Federal, state, and local tax rates for 4,246 jurisdictions across all 50 states + DC. Pass a work state and pay date, get back every rate you need in a single JSON response.
Everything you need to calculate accurate payroll taxes, from federal to local.
Federal, all 50 states + DC, plus 3,278 cities, 200+ counties, and 713 school districts. PA EIT, OH SDIT, Indiana county taxes—all included.
PostgreSQL + Redis caching. p95 under 50ms on warm cache. Fast enough for real-time payroll runs, even processing thousands in batch.
GET /v1/rates/lookup with Bearer token auth. No SDK, no SOAP, no XML. Every applicable tax comes back in one clean JSON response.
Every rate tracked by effective date. Pass any pay_date and get the rates in effect. Run retroactive payroll without guessing which rates applied.
We monitor IRS publications, state revenue departments, and local tax authorities. Rates are updated as agencies publish. You stop maintaining spreadsheets.
Plain JSON over HTTPS. Use it from Node, Python, Go, Ruby, C#, Java, or a simple curl. If it can make an HTTP request, it works.
Every rate in the database is traceable to a specific government publication with an effective date. No third-party aggregators.
effective_date and end_date. Historical lookups return rates that were actually in effect on that date — not today’s rates.
The most comprehensive payroll tax coverage available via API.
One request. Every applicable tax rate returned instantly.
# Look up all taxes for a California employee curl "https://payrolltaxapi.com/v1/rates/lookup\ ?workState=CA\ &payDate=2026-01-01\ &filingStatus=single\ &grossWages=5000\ &payPeriod=biweekly" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer ptx_live_..."
{
"pay_date": "2026-01-01",
"work_state": "CA",
"taxes": [
{
"tax_type_code": "FED_FICA_SS_EE",
"name": "Social Security",
"rate": 0.062,
"wage_base": 176100
},
{
"tax_type_code": "CA_INCOME_EE",
"name": "CA State Income Tax",
"rate_structure": "graduated",
"brackets": [...]
},
{
"tax_type_code": "CA_SDI_EE",
"rate": 0.009
}
],
"meta": { "processing_ms": 11 }
}
From signup to production in under 10 minutes.
Sign up for free. No credit card, no sales call. Your API key is ready in 30 seconds.
One GET endpoint. Pass workState, payDate, and optional parameters. Get back every applicable tax rate as JSON.
Accurate payroll tax calculations in your app. We handle rate updates, you handle payroll.
Trusted in production by payroll software companies and HR platforms.
We were maintaining a 4,000-line tax table in a Google Sheet and updating it by hand every January. Switched to PayrollTax API and deleted the whole thing. The local coverage for Ohio municipalities alone saved us weeks.
I integrated it in about two hours. One GET request, JSON back, done. We were evaluating Symmetry but their sales cycle was 6 weeks and we still didn't have pricing. This had a free key in 30 seconds.
The effective-date versioning is the real differentiator. We run retroactive payroll corrections and need last quarter's rates, not just today's. Every other API I found only returns current rates.
Free tier included. No credit card to start.
Symmetry and Vertex charge $17,500–$33,000/year because they’re selling to ADP and Gusto — enterprise deals with six-week sales cycles and opaque quote-based pricing. We’re priced for the developer building a payroll feature for the first time: free tier, monthly billing, no contract, no approval process. Instant API key, no call required.
Free API key in 30 seconds. 1,000 requests/month, no credit card.
Get a free API key