Fairfield to Hamilton
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Fairfield ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2%
Hamilton, on income earned there
Home city charges
1.5%
Fairfield, residents
Credit back
$900
capped by the ceiling
Cost of the commute
$300
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
ceiling bindsFairfield'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 Fairfield 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
- There is a ceiling on this, and you have hit it. Fairfield will credit tax paid to Hamilton, but only up to about 1.5% of what you earn. Past that point you pay Fairfield too. The gap runs to $300 over a year, on top of $1,200 already withheld where you work.
- Of all the places people commute to Hamilton from, Fairfield sends the most. The count is about 1,267 workers, top of 4 recorded routes. A rule that costs money on this pairing costs it at scale.
- The credit here is real but bounded. Fairfield allows residents about 100% of tax paid to another municipality, subject to a ceiling of about 1.5% of income, and on this pairing it is the ceiling rather than the share that binds. Hamilton withholds $1,200 at about 2%; Fairfield returns $900 of that and collects the remainder of its own about 1.5% resident levy. The workplace accordingly costs $300 above the home-only position, against a total of $1,200.
- This is the largest recorded flow into Hamilton. Of 4 origins feeding that workplace in this dataset, Fairfield supplies the most workers at approximately 1,267. 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.
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
| Hamilton takes, on income earned there | $1,200 |
|---|---|
| Fairfield charges residents | $900 |
| Less the credit Fairfield gives back | $900 |
| Total local tax | $1,200 |
| If you also lived in Hamilton | $900 |
| Difference | $300 |
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 Hamilton and Fairfield charge you. Fairfield may then hand back what Hamilton 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. Fairfield decides how much credit to give for tax already paid to Hamilton. 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 Fairfield and Hamilton charge, and plenty of Ohio districts levy it. Working elsewhere makes no difference to it, and no credit offsets it.
- Do not read this as your whole tax bill. It is the part that answers to the commute between Fairfield and Hamilton. State and federal tax carry on regardless, unchanged by which side of a city line your desk is on.
- 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 Fairfield. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in Hamilton.
- 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. Hamilton taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Fairfield taxes its residents on everything, and Fairfield then credits some, all or none of what Hamilton collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Fairfield rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Fairfield's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Fairfield 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 Fairfield can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Hamilton 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 Hamilton, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Fairfield 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 Fairfield and Hamilton, 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 Fairfield to Hamilton 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. Hamilton taxes you for working there at about 2%; Fairfield then charges its own about 1.5% and credits part of the first against it. Whether anything is left over depends on how generous that credit is.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
Working across the line costs $300 a year here. The same salary earned in Fairfield would not carry it.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
It is. 1,267 workers travel this pair, per the federal origin-destination survey; smaller routes fall below the publication floor and get no page.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Hamilton on the basis of work location at about 2%, Fairfield on residence at about 1.5%. 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.
What is the marginal local tax cost of this commute?
Marginal annual liability attributable to working outside the residence jurisdiction is $300 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 basis for including this route?
Route volume is 1,267 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.