Fairborn to Springfield
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Fairborn ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2.4%
Springfield, on income earned there
Home city charges
2%
Fairborn, residents
Credit back
$1,200
capped by the ceiling
Cost of the commute
$240
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
ceiling bindsFairborn's credit stops at its ceiling, so the rest of its own tax still applies. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Fairborn 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
- Fairborn does credit you for the tax Springfield takes. It just stops early. The credit cannot pass about 2% of your income, and Springfield charges more than that, so it runs out before the bill does. Working there costs $240 a year more than working at home would. All in, local tax is $1,440.
- Springfield draws workers from 5 places in this data, and Fairborn is 4 of them by size, with about 550 people. It is a short list. Smaller routes into the city exist below the counting threshold.
- The credit here is real but bounded. Fairborn allows residents about 100% of tax paid to another municipality, subject to a ceiling of about 2% of income, and on this pairing it is the ceiling rather than the share that binds. Springfield withholds $1,440 at about 2.4%; Fairborn returns $1,200 of that and collects the remainder of its own about 2% resident levy. The workplace accordingly costs $240 above the home-only position, against a total of $1,440.
- Springfield records 5 qualifying commuting origins in this dataset, of which Fairborn ranks 4 by worker count at approximately 550. A workplace of this size draws from a small enough set of origins that the comparison is indicative rather than statistical, and the published floor excludes an unknown tail of smaller flows.
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
| Springfield takes, on income earned there | $1,440 |
|---|---|
| Fairborn charges residents | $1,200 |
| Less the credit Fairborn gives back | $1,200 |
| Total local tax | $1,440 |
| If you also lived in Springfield | $1,200 |
| Difference | $240 |
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. Springfield taxes what you earn there, Fairborn taxes everything you earn, and then Fairborn decides how much of the first bill to give back.
- One thing to keep in mind. Ohio does not require Fairborn to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Fairborn could change what this commute to Springfield costs you, with no change in the law itself.
- 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 Springfield, and the credit from Fairborn 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 Fairborn and Springfield. 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 Fairborn 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 Springfield 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. Springfield taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Fairborn taxes its residents on everything, and Fairborn then credits some, all or none of what Springfield collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Fairborn rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Fairborn's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Fairborn 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 Fairborn can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Springfield 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 Springfield, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Fairborn 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 Fairborn and Springfield, 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 Fairborn to Springfield 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?
Two claims, one partly canceled. Springfield takes about 2.4% because you work there, Fairborn charges about 2% because you live there, and the home city credits some of the first against the second.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
$240 a year more than if you worked where you live. It is not a commuting charge and it buys you nothing — it is what falls out of two jurisdictions both having a claim and only one of them yielding.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
550 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: Springfield on the basis of work location at about 2.4%, Fairborn on residence at about 2%. 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.
What is the marginal local tax cost of this commute?
Marginal annual liability attributable to working outside the residence jurisdiction is $240 at the reference salary. This is a tax cost rather than a commuting expense and is not deductible as one. It scales with income and with the rate differential, not with distance traveled.
What is the measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 550 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.