Hamilton to Fairfield Township
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Hamilton ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1.5%
Fairfield Township, 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 Township 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
- Here is the good news. Working in Fairfield Township costs you nothing extra in local tax. Hamilton charges residents about 2%, and it credits back every dollar Fairfield Township collects from you. Either way your bill is $1,200 a year. What changes is which city keeps the money, not how much of it you hand over.
- Worth watching rather than worrying about. The credit from Hamilton runs out once Fairfield Township takes more than the ceiling allows, and today there is $300 a year of slack. A rate rise in Fairfield Township would eat into that first, and into your pay after.
- This is the only route into Fairfield Township large enough to show up in the data. About 582 people travel it from Hamilton. Other people commute there too. Their numbers are simply too small to be counted separately.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Fairfield Township 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 Township 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 Township only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Fairfield Township's levy currently sits below it with $300 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Fairfield Township 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 Fairfield Township draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Hamilton, carrying roughly 582 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
| Fairfield Township 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 Township | $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
- Do not add the two rates up, and do not assume the bigger one simply wins. Neither is how Ohio works. Both Fairfield Township and Hamilton charge you. Hamilton may then hand back what Fairfield Township 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. Hamilton decides how much credit to give for tax already paid to Fairfield Township. 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 Hamilton and Fairfield Township 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 Hamilton and Fairfield Township 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 Fairfield Township 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 Township taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Hamilton taxes its residents on everything, and Hamilton then credits some, all or none of what Fairfield Township 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 Township 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 Township, 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 Township, 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 Township 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 Fairfield Township costs about 1.5%; living in Hamilton costs about 2%, 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 commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
582 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it is.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Fairfield Township 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 measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 582 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.