Medina to Akron
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Medina ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2.5%
Akron, on income earned there
Home city charges
1.25%
Medina, residents
Credit back
$375
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$1,125
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
partial creditMedina credits only part of what Akron takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Medina 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
- Medina gives back some of what Akron takes, but not all of it. The credit covers about 25% of the work city's tax and no more. Whatever is left over, you pay twice. That comes to $1,125 a year beyond what living and working in Medina would have cost.
- Akron pulls workers in from 19 different places, and this route from Medina ranks 18 of them by size. About 710 people travel it. Being busier does not make it cheaper. The rate you pay depends on your home city, not on how crowded your road is.
- Medina credits only part of what its residents pay elsewhere. Its ordinance allows about 25% of tax paid to another municipality, and on this pairing that share, rather than the income ceiling, is what limits the relief. Against $1,500 withheld by Akron, the credit returns $375, leaving Medina to collect the balance of its about 1.25% resident levy. The workplace accounts for $1,125; the year's local total is $1,875.
- Akron is a major regional workplace, drawing recorded flows from 19 separate origins in this dataset. The route from Medina ranks 18 among them by worker count, at roughly 710. Rank is not a proxy for tax outcome: every origin faces the same Akron 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
| Akron takes, on income earned there | $1,500 |
|---|---|
| Medina charges residents | $750 |
| Less the credit Medina gives back | $375 |
| Total local tax | $1,875 |
| If you also lived in Akron | $750 |
| Difference | $1,125 |
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. Akron taxes what you earn there, Medina taxes everything you earn, and then Medina decides how much of the first bill to give back.
- The credit rule on this page belongs to Medina, not to the state. Its council sets it and its council can change it. Nothing needs to happen in Akron 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 Medina rather than your workplace in Akron, and it is not credited against anything.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Medina and Akron 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.
- Every dollar amount here uses a salary of sixty thousand a year. It is a benchmark, not a guess at what people in Medina 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 Akron 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. Akron taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Medina taxes its residents on everything, and Medina then credits some, all or none of what Akron collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Medina rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Medina's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Medina 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 Medina can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Akron 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 Akron, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Medina 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 Medina and Akron, 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 Medina to Akron 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. Akron taxes you for working there at about 2.5%; Medina then charges its own about 1.25% 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?
Working across the line costs $1,125 a year here. The same salary earned in Medina would not carry it.
Why does my home town not credit the whole of what the other one took?
It is a local choice, and a costly one to make generous. Crediting in full would surrender the tax on every resident working outside Medina, so the credit is capped and the remainder lands on you.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
It is a smaller route: 710 workers. That affects how representative it is, not whether the tax arithmetic applies — the rules are the same on a quiet road as a busy one.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Akron on the basis of work location at about 2.5%, Medina on residence at about 1.25%. 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 $1,125 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.
Why is the residence credit less than the full work-district tax?
Credit rates and ceilings are set by the residence municipality, not by state law. A full credit would forgo residence-based revenue from every outbound commuter, so credits are commonly partial or capped as a share of income. The uncredited remainder is the commuter's marginal cost.
What is the measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 710 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.