Living in West Virginia, working in Ohio
Reciprocal agreement · tax year 2026
You pay West Virginia
$2,317
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
- Do not expect a check from this one. Between West Virginia and Ohio, home charges $2,317 on a seventy-thousand-dollar wage and the work state would have charged $1,209. Because home is the dearer of the two, your bill is the same with or without the agreement. What changes is that you file once instead of twice.
- The size of this depends on your pay. West Virginia charges $1,233 on forty-five thousand dollars and $3,691 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 West Virginia resident. You would then be filing a return there after all.
- No dollar saving arises on this pairing: West Virginia levies $2,317 against Ohio's $1,209 at seventy thousand dollars, and since the home charge is the larger, a resident credit would have absorbed the work state's tax entirely. ⭐ The agreement's value is the elimination of nonresident filing and of incorrect withholding across the year — which is the outcome most commuters are actually seeking when they ask about reciprocity.
- Liability under each schedule diverges with income: $1,233 and $3,691 in West Virginia 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
$2,271per paycheck
| Take-home, year | $59,047 |
|---|---|
| Tax, year | $15,953 |
| Share of pay taxed | 21.27% |
This is an average rate across all your pay — not the rate on your next dollar.
West Virginia against Ohio
A $75,000 salary
Compare with
−$155a year in Ohio, once local prices are leveled
| Measure | West Virginia | Ohio |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $59,047 | $60,246 |
| Worth after local prices | $65,774 | $65,619 |
| Share of pay taxed | 21.27% | 19.67% |
| State sales tax | 6% | 5.75% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 0.53% | 1.31% |
| Price level | 89.8 | 91.8 |
| Housing prices | 56.1 | 72.1 |
| Fuel tax | 20.5¢ | 38.5¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $1.20 | $1.60 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: West Virginia, 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
$75,210in Ohio, for the same life
| To match take-home only | $73,225 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$210 |
| Prices in Ohio | 92 vs 90 |
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 | West Virginia charges | Ohio would charge | Agreement is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| $45,000 | $1,233 | $521 | $0 |
| $70,000 | $2,317 | $1,209 | $0 |
| $100,000 | $3,691 | $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.