Toledo to Northwood
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Toledo ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1.5%
Northwood, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Toledo, 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 taxToledo credits only part of what Northwood takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Toledo 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. Toledo credits everything Northwood withholds, right up to its own rate of about 2.5%. Crossing the line to work adds nothing. Local income tax comes to $1,500 for the year, exactly as it would if the job were on your own street.
- Worth watching rather than worrying about. The credit from Toledo runs out once Northwood takes more than the ceiling allows, and today there is $600 a year of slack. A rate rise in Northwood would eat into that first, and into your pay after.
- This is the only route into Northwood large enough to show up in the data. About 2,697 people travel it from Toledo. Other people commute there too. Their numbers are simply too small to be counted separately.
- This is a well-traveled road. About 2,697 people go from Toledo to work in Northwood. That is a lot of households meeting the same rule at the same time.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Northwood withholds about 1.5% on income earned there, and Toledo, which levies about 2.5% on residents, credits that payment in full without reaching its own ceiling. Liability at the reference salary is therefore $1,500 — precisely what the same earnings would attract with no commute at all. What the arrangement alters is the division of revenue between Northwood and Toledo, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- The margin is worth knowing, because it is not large. Toledo credits tax paid to Northwood only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Northwood's levy currently sits below it with $600 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Northwood 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 Northwood draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Toledo, carrying roughly 2,697 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.
- Census origin-destination statistics record approximately 2,697 workers commuting from Toledo to Northwood, 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 Toledo 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
| Northwood takes, on income earned there | $900 |
|---|---|
| Toledo charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Toledo gives back | $900 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Northwood | $1,500 |
| 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
- Here is the shape of it, because the arithmetic is easy to get wrong. You are taxed by both cities. What happens next is up to Toledo: it may credit all of what Northwood took, some of it, or none at all. That choice belongs to the city rather than to the state, which is why identical salaries in neighboring towns land so differently.
- One thing to keep in mind. Ohio does not require Toledo to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Toledo could change what this commute to Northwood costs you, with no change in the law itself.
- Ohio has a second local tax that is not on this page. Some school districts levy their own income tax. It depends on where you live, not on your job in Northwood, and the credit from Toledo does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Toledo and Northwood 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.
- 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 Toledo. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in Northwood.
- 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. Northwood taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Toledo taxes its residents on everything, and Toledo then credits some, all or none of what Northwood collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Toledo rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Toledo's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Toledo 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 Toledo can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Northwood 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 Northwood, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Toledo 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 Toledo and Northwood, 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 Toledo to Northwood 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 Northwood costs about 1.5%; living in Toledo costs about 2.5%, 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 a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
2,697 workers make it. The pairing comes from federal commuting data rather than from guesswork, and thin routes are excluded rather than estimated.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Northwood on the basis of work location at about 1.5%, Toledo on residence at about 2.5%. 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.
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 2,697 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.