax on their home-game earnings, which gives those franchises a subtle recruiting edge. Road games in taxing states still trigger obligations, so the jock-tax burden isn’t erased, just reduced.
Cities With Their Own Jock Tax
Several cities layer a local income tax on top of the state’s. Cities that actively tax non-resident professional athletes include Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Kansas City, and St. Louis. A city with teams in multiple leagues can generate local tax obligations several times per season for the same visiting player across different sports.
Pittsburgh’s 3% facility tax applies specifically to non-residents earning income by using the city’s venues. Philadelphia imposes a local earnings tax on non-residents working in the city. These are separate from Pennsylvania’s state income tax, so a visiting player in either city can owe the city, the state, and their home state on the same trip.
Cleveland’s local jock tax was the subject of a notable Ohio Supreme Court ruling. The city had calculated the tax using a “games-played” formula, dividing games played in Cleveland by total season games. The court struck that method down as unconstitutional because it effectively taxed income earned outside the city. The required alternative is the duty-days calculation, which other cities were already using.
How the Tax Is Calculated
The formula everywhere is built around “duty days.” A state’s share of the athlete’s income equals the ratio of duty days spent in that state to total duty days for the season. An MLB player with 200 duty days who spends 8 of them in a given state owes that state tax on 4% of the year’s compensation.
A duty day is broader than a game day. It includes practices, workouts, film sessions, team meetings, media obligations, and travel days on which work is performed. Two road games can easily produce four or five duty days once preparation and travel are counted. The denominator matters too: total duty days differ by sport and by how each state defines them, and a shorter season means each duty day represents a larger percentage of income. A single road game in a high-tax state costs an NFL player a bigger proportional slice than it costs a baseball player.
Most professional leagues supply detailed schedules to state tax departments, so the numbers on a player’s return need to match what the league reports. Mismatches are an easy audit trigger.
Who Owes These Taxes Besides the Players
The tax reaches everyone whose physical presence is required for the event. Coaches, athletic trainers, equipment managers, and team doctors travel with the team and fall under the same duty-day rules. Scouts and front-office staff traveling for work-related duties can also trigger filing obligations.
Entertainers face the same treatment. Musicians, touring comedians, and stage actors accumulate taxable days wherever they rehearse or perform. The underlying concept is nexus: a physical connection between the person and the taxing jurisdiction. A single day of work is usually enough to create it, though some states set minimum thresholds before requiring a return.
Credits, Reciprocity, and De Minimis Rules
The main protection against paying twice on the same income is the home-state credit. Most states with an income tax let residents claim a credit for taxes paid to other jurisdictions on the same income. A New York-based athlete who pays California tax on income earned playing in Los Angeles reduces the New York bill by the California amount. The credit generally can’t exceed what the home state would have charged on that income, so if the visiting state’s rate is higher, the athlete absorbs the difference; if it’s lower, the home state collects the gap.
About 30 pairs of states have reciprocity agreements that eliminate non-resident filing between them. The Pennsylvania–New Jersey agreement is one of the better known: residents of either state who work across the border owe income tax only to their state of residence.4NJ Division of Taxation. PA/NJ Reciprocal Income Tax Agreement Reciprocity rarely helps a touring athlete much, because it only kicks in when the player happens to live in one of two partner states and travels to the other.
Some states also set de minimis thresholds, exempting non-residents who earn below a dollar amount or spend fewer than a set number of days in the state. Massachusetts has historically exempted non-resident athletes who spend fewer than eleven days there. For star players, dollar thresholds are usually meaningless because a single duty day generates thousands in taxable income; day-count thresholds are more useful and tend to help support staff and lower-paid personnel more than the marquee names.
A Federal Bill That Could Change the Map
Congress has repeatedly considered legislation to reduce the complexity of multi-state taxation for mobile workers. The most recent version, the Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act of 2025, was introduced in the Senate during the 119th Congress by Senator John Thune. The bill would prevent states from taxing non-residents who work in the state for 30 days or fewer per year, creating a nationwide de minimis threshold.5Congress.gov. S.1443 – Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act of 2025
As of April 2025, the bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee. Similar bills have been introduced in prior sessions without passing. States that collect significant jock-tax revenue have little incentive to support federal limits on their taxing authority. If the bill ever becomes law, it would take effect on January 1 of the second calendar year after enactment.
Until then, athletes, entertainers, and their traveling colleagues navigate a patchwork of state and local rules with no federal floor, which is why nearly everyone in this position works with a tax professional who handles multi-state filings.