Kettering to Columbus
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Kettering ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2.5%
Columbus, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.25%
Kettering, residents
Credit back
$1,350
capped by the ceiling
Cost of the commute
$150
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
ceiling bindsKettering'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 Kettering 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
- Kettering does credit you for the tax Columbus takes. It just stops early. The credit cannot pass about 2.25% of your income, and Columbus charges more than that, so it runs out before the bill does. Working there costs $150 a year more than working at home would. All in, local tax is $1,500.
- The run from Kettering is one of 50 recorded commutes into Columbus, and it comes 43 by the number of workers on it, about 670. Every one of those routes meets the same rate in Columbus. What separates them is what each home city gives back.
- The credit here is real but bounded. Kettering allows residents about 100% of tax paid to another municipality, subject to a ceiling of about 2.25% of income, and on this pairing it is the ceiling rather than the share that binds. Columbus withholds $1,500 at about 2.5%; Kettering returns $1,350 of that and collects the remainder of its own about 2.25% resident levy. The workplace accordingly costs $150 above the home-only position, against a total of $1,500.
- Columbus is a major regional workplace, drawing recorded flows from 50 separate origins in this dataset. The route from Kettering ranks 43 among them by worker count, at roughly 670. Rank is not a proxy for tax outcome: every origin faces the same Columbus rate, and what differs between them is the home municipality's credit, so a smaller route can carry a considerably worse result than a larger one.
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
| Columbus takes, on income earned there | $1,500 |
|---|---|
| Kettering charges residents | $1,350 |
| Less the credit Kettering gives back | $1,350 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Columbus | $1,350 |
| Difference | $150 |
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. Columbus taxes what you earn there, Kettering taxes everything you earn, and then Kettering decides how much of the first bill to give back.
- One thing to keep in mind. Ohio does not require Kettering to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Kettering could change what this commute to Columbus costs you, with no change in the law itself.
- Watch for one more local tax. School district income tax is separate from what Kettering and Columbus charge, and plenty of Ohio districts levy it. Working elsewhere makes no difference to it, and no credit offsets it.
- One tax is on this page and it is the city one. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still come out of your pay. None of them change when you cross the line between Kettering and Columbus. That is exactly why they are left out.
- 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 Kettering. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in Columbus.
- 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. Columbus taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Kettering taxes its residents on everything, and Kettering then credits some, all or none of what Columbus collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Kettering rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Kettering's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Kettering 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 Kettering can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Columbus 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 Columbus, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Kettering 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 Kettering and Columbus, 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 Kettering to Columbus 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. Columbus taxes you for working there at about 2.5%; Kettering then charges its own about 2.25% 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?
About $150 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Kettering, and it exists purely because the boundary sits between them.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
670 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: Columbus on the basis of work location at about 2.5%, Kettering on residence at about 2.25%. 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 $150 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 670 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.