Living in Ohio, working in Indiana

Moving boxes, a plant and keys at an open front door, with a moving truck outside.

Reciprocal agreement · tax year 2026

You pay Ohio

$1,209

on a seventy-thousand wage

Indiana would want

$2,036

The agreement is worth

$827

a year

File this

WH-47

with your employer

What the agreement does for you

  • If you live in Ohio and work in Indiana, this agreement is worth real money. On a wage of seventy thousand dollars, Ohio asks $1,209 and Indiana would have taken $2,036. You pay the Ohio figure and stop there. That is a gap of $827 a year, every year you make the trip.
  • It does not stay the same as you earn more. On forty-five thousand dollars the Ohio bill is $521; on a hundred thousand it is $2,034. Indiana would have charged $2,921 at that higher wage. The two states pull apart as the salary rises, which is why this matters more to a senior job than a starter one.
  • One piece of paper stands between you and this. Your employer needs the Indiana exemption certificate from you, usually once a year. Without it they must keep withholding Indiana tax from a Ohio resident. You would then be filing a return there after all.
  • For a Ohio resident earning wages in Indiana, the agreement produces a genuine liability reduction rather than a purely procedural one. At seventy thousand dollars of wages, Ohio levies $1,209 against Indiana's $2,036 on the same income, a difference of $827. ⚠️ Absent the agreement the saving would NOT be Indiana's full charge: you would file there as a nonresident and Ohio would credit the tax paid, capped at its own liability on that income — so the counterfactual total is approximately the higher of the two figures, and the agreement's value is the spread between them.
  • The differential is income-dependent rather than fixed. Ohio's liability runs $521 at forty-five thousand dollars and $2,034 at one hundred thousand, against $2,921 in Indiana at the upper figure. Where one state applies a flat rate and the other a graduated schedule the gap widens or narrows monotonically with income, so a single-salary comparison understates how much the pairing matters across a career.
  • The benefit is conditional on filing the exemption certificate with the employer, typically renewed annually. ⚠️ Employer withholding defaults to the work state in its absence, irrespective of eligibility, and the remedy is a nonresident return in Indiana. The practical failure mode is therefore not ineligibility but non-election — the agreement exists and the commuter simply never claims it.

What lands in your account

A $75,000 salary

Filing as
Paid
$2,317per paycheck
Take-home, year$60,246
Tax, year$14,754
Share of pay taxed19.67%

This is an average rate across all your pay — not the rate on your next dollar.

Ohio against Indiana

A $75,000 salary

Compare with
−$1,173a year in Indiana, once local prices are leveled← OhioIndiana →Take-home pay: Ohio $60,246 · Indiana $59,410Take-home payWorth after local prices: Ohio $65,619 · Indiana $64,447Worth after local pricesShare of pay taxed: Ohio 19.67% · Indiana 20.79%Share of pay taxedState sales tax: Ohio 5.75% · Indiana 7%State sales taxGroceries exempt here: Ohio Yes · Indiana YesGroceries exempt hereClothing exempt at $100: Ohio No · Indiana NoClothing exempt at $100Property tax rate: Ohio 1.31% · Indiana 0.74%Property tax ratePrice level: Ohio 91.8 · Indiana 92.2Price levelHousing prices: Ohio 72.1 · Indiana 71.4Housing pricesFuel tax: Ohio 38.5¢ · Indiana 37¢Fuel taxTobacco tax: Ohio $1.60 · Indiana $3.00Tobacco tax
MeasureOhioIndiana
Take-home pay$60,246$59,410
Worth after local prices$65,619$64,447
Share of pay taxed19.67%20.79%
State sales tax5.75%7%
Groceries exempt hereYesYes
Clothing exempt at $100NoNo
Property tax rate1.31%0.74%
Price level91.892.2
Housing prices72.171.4
Fuel tax38.5¢37¢
Tobacco tax$1.60$3.00

City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Ohio, Statewide average; Indiana, Statewide average. Clothing: one $100 item; higher prices can change tax.

What you would need there

A $75,000 salary

Moving to
$0$76,604
$76,604in Indiana, for the same life
To match take-home only$76,242
Raise you would need+$1,604
Prices in Indiana92 vs 92

State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.

What each state would charge, across the ladder

Reference wages for a single filer, not a claim about anyone's salary. The last column is the difference the agreement actually removes — which is the gap between the two states, not Indiana's whole charge.

WageOhio chargesIndiana would chargeAgreement is worth
$45,000$521$1,298$777
$70,000$1,209$2,036$827
$100,000$2,034$2,921$887

What this page cannot tell you

  • This covers wages from a job. It does not cover self-employment, rent or investment income — those follow the ordinary rules for Indiana.
  • ⚠️ And it is a deal between two states. City and county taxes are not part of it, and several of these states have them.
  • The comparison here assumes a single filer and treats both states as taxing the same income. Your own numbers will differ.
  • Every agreement in this dataset applies to wages and salaries only. Business, rental, gain and investment income sourced to Indiana remains taxable there under ordinary nonresident rules, and a commuter with such income may still owe a Indiana return notwithstanding the agreement.
  • ⚠️ Reciprocity binds the state layer only and commonly does NOT extend to municipal or county income taxes — Pennsylvania's local earned income tax is the standard example, remaining payable at the place of employment despite the state-level agreement. Local liabilities are excluded from every figure on this page.
  • Figures are computed for a single filer at the stated wage, treating Ohio's and Indiana's definitions of taxable income as equivalent and modeling the resident credit as limited to the home state's own liability. Real returns diverge on filing status, deductions each state allows separately, and credit limitation rules — so these are comparative magnitudes, not a computation of anyone's liability.