Cincinnati to Fairfax Village
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Cincinnati ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1.75%
Fairfax Village, on income earned there
Home city charges
1.8%
Cincinnati, residents
Credit back
$1,050
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxCincinnati credits only part of what Fairfax Village takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Cincinnati 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
- Here is the good news. Working in Fairfax Village costs you nothing extra in local tax. Cincinnati charges residents about 1.8%, and it credits back every dollar Fairfax Village collects from you. Either way your bill is $1,080 a year. What changes is which city keeps the money, not how much of it you hand over.
- This is closer than it looks. Cincinnati covers what Fairfax Village takes, but only up to a limit, and Fairfax Village is $30 a year short of it. Raise the work rate past that and the commute stops being free.
- No other commute into Fairfax Village is big enough to appear here, so there is nothing to rank this one against. The route from Cincinnati carries around 591 workers. Smaller streams get folded away by the counting rules rather than by the map.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Fairfax Village withholds about 1.75% on income earned there, and Cincinnati, which levies about 1.8% on residents, credits that payment in full without reaching its own ceiling. Liability at the reference salary is therefore $1,080 — precisely what the same earnings would attract with no commute at all. What the arrangement alters is the division of revenue between Fairfax Village and Cincinnati, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- The margin is worth knowing, because it is not large. Cincinnati credits tax paid to Fairfax Village only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Fairfax Village's levy currently sits below it with $30 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Fairfax Village 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 Fairfax Village draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Cincinnati, carrying roughly 591 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.
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
| Fairfax Village takes, on income earned there | $1,050 |
|---|---|
| Cincinnati charges residents | $1,080 |
| Less the credit Cincinnati gives back | $1,050 |
| Total local tax | $1,080 |
| If you also lived in Fairfax Village | $1,080 |
| 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 Fairfax Village and Cincinnati charge you. Cincinnati may then hand back what Fairfax Village took, or part of it, or none of it. Everything on this page turns on which of those it does.
- The credit rule on this page belongs to Cincinnati, not to the state. Its council sets it and its council can change it. Nothing needs to happen in Fairfax Village 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 Fairfax Village, and the credit from Cincinnati does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Cincinnati and Fairfax Village 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.
- Sixty thousand a year is the assumption behind the dollars. It is stated rather than measured. No wage figure exists for a place the size of Cincinnati. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in Fairfax Village.
- 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. Fairfax Village taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Cincinnati taxes its residents on everything, and Cincinnati then credits some, all or none of what Fairfax Village collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Cincinnati rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Cincinnati's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Cincinnati 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 Cincinnati can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Fairfax Village 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 Fairfax Village, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Cincinnati 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 Cincinnati and Fairfax Village, 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 Cincinnati to Fairfax Village 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?
Both places charge you, but the city you live in gives back some of what the other one took. Fairfax Village taxes you for working there at about 1.75%; Cincinnati then charges its own about 1.8% and credits part of the first against it. Whether anything is left over depends on how generous that credit is.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
Nothing extra. The tax is redirected rather than increased, so this particular crossing costs you no more than working in Cincinnati would.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
591 workers make this journey — enough to be published, but not a major corridor. The tax rules do not depend on how many people travel a route, so the figures hold regardless; the count only tells you how typical this pairing is.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Fairfax Village on the basis of work location at about 1.75%, Cincinnati on residence at about 1.8%. 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 measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 591 workers per Census LODES, above the publication floor but below the dataset's upper quartile. Liability is determined by jurisdictional rates and residence rules alone; commuter volume has no bearing on it and is reported only as context.