Columbus to Upper Arlington
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Columbus ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2.5%
Upper Arlington, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Columbus, residents
Credit back
$1,500
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxColumbus credits only part of what Upper Arlington takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Columbus 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 Upper Arlington costs you nothing extra in local tax. Columbus charges residents about 2.5%, and it credits back every dollar Upper Arlington collects from you. Either way your bill is $1,500 a year. What changes is which city keeps the money, not how much of it you hand over.
- This one is balanced on a knife edge. What Upper Arlington takes is exactly what Columbus is willing to credit — no more. It costs you nothing today. It would cost you from the very first dollar if either city moved its rate.
- No other commute into Upper Arlington is big enough to appear here, so there is nothing to rank this one against. The route from Columbus carries around 5,054 workers. Smaller streams get folded away by the counting rules rather than by the map.
- Around 5,054 workers make this trip from Columbus into Upper Arlington. It is one of the busier commutes in the state, which is part of why it gets a page of its own.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Upper Arlington withholds about 2.5% on income earned there, and Columbus, 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 Upper Arlington and Columbus, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- This pairing sits exactly on its limit. Upper Arlington's rate and the ceiling Columbus places on its credit coincide to the cent, so the credit absorbs the work-city tax precisely and not a dollar further. The commute is costless today and has no margin whatsoever: any increase by Upper Arlington, or any reduction in the ceiling by Columbus, falls directly on the worker from the first dollar.
- Within this dataset Upper Arlington draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Columbus, carrying roughly 5,054 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 5,054 workers commuting from Columbus to Upper Arlington, 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 Columbus 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
| Upper Arlington takes, on income earned there | $1,500 |
|---|---|
| Columbus charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Columbus gives back | $1,500 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Upper Arlington | $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
- Two guesses about this are wrong, and they miss in opposite directions. The rates are not added together. Nor do you simply pay whichever is higher, which is how it works across the border in Pennsylvania. Upper Arlington taxes what you earn there, Columbus taxes everything you earn, and then Columbus decides how much of the first bill to give back.
- These figures rest on a local rule, not a state one. Columbus decides how much credit to give for tax already paid to Upper Arlington. It is worth confirming the current position with the city or its collection agency, because this is the part most likely to have changed.
- Watch for one more local tax. School district income tax is separate from what Columbus and Upper Arlington charge, and plenty of Ohio districts levy it. Working elsewhere makes no difference to it, and no credit offsets it.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Columbus and Upper Arlington 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 Upper Arlington charges and what Columbus 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. Upper Arlington taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Columbus taxes its residents on everything, and Columbus then credits some, all or none of what Upper Arlington collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Columbus rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Columbus's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Columbus 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 Columbus can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Upper Arlington 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 Upper Arlington, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Columbus 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 Columbus and Upper Arlington, 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 Columbus to Upper Arlington 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 Upper Arlington costs about 2.5%; living in Columbus 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 — 5,054 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.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
The rates match at about 2.5%, so the crossing moves money between authorities rather than out of your pocket.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Upper Arlington on the basis of work location at about 2.5%, Columbus 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 5,054 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.
What is the effect of identical rates either side of the boundary?
Both jurisdictions levy about 2.5%, so the governing rate is identical regardless of which rule allocates it. The boundary affects revenue attribution between authorities, not employee liability.