7 Things That Confuse Everyone Who Moves to Nebraska

A moving truck idles outside a new house in Omaha on a Friday morning near the end of April, and the title company down the street has its lights off.

A sign taped to the door explains everything: Closed for Arbor Day.

Nebraska invented that holiday in 1872, and state offices still take a paid day off for it every spring, decades after many other states let it fade.

These are the things that confuse everyone who moves to Nebraska.

Note: This article contains general information, not tax or legal advice. Vehicle registration fees and property tax rules are subject to change.

1. Keno at the Bar

Nebraska turns ordinary bars and diners into legal gambling stops through keno, a lottery game many newcomers have never played before.

More than 170 Nebraska cities, counties, and villages license a local keno lottery.

Any bar or restaurant holding a liquor license can run the games for them.

A newcomer walks into what looks like an ordinary diner and finds a keno screen bolted above the bar, tickets stacked by the register.

Many newcomers assume those flashing numbers are just background noise, the same as a sports score or a stock ticker running behind the bar.

Actual money changes hands.

That part only clicks once a regular slides a winning ticket across the counter and walks away with money in hand.

Players have to be 19 or older.

The state’s first keno game ran in Bellevue in 1985.

A newcomer expects the confusing part to be that keno exists in a bar at all.

What confuses them is realizing the regulars beside them are wagering actual money, not just watching numbers scroll by.

2. Registering Your First Car

Nebraska charges far more than a flat sticker fee to register a car.

Many new residents never see the bigger bill coming.

The state’s motor vehicle tax is based on a car’s manufacturer’s suggested retail price, assessed every year at the county treasurer’s counter.

Newer cars pay the most.

That percentage drops every year the car ages, until the vehicle turns 14 and the tax phases out for good.

3. Nebraska’s Only Power Company

Nebraska is the only state in the country served entirely by public power, without one investor-owned electric company anywhere inside its borders.

New residents open their laptops expecting a list of providers to compare.

There isn’t one.

A public power district, a city utility, or a rural co-op runs the lines instead.

The county decides which provider serves the property, not the customer.

4. Banks Closed for Arbor Day

Nebraska gave the country Arbor Day.

The state still treats it as a paid day off for state employees every spring.

J. Sterling Morton pitched the first tree-planting holiday in 1872.

Nebraskans planted more than a million trees on that first try.

The holiday falls on the last Friday of every April now.

It happens every year.

Many banks, county offices, and courthouses close for it.

A newcomer who’s never heard of Arbor Day just sees a locked door.

5. Finding Your State Senator

Nebraska’s Legislature has only one house, the only unicameral system in the country, so newcomers looking for their state senator and their state representative find only a single name on the ballot.

Voters chose this setup back in 1934, when Sen. George Norris convinced Nebraska to fold two chambers into one.

Forty-nine people run it.

They handle the entire Legislature’s work alone, without a second chamber to share it.

None of them run with a party label next to their name either, since Nebraska’s Legislature races are the country’s only nonpartisan state elections.

6. Extra Line on Your Receipt

Omaha, Nebraska's largest city, adds its own tax on top of every restaurant and bar tab, a charge many newcomers don't expect to see on a receipt.

The city passed a 2.5% restaurant occupation tax in 2010, in the middle of a budget crunch.

Omaha never took it back off.

The tax isn't new.

The money funds police and firefighter pensions, and it stacks on top of the regular sales tax instead of replacing it.

A restaurant tab in Omaha carries a tax the rest of Nebraska never sees.

7. Losing an Hour Out West

Nebraska runs on two different time zones, and driving across it can cost or save a newcomer an hour they didn't plan for.

Far western Nebraska runs on Mountain Time.

The rest of the state stays on Central Time, a boundary set by federal regulation.

That line reaches a few counties beyond the Panhandle too.

The times don't match.

A phone call timed perfectly from Lincoln lands an hour early in Scottsbluff.

A newcomer with a 2 p.m. appointment in Scottsbluff can leave Lincoln with time to spare and still walk in at 3 p.m. local time, an hour late without ever hitting traffic.

Your First Runza

Nebraska's own fast-food chain, Runza, serves a stuffed bread pocket many newcomers have never seen on a menu before.

Cooks fold ground beef, cabbage, and onions into a rectangle of yeasty dough, a recipe Volga German immigrants carried to the Great Plains generations ago.

Sally Everett and her brother opened the first Runza in Lincoln in 1949.

Locals just call it Runza.

The chain has grown to more than 90 locations, nearly all of them still in Nebraska.

Higher Property Taxes

Nebraska's property taxes run higher than many newcomers expect from a farm state.

A 2025 analysis from the Tax Foundation ranked Nebraska's property tax burden the 4th-highest in the country.

That's a steep bill.