v3.25.2
Investment Risks - Classes ACS [Member] - DWS Massachusetts Tax-Free Fund
Mar. 31, 2025
Risk Interest Rate [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Interest rate risk. When interest rates rise, prices of debt securities generally decline. The longer the duration of the fund’s debt securities, the more sensitive the fund will be to interest rate changes. (As a general rule, a 1% rise in interest rates means a 1% fall in value for every year of duration.) When interest rates change, the values of longer-duration municipal bonds usually change more than the values of shorter-duration municipal bonds. Conversely, municipal bonds with shorter durations or maturities will be less volatile but may provide lower returns than municipal bonds with longer durations or maturities. Rising interest rates also may lengthen the duration of municipal bonds with call features, since exercise of the call becomes less likely as interest rates rise, which in turn will make the securities more sensitive to changes in interest rates and result in even steeper price declines in the event of further interest rate increases. Interest rates can change in response to the supply and demand for credit, government and/or central bank monetary policy and action, inflation rates, and other factors. Recent and potential future changes in monetary policy made by central banks or governments are likely to affect the level of interest rates. Changing interest rates may have unpredictable effects on markets, may result in heightened market volatility and potential illiquidity and may detract from fund performance to the extent the fund is exposed to such interest rates and/or volatility. Rising interest rates could cause the value of the fund’s investments — and therefore its share price as well — to decline. A rising interest rate environment may cause investors to move out of fixed-income securities and related markets on a large scale, which could adversely affect the price and liquidity of such securities and could also result in increased redemptions from the fund. Increased redemptions from the fund may force the fund to sell investments at a time when it is not advantageous to do so, which could result in losses.
Risk Credit [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Credit risk. The fund's performance could be hurt if an issuer of a debt security suffers an adverse change in financial condition that results in the issuer not making timely payments of interest or principal, a security downgrade or an inability to meet a financial obligation. Credit risk is greater for lower-rated securities.Because the issuers of high yield debt securities, or junk bonds (debt securities rated below the fourth highest credit rating category), may be in uncertain financial health, the prices of their debt securities can be more vulnerable to bad economic news, or even the expectation of bad news, than investment-grade debt securities. Credit risk for high yield securities is greater than for higher-rated securities.Because securities in default generally have missed one or more payments of interest and/or principal, an investment in such securities has an increased risk of loss. Issuers of securities in default have an increased likelihood of entering bankruptcy or beginning liquidation procedures which could impact the fund's ability to recoup its investment. Securities in default may be illiquid or trade in low volumes and thus may be difficult to value.For securities that rely on third-party guarantors to support their credit quality, the same risks may apply if the financial condition of the guarantor deteriorates or the guarantor ceases to insure securities. Because guarantors may insure many types of securities, including subprime mortgage bonds and other high-risk bonds, their financial condition could deteriorate as a result of events that have little or no connection to securities owned by the fund.
Risk Municipal Securities [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Focus risk – Massachusetts municipal securities. The municipal securities market in general can be susceptible to increases in volatility and decreases in liquidity. Liquidity can decline unpredictably in response to overall economic conditions or credit tightening. Increases in volatility and decreases in liquidity may be caused by a rise in interest rates (or the expectation of a rise in interest rates). Because the fund focuses its investments in Massachusetts municipal securities, its performance can be more volatile than that of a fund that invests more broadly, and it has a relatively large exposure to financial stresses affecting Massachusetts. For example, industries significant to the state’s economy, such as the technology, biotech, financial services or healthcare industries could experience downturns or fail to develop as expected, hurting the local economy. Fluctuations in unemployment levels or in the state or national economy could result in decreased tax revenues, including decreases in personal income tax, corporate business tax, or sales and use tax revenues, and other sources of revenue. Massachusetts could also face severe fiscal difficulties, for example, an economic downturn, increased expenditures on domestic security, reduced monetary support from the federal government or costs and disruption caused by natural disasters. A default or credit rating downgrade of a small number of municipal security issuers could affect the market values and marketability of all Massachusetts municipal securities and hurt the fund’s performance.Over time, these issues may impair the ability of the state, municipalities, or other authorities to repay their obligations or to pay debt service on those obligations and could result in a downgrade of Massachusetts' credit rating or the ratings of authorities or political subdivisions of Massachusetts, which may negatively impact the value of bonds issued by those entities.
Risk Market [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Market risk. Deteriorating market conditions might cause a general weakness in the market that reduces the prices of securities in that market. Developments in a particular class of debt securities or the stock market could also adversely affect the fund by reducing the relative attractiveness of debt securities as an investment.
Risk Market Disruption [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Market disruption risk. Economies and financial markets throughout the world have become increasingly interconnected, which has increased the likelihood that events or conditions in one country or region will adversely impact markets or issuers in other countries or regions. This includes reliance on global supply chains that are susceptible to disruptions resulting from, among other things, war and other armed conflicts, tariffs, extreme weather events, and natural disasters. Such supply chain disruptions can lead to, and have led to, economic and market disruptions that have far-reaching effects on financial markets worldwide. The value of the fund’s investments may be negatively affected by adverse changes in overall economic or market conditions, such as the level of economic activity and productivity, unemployment and labor force participation rates, inflation or deflation (and expectations for inflation or deflation), interest rates, demand and supply for particular products or resources including labor, debt levels and credit ratings, and trade policies, among other factors. Such adverse conditions may contribute to an overall economic contraction across entire economies or markets, which may negatively impact the profitability of issuers operating in those economies or markets. In addition, geopolitical and other globally interconnected occurrences, including war, terrorism, economic uncertainty or financial crises, contagion, tariffs and trade disputes, government debt crises (including defaults or downgrades) or uncertainty about government debt payments, government shutdowns, public health crises, natural disasters, supply chain disruptions, climate change and related events or conditions, have led, and in the future may lead, to disruptions in the US and world economies and markets, which may increase financial market volatility and have significant adverse direct or indirect effects on the fund and its investments. Adverse market conditions or disruptions could cause the fund to lose money, experience significant redemptions, and encounter operational difficulties. Although multiple asset classes may be affected by adverse market conditions or a particular market disruption, the duration and effects may not be the same for all types of assets.Current military and other armed conflicts in various geographic regions, including those in Europe and the Middle East, can lead to, and have led to, economic and market disruptions, which may not be limited to the geographic region in which the conflict is occurring. Such conflicts can also result, and have resulted in some cases, in sanctions being levied by the United States, the European Union and/or other countries against countries or other actors involved in the conflict. In addition, such conflicts and related sanctions can adversely affect regional and global energy, commodities, financial and other markets and thus could affect the value of the fund's investments. The extent and duration of any military conflict, related sanctions and resulting economic and market disruptions are impossible to predict, but could be substantial.Other market disruption events include pandemic spread of viruses, such as the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19, which have caused significant uncertainty, market volatility, decreased economic and other activity, increased government activity, including economic stimulus measures, and supply chain disruptions, and may adversely affect the fund and its investments.In addition, markets are becoming increasingly susceptible to disruption events resulting from the use of new and emerging technologies to engage in cyber-attacks or to take over the Web sites and/or social media accounts of companies, governmental entities or public officials, or to otherwise pose as or impersonate such, which then may be used to disseminate false or misleading information that can cause volatility in financial markets or for the securities of a particular company, group of companies, industry or other class of assets.Adverse market conditions or particular market disruptions, such as those discussed above, may magnify the impact of each of the other risks described in this “MAIN RISKS” section and may increase volatility in one or more markets in which the fund invests leading to the potential for greater losses for the fund.
Risk Inflation [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Inflation risk. Inflation risk is the risk that the real value of certain assets or real income from investments (the value of such assets or income after accounting for inflation) will be less in the future as inflation decreases the value of money. Inflation, and investors’ expectation of future inflation, can impact the current value of the fund's portfolio, resulting in lower asset values and losses to shareholders. This risk may be elevated compared to historical market conditions and could be impacted by monetary policy measures and the current interest rate environment.
Risk Tax [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Tax risk. Income from municipal securities held by the fund could be declared taxable because of unfavorable changes in tax laws, adverse interpretations by the Internal Revenue Service or state tax authorities, or noncompliant conduct of a securities issuer. In such event, the value of such securities would likely fall, hurting fund performance and shareholders may be required to pay additional taxes. In addition, a portion of the fund’s otherwise exempt-interest distributions may be taxable to those shareholders subject to the federal AMT.
Risk Private Activity IDBs [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Private activity and industrial development bond risk. The payment of principal and interest on these bonds is generally dependent solely on the ability of the facility’s user to meet its financial obligations and the pledge, if any, of property financed as security for such payment.
Risk Security Selection [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Security selection risk. The securities in the fund’s portfolio may decline in value. Portfolio management could be wrong in its analysis of municipalities, industries, companies, economic trends, ESG factors, the relative attractiveness of different securities or other matters.
Risk Forward Commitment [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Forward commitment risk. When the fund engages in forward or delayed delivery transactions, the fund relies on the counterparty to consummate the transaction. Failure to do so may result in the fund missing the opportunity to obtain a price or yield considered to be advantageous. Such transactions may also have the effect of leverage on the fund and may cause the fund to be more volatile.
Risk Counterparty [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Counterparty risk. A financial institution or other counterparty with whom the fund does business, or that underwrites, distributes or guarantees any investments or contracts that the fund owns or is otherwise exposed to, may decline in financial health and become unable to honor its commitments. This could cause losses for the fund or could delay the return or delivery of collateral or other assets to the fund.
Risk Liquidity [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Liquidity risk. In certain situations, it may be difficult or impossible to sell an investment and/or the fund may sell certain investments at a price or time that is not advantageous in order to meet redemption requests or other cash needs. Unusual market conditions, such as an unusually high volume of redemptions or other similar conditions could increase liquidity risk for the fund, and in extreme conditions, the fund could have difficulty meeting redemption requests.
Risk Prepayment [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Prepayment and extension risk. When interest rates fall, issuers of high interest debt obligations may pay off the debts earlier than expected (prepayment risk), and the fund may have to reinvest the proceeds at lower yields. When interest rates rise, issuers of lower interest debt obligations may pay off the debts later than expected (extension risk), thus keeping the fund’s assets tied up in lower interest debt obligations. Ultimately, any changes or unexpected behavior in interest rates could increase the volatility of the fund’s share price and yield and could hurt fund performance. Prepayments could also create capital gains tax liability in some instances.
Risk Pricing [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Pricing risk. If market conditions make it difficult to value some investments, the fund may value these investments using more subjective methods and the value determined for an investment may be materially different from the value realized upon such investment’s sale. As a result, you could pay more than the market value when buying fund shares or receive less than the market value when selling fund shares.
Risk Operational And Technology [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Operational and technology risk. Cyber-attacks, disruptions or failures that affect the fund’s service providers or counterparties, issuers of securities held by the fund, or other market participants may adversely affect the fund and its shareholders, including by causing losses for the fund or impairing fund operations. For example, the fund’s or its service providers’ assets or sensitive or confidential information may be misappropriated, data may be corrupted and operations may be disrupted (e.g., cyber-attacks, operational failures or broader disruptions may cause the release of private shareholder information or confidential fund information, interfere with the processing of shareholder transactions, impact the ability to calculate the fund’s net asset value and impede trading). Market events and disruptions also may trigger a volume of transactions that overloads current information technology and communication systems and processes, impacting the ability to conduct the fund’s operations.While the fund and its service providers may establish business continuity and other plans and processes that seek to address the possibility of and fallout from cyber-attacks, disruptions or failures, there are inherent limitations in such plans and systems, including that they do not apply to third parties, such as fund counterparties, issuers of securities held by the fund or other market participants, as well as the possibility that certain risks have not been identified or that unknown threats may emerge in the future and there is no assurance that such plans and processes will be effective. Among other situations, disruptions (for example, pandemics or health crises) that cause prolonged periods of remote work or significant employee absences at the fund’s service providers could impact the ability to conduct the fund’s operations. In addition, the fund cannot directly control any cybersecurity plans and systems put in place by its service providers, fund counterparties, issuers of securities held by the fund or other market participants.
Risk Lose Money [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] There are several risk factors that could hurt the fund’s performance, cause you to lose money or cause the fund’s performance to trail that of other investments. The fund may not achieve its investment objective, and is not intended to be a complete investment program.
Risk Not Insured Depository Institution [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] An investment in the fund is not a deposit of a bank and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other governmental agency.
Risk Nondiversified Status [Member]  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Risk [Text Block] Non-diversification risk. The fund is classified as non-diversified under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended. This means that the fund may invest in securities of relatively few issuers. Thus, the performance of one or a small number of portfolio holdings can affect overall performance.