Living in Pennsylvania, working in Ohio
Reciprocal agreement · tax year 2026
You pay Pennsylvania
$2,149
on a seventy-thousand wage
Ohio would want
$1,209
The agreement is worth
$0
in money — the gain is one return, not two
File this
IT-4
with your employer
What the agreement does for you
- For Pennsylvania residents working in Ohio, the saving is in effort rather than money. Home takes $2,149 on seventy thousand dollars; Ohio would have taken $1,209, which is less. Either way the total lands at the home figure. The agreement just stops the wrong state taking money out of your pay all year and making you ask for it back.
- The size of this depends on your pay. Pennsylvania charges $1,382 on forty-five thousand dollars and $3,070 on a hundred thousand. Against that, Ohio would have taken $2,034 at the higher figure. Check it against your own salary rather than the middle one.
- One piece of paper stands between you and this. Your employer needs the Ohio exemption certificate from you, usually once a year. Without it they must keep withholding Ohio tax from a Pennsylvania resident. You would then be filing a return there after all.
- The benefit on this pairing is compliance relief rather than a lower bill. Pennsylvania charges $2,149 on seventy thousand dollars where Ohio would charge $1,209; the home charge being larger, a resident credit would have produced the same total unaided. ⭐ What the agreement buys is the removal of a nonresident filing obligation and of a year of withholding by the wrong jurisdiction.
- Liability under each schedule diverges with income: $1,382 and $3,070 in Pennsylvania at forty-five and one hundred thousand dollars respectively, against $2,034 in Ohio at the upper point. The relevant figure for any individual is therefore the one at their own wage — the mid-ladder comparison is illustrative of direction, not of magnitude.
- 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 Ohio. 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
$2,280per paycheck
| Take-home, year | $59,290 |
|---|---|
| Tax, year | $15,710 |
| Share of pay taxed | 20.95% |
This is an average rate across all your pay — not the rate on your next dollar.
Pennsylvania against Ohio
A $75,000 salary
Compare with
+$4,809a year in Ohio, once local prices are leveled
| Measure | Pennsylvania | Ohio |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $59,290 | $60,246 |
| Worth after local prices | $60,810 | $65,619 |
| Share of pay taxed | 20.95% | 19.67% |
| State sales tax | 6% | 5.75% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | Yes | No |
| Property tax rate | 1.3% | 1.31% |
| Price level | 97.5 | 91.8 |
| Housing prices | 85.8 | 72.1 |
| Fuel tax | 57.6¢ | 38.5¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $2.60 | $1.60 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Pennsylvania, Statewide average; Ohio, Statewide average. Clothing: one $100 item; higher prices can change tax.
What you would need there
A $75,000 salary
Moving to
$68,469in Ohio, for the same life
| To match take-home only | $73,585 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$6,531 |
| Prices in Ohio | 92 vs 98 |
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 Ohio's whole charge.
| Wage | Pennsylvania charges | Ohio would charge | Agreement is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| $45,000 | $1,382 | $521 | $0 |
| $70,000 | $2,149 | $1,209 | $0 |
| $100,000 | $3,070 | $2,034 | $0 |
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 Ohio.
- ⚠️ And it is a deal between two states. City and county taxes are not part of it, and several of these states have them.
- Every agreement in this dataset applies to wages and salaries only. Business, rental, gain and investment income sourced to Ohio remains taxable there under ordinary nonresident rules, and a commuter with such income may still owe a Ohio 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.