Akron to Stow
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Akron ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2%
Stow, 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 Stow 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 Stow 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 Stow takes, but only up to a limit, and Stow is $300 a year short of it. Raise the work rate past that and the commute stops being free.
- No route sends more people into Stow than this one. About 1,723 workers come from Akron, putting it top of 2 recorded origins. Whatever the tax rule does here, it does to a lot of households at once.
- Roughly 1,723 people travel from Akron to Stow for work. Multiply one household's answer by that, and the credit rule stops being a detail.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Stow 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 Stow 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 Stow only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Stow's levy currently sits below it with $300 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Stow 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.
- This is the largest recorded flow into Stow. Of 2 origins feeding that workplace in this dataset, Akron supplies the most workers at approximately 1,723. The credit outcome described above therefore applies to more commuters than any other single route into the city, which matters when the outcome is an adverse one: the same ordinance governs every origin, but the populations behind each are very different.
- Census origin-destination statistics record approximately 1,723 workers commuting from Akron to Stow, 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
| Stow 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 Stow | $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
- Do not add the two rates up, and do not assume the bigger one simply wins. Neither is how Ohio works. Both Stow and Akron charge you. Akron may then hand back what Stow took, or part of it, or none of it. Everything on this page turns on which of those it does.
- These figures rest on a local rule, not a state one. Akron decides how much credit to give for tax already paid to Stow. It is worth confirming the current position with the city or its collection agency, because this is the part most likely to have changed.
- This page covers city income tax only. Your school district may charge its own on top, and many in Ohio do. That one follows your address in Akron rather than your workplace in Stow, and it is not credited against anything.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Akron and Stow take sits on top of state, federal and payroll tax. Those three are the same wherever in Ohio you work, so putting them in would bury the difference this page is about.
- The dollar figures rest on one assumed salary, sixty thousand. Double your pay and they double. Halve it and they halve. What stays put is the relationship between what Stow charges and what Akron gives back, which is the part worth carrying away.
- 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. Stow taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Akron taxes its residents on everything, and Akron then credits some, all or none of what Stow 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 Stow 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 Stow, 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 Stow, 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 Stow 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 Stow 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?
1,723 workers make it. The pairing comes from federal commuting data rather than from guesswork, and thin routes are excluded rather than estimated.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Stow 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 1,723 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.