How do Missouri’s tax rates compare to the rest of the United States?
As Missouri lawmakers prepare to vote on the first phase of Gov. Mike Kehoe’s plan that would replace the income tax with expanded sales and use taxes over several years, a new study revealed how Missouri’s tax rate compares to the rest of the United States.
Financial advice website WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia to see where taxpayers pay the least and the most in the country. The website analyzed four types of taxes using data from sources like U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics and Tax Foundation: real estate, vehicle property, income, and sales and excise.
WalletHub calculated its data with the assumption that the median U.S. household has an income of $81,211, and used that to determine where each state’s tax rate ranked. The 17th-lowest tax rate in the country belongs to Missouri, with a total state and local tax rate of 9.95%.
The data says that Missouri residents pay $8,801 in total annual state and local taxes, which is 9.66% lower than the state and national average tax rate. The median state household pays an annual tax amount of $6,649.
WalletHub said that for its data, it also assumed that the median U.S. household:
- Owns a home valued at $332,700 (the median U.S. home value)
- Owns a car valued at $29,100 (the highest-selling car of 2025)
- Spends annually an amount equal to the spending of a household earning the median U.S. income.
Here’s how Missouri ranked in the four types of taxes analyzed, with a No. 1 ranking being the lowest taxes and No. 51 being the highest:
- Real estate tax rate: 3.47% (29th in the country)
- Vehicle property tax rate: 0.91% (49th in the country)
- Income tax rate: 1.43% (17th in the country)
- Sales & excise tax rate: 4.14% (11th in the country)
Missouri also had the lowest tax rates for cigarettes and the fourth-highest tax rates for food in the United States, according to the study. WalletHub did not reveal how much the tax rates were for each category.
Missouri collects roughly $9 billion in individual income taxes each year, making up nearly two-thirds of the state’s general revenue.
Kehoe’s plan has alarmed residents and officials in Kansas City, one of the state’s major cities and main economic drivers. Mayor Quinton Lucas said the effort will hurt low-income residents and force state and local governments to make drastic cuts to services.
“Shifting away from income taxes toward expanded sales and use taxes is a regressive approach that hits working families hardest and introduces dangerous volatility into state and local finances,” Lucas said in a statement Monday.
If enacted, Missouri would join nine other states that don’t collect income taxes: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.
WalletHub said that low income taxes don’t always mean low taxes as a whole. For example, Washington citizens end up spending nearly 9% of their annual income on sales and excise taxes, while Texas residents spend 1.49% of their income on real estate taxes, one of the highest rates in the country.
