Hamilton to Fairfield
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Hamilton ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1.5%
Fairfield, on income earned there
Home city charges
2%
Hamilton, residents
Credit back
$900
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxHamilton credits only part of what Fairfield takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Hamilton 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. Hamilton credits everything Fairfield withholds, right up to its own rate of about 2%. Crossing the line to work adds nothing. Local income tax comes to $1,200 for the year, exactly as it would if the job were on your own street.
- Worth watching rather than worrying about. The credit from Hamilton runs out once Fairfield takes more than the ceiling allows, and today there is $300 a year of slack. A rate rise in Fairfield would eat into that first, and into your pay after.
- Of all the places people commute to Fairfield from, Hamilton sends the most. The count is about 2,838 workers, top of 4 recorded routes. A rule that costs money on this pairing costs it at scale.
- This is a well-traveled road. About 2,838 people go from Hamilton to work in Fairfield. That is a lot of households meeting the same rule at the same time.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Fairfield withholds about 1.5% on income earned there, and Hamilton, which levies about 2% on residents, credits that payment in full without reaching its own ceiling. Liability at the reference salary is therefore $1,200 — precisely what the same earnings would attract with no commute at all. What the arrangement alters is the division of revenue between Fairfield and Hamilton, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- The margin is worth knowing, because it is not large. Hamilton credits tax paid to Fairfield only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Fairfield's levy currently sits below it with $300 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Fairfield 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 Fairfield. Of 4 origins feeding that workplace in this dataset, Hamilton supplies the most workers at approximately 2,838. 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 2,838 workers commuting from Hamilton to Fairfield, 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 Hamilton 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
| Fairfield takes, on income earned there | $900 |
|---|---|
| Hamilton charges residents | $1,200 |
| Less the credit Hamilton gives back | $900 |
| Total local tax | $1,200 |
| If you also lived in Fairfield | $1,200 |
| 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. Fairfield taxes what you earn there, Hamilton taxes everything you earn, and then Hamilton decides how much of the first bill to give back.
- The credit rule on this page belongs to Hamilton, not to the state. Its council sets it and its council can change it. Nothing needs to happen in Fairfield or at the state level for these numbers to move. Check the current rule before you rely on it.
- 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 Hamilton rather than your workplace in Fairfield, and it is not credited against anything.
- Do not read this as your whole tax bill. It is the part that answers to the commute between Hamilton and Fairfield. State and federal tax carry on regardless, unchanged by which side of a city line your desk is on.
- 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 Fairfield charges and what Hamilton 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. Fairfield taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Hamilton taxes its residents on everything, and Hamilton then credits some, all or none of what Fairfield collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Hamilton rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Hamilton's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Hamilton 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 Hamilton can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Fairfield 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 Fairfield, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Hamilton 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 Hamilton and Fairfield, 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 Hamilton to Fairfield 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. Fairfield taxes you for working there at about 1.5%; Hamilton then charges its own about 2% 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 Hamilton would.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 2,838 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.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Fairfield on the basis of work location at about 1.5%, Hamilton 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.
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 2,838 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.