How should I compare San Francisco and Seattle tech offers?
By Kyu-Hun Lee · Published
Short answer: Compare recurring compensation after estimated wage taxes and your own expenses, then examine first-year costs separately. A city with no broad personal wage income tax can still have meaningful payroll deductions and living costs. Do not treat a state’s tax label as a complete financial comparison.
Start with explicit offer assumptions
This example uses $180,000 base pay, a $20,000 annual bonus and $40,000 of annual RSUs sold at vest for the California offer. The Washington offer uses $170,000, $17,000 and $40,000 respectively. The compensation totals are therefore $240,000 and $227,000 before the one-time signing payment.
We use illustrative monthly housing budgets of $3,500 and $2,800, plus other monthly expenses of $2,000 and $1,900. These are not city averages. The Washington offer also includes a $20,000 signing bonus and $7,000 moving budget. Open the example and replace every number you can verify from your actual offers and quotes.
Know which deductions the comparison leaves out
For the 2026 tax year modeled here, Washington does not have a broad individual income tax on wages. That does not mean every tax or employee payroll deduction is zero. Washington’s treatment of certain capital gains is also distinct from wage income, so later stock-sale gains should not be confused with an RSU’s wage value.
This calculator estimates federal income tax, employee FICA and simplified state income tax. It excludes state payroll premiums, benefits and retirement contributions. California high-income adjustments can also make a simplified bracket model diverge from a filed return. Use the report as a scenario comparison, and reconcile important decisions with a more complete estimate.
Sources: Washington Department of Revenue: income tax; TrueTaxCalc calculation methods and exclusions
Existing equity needs its own transition plan
The destination offer does not capture shares you forfeit when leaving the old employer, a vest immediately before your start date or tax sourcing of awards earned while working in California. List those separately rather than hiding them in the new annual salary figure.
Compare guaranteed compensation first and expected compensation second. Then write down the nonfinancial differences: role scope, growth prospects, commute and the people you will work with. The larger modeled monthly balance is one input to the decision, not a recommendation about which job to accept.
Sources: California FTB Publication 1004: equity-based compensation
The worked comparison
Calculated from the same model as the interactive tool. These are full-year 2026 scenarios for a single filer. Housing and other costs are illustrative budgets.
| Estimate | Offer A | Offer B |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring gross compensation | $240,000 | $227,000 |
| Annual modeled taxes | $81,611 | $58,918 |
| Monthly housing + other expenses | $5,500 | $4,700 |
| Recurring monthly amount left | $7,699 | $9,307 |
| First-year amount left | $92,389 | $117,813 |
The recorded tax-data review date is separate from this article’s publication date. See the methodology for simplified state treatment and exclusions.
Put your own offer into the comparison
Separate recurring salary, bonus and sellable RSUs from a signing payment and moving costs. Change the assumptions and download a free report.
Open this exampleCommon questions
Does the Washington result include every state payroll deduction?
No. State payroll premiums are excluded from the current model. It is an annual income-tax and FICA estimate, not a complete paystub calculation.
Are post-vesting stock gains included?
No. The model assumes the entered RSUs are sold at vest and does not model subsequent capital gains or losses.
Sources and scope
- Washington Department of Revenue: income tax
- California FTB Publication 1004: equity-based compensation
- TrueTaxCalc calculation methods and exclusions
Source links checked September 24, 2026. Check the year displayed on tax forms; some sources explain general rules using prior-year examples. These guides are educational and have not been independently reviewed by a tax professional. Our calculator supports a narrower set of scenarios than the rules discussed here. Read the model’s scope.