How many U.S. states have no state income tax?

How to get close to this number

Estimate from the trade-off. A state that forgoes income tax has to raise the money elsewhere, which works best where there is an alternative base — tourism, energy extraction or property. Only a handful of states have that, so the count is single digits.

The caveat in the explanation is the important one: none of the nine is tax-free. They lean harder on sales, property or excise taxes instead, which shifts who pays rather than how much is raised. A state with no income tax and high sales tax is more regressive, not cheaper — the total burden moves down the income distribution.

The list also moves, slowly: one state completed its phase-out recently, having previously taxed only investment income. Tax structure is one of the few areas where states genuinely diverge, and the count is a live political figure rather than a fixed fact — which is why it carries a year.