Alaska pays its residents instead of taxing them
- No state income tax, no state sales tax — the only state with neither
- An oil dividend paid to every resident every year since 1982
- Harvests more seafood than every other US state combined
- The Trans-Alaska Pipeline has carried 18 billion+ barrels since 1977
How Alaska’s digital economy grew
The United States buys Alaska
Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the purchase from Russia for $7.2 million — about two cents an acre. Critics called it “Seward’s Folly” at the time.
The only state that pays you to live there
Alaska is the only US state with neither a state income tax nor a statewide sales tax. Instead, since 1982, it has paid every qualifying resident an annual cash dividend from the Alaska Permanent Fund — a savings account built from oil royalties that voters created by constitutional amendment in 1976. The fund is now worth over $85 billion, managed by the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation.
The dividend amount depends on the fund’s earnings and, increasingly, on legislative choices — it has ranged from a low of $331.29 in 1984 to a record $3,284 in 2022. It is real, recurring income that exists nowhere else in American state government, and it shapes how Alaskans think about tax, spending and public services generally.
Oil built the pipeline; the pipeline built the fund
Prudhoe Bay, discovered in 1968, is still the largest oil field in North America. Getting that oil to market took until 1977: three years of construction, roughly $8 billion, and an 800-mile pipeline running from the North Slope to the ice-free port of Valdez. It has carried more than 18 billion barrels since, though current throughput is a fraction of its original capacity as North Slope production has declined over the decades.
The nation’s seafood state
Alaska lands more seafood than every other US state combined — more than 60% of the entire national catch, according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s own figures, cross-checked against NOAA’s federal landings data. Bristol Bay alone is the largest sockeye salmon fishery on Earth, producing around 46% of the world’s wild sockeye. Seafood directly employs close to 42,000 people and adds an estimated $5.2 billion to the state economy each year.
How Alaska businesses buy websites
A state this size, with this little road connectivity between its towns, runs on businesses that are found online first and visited in person second — Juneau, the capital, has no road to the rest of Alaska at all.
Trades and home services
Distances between Alaska towns are unlike anywhere in the Lower 48 — be specific about exactly where you work.
Tourism and hospitality
Cruise season and the summer fishing season drive huge swings — hours and availability need to be easy to update.
Professional services
Fishing, oil and logistics businesses all need reliable local accountants, lawyers and consultants — clarity on what you handle matters.
How well do you know Alaska’s digital economy?
3 quick questions. Get all 3 right and you win a 10% off discount code. Every answer is somewhere on this page.
Alaska quiz · 1 of 3
What is the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend?
Why FastSites works here
A state built on getting a lot right over enormous distances, with no room for waste, is a state that will appreciate a website that just works, without a six-week build process to match.