Akron to Fairlawn
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Akron ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2%
Fairlawn, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Akron, residents
Credit back
$1,200
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxAkron credits only part of what Fairlawn takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Akron bar is the credit it hands back. Municipal income tax only — state, federal and payroll tax apply on top, and an Ohio school district income tax may too.
What this commute actually costs
- You can stop worrying about this one. Akron credits everything Fairlawn withholds, right up to its own rate of about 2.5%. Crossing the line to work adds nothing. Local income tax comes to $1,500 for the year, exactly as it would if the job were on your own street.
- This is closer than it looks. Akron covers what Fairlawn takes, but only up to a limit, and Fairlawn is $300 a year short of it. Raise the work rate past that and the commute stops being free.
- Fairlawn shows just one commuting route in this data, and it starts in Akron. Roughly 1,972 people make the trip. That is not the whole picture of who works there, only the part large enough to be published.
- Roughly 1,972 people travel from Akron to Fairlawn for work. Multiply one household's answer by that, and the credit rule stops being a detail.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Fairlawn withholds about 2% on income earned there, and Akron, which levies about 2.5% on residents, credits that payment in full without reaching its own ceiling. Liability at the reference salary is therefore $1,500 — precisely what the same earnings would attract with no commute at all. What the arrangement alters is the division of revenue between Fairlawn and Akron, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- The margin is worth knowing, because it is not large. Akron credits tax paid to Fairlawn only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Fairlawn's levy currently sits below it with $300 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Fairlawn to raise its rate past that point, the excess would cease to be credited and would fall on the worker rather than on either treasury.
- Within this dataset Fairlawn draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Akron, carrying roughly 1,972 workers. That reflects the reporting floor rather than the labor market: smaller flows certainly exist and fall below the threshold at which Census origin-destination statistics are published. No ranking against sibling routes is therefore available for this workplace.
- Census origin-destination statistics record approximately 1,972 workers commuting from Akron to Fairlawn, placing this among the larger intra-state flows in Ohio. The outcome set out above therefore has aggregate fiscal consequence for both municipalities, not merely individual consequence for the worker: the credit Akron does or does not extend is applied to every one of them at once.
Where the money goes
A $75,000 salary
- Federal income tax$7,670
- Social Security and Medicare$5,738
- State income tax$1,346
- Yours$60,246
| Federal income tax10.23% | $7,670 |
|---|---|
| Social Security and Medicare7.65% | $5,738 |
| State income tax1.79% | $1,346 |
| Yours80.33% | $60,246 |
The arithmetic, step by step
| Fairlawn takes, on income earned there | $1,200 |
|---|---|
| Akron charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Akron gives back | $1,200 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Fairlawn | $1,500 |
| Difference | $0 |
On a reference salary of $60,000 a year. Both rates and the credit ceiling are shares of income, so every figure scales with your own pay.
What this page does not cover
- Here is the shape of it, because the arithmetic is easy to get wrong. You are taxed by both cities. What happens next is up to Akron: it may credit all of what Fairlawn took, some of it, or none at all. That choice belongs to the city rather than to the state, which is why identical salaries in neighboring towns land so differently.
- The credit rule on this page belongs to Akron, not to the state. Its council sets it and its council can change it. Nothing needs to happen in Fairlawn or at the state level for these numbers to move. Check the current rule before you rely on it.
- Ohio has a second local tax that is not on this page. Some school districts levy their own income tax. It depends on where you live, not on your job in Fairlawn, and the credit from Akron does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- Do not read this as your whole tax bill. It is the part that answers to the commute between Akron and Fairlawn. State and federal tax carry on regardless, unchanged by which side of a city line your desk is on.
- Every dollar amount here uses a salary of sixty thousand a year. It is a benchmark, not a guess at what people in Akron earn, because nobody publishes average pay for single municipalities. Scale the figures to your own salary. The rates and the credit work the same way at any income, so the Fairlawn conclusion holds.
- Two misreadings bracket the correct answer and both are common. Ohio does not simply add the two rates together, which would overstate the charge; nor does it apply only the higher of them, which is Pennsylvania's rule and would understate it wherever the credit is partial. Fairlawn taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Akron taxes its residents on everything, and Akron then credits some, all or none of what Fairlawn collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Akron rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Akron's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Akron alone. Ohio's uniform framework governs definitions, filing and withholding; it does not compel any municipality to credit tax paid to another. A council vote in Akron can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Fairlawn or in state law, which is a materially different exposure from a rate set by statute.
- Ohio school district income tax is a separate levy from municipal income tax and is excluded from these figures. It is imposed by school district of residence rather than by municipality, it is unaffected by employment in Fairlawn, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Akron whose school district levies one owes it in addition to everything shown here, which is why the totals on this page are a municipal position rather than a complete local one.
- Only municipal income tax is modeled. Ohio's state income tax, federal income tax and payroll taxes all apply in addition and are invariant to the boundary between Akron and Fairlawn, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison. A complete tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- Dollar figures are computed against a stated reference salary of sixty thousand rather than a municipal wage average, which no published source provides for Ohio municipalities. Both rates and the credit ceiling are proportional to income, so every figure scales linearly: the Akron to Fairlawn differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it, and the rate relationship holds at every level. The one caveat is that whether the ceiling binds at all is itself scale-invariant here, because it too is expressed as a share of income rather than as a fixed dollar cap.
Questions people ask
Do I pay local tax twice — once where I work and once where I live?
You are taxed by both, then given credit for one. Working in Fairlawn costs about 2%; living in Akron costs about 2.5%, reduced by whatever share of the work tax the home city recognizes.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
Not a cent on this one. The crossing changes where the money is sent, not how much of it leaves, so your total matches a stay-at-home commute.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 1,972 people make this exact journey, according to the federal employment survey that tracks where workers live against where they work. Routes below a volume floor are not published, so a page existing here means the commute is real and measured.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Fairlawn on the basis of work location at about 2%, Akron on residence at about 2.5%. The residence municipality grants a credit for tax paid to the work municipality, commonly capped as a share of income. Net liability is the residence tax less that credit, floored at zero, plus the work tax.
Why is the marginal cost of this crossing zero?
Marginal liability from working outside the residence jurisdiction is zero on this route. The crossing alters the distribution of revenue between jurisdictions but not the employee's total. ⚠️ This is route-specific and does not generalise to other pairs in the same dataset.
What is the basis for including this route?
Route volume is 1,972 workers, sourced from Census LODES origin-destination data. Pairs below the publication threshold are excluded rather than imputed, so page existence reflects measured commuting volume.