How Ohio taxes a paycheck
Ohio's 2026 income tax is new. HB 96, the state budget signed in July 2025, replaced the two remaining brackets (2.75% and 3.125%, itself down from 3.5% in 2024) with a single 2.75% rate on Ohio taxable income above $26,050. Income below $26,050 is untaxed, as it has been since 2023. Ohio is now the fifteenth flat-tax state and has the second lowest flat rate after Arizona's 2.5%.
Ohio has no standard deduction. A personal exemption of $2,400 per filer and per dependent applies for Ohio AGI up to $40,000, falling to $2,150 up to $80,000 and $1,900 above; the calculator uses $2,400. HB 96 also limited the joint filing credit and exemptions to filers with modified AGI of $500,000 or less. The state's low rate is what makes the rest of the picture matter: Ohio's local income taxes are among the heaviest in the country.
About 600 Ohio municipalities levy an income tax on wages earned within them, generally 1% to 3%: Columbus 2.5%, Cleveland 2.5%, Toledo 2.5%, Cincinnati 1.8%, Akron 2.5%, Dayton 2.5%. Employers withhold the tax for the city where the work is done, and residents of a different city may owe more or receive a credit depending on their home city's rules. On top of that, about a third of Ohio's school districts levy an income tax on residents of 0.25% to 2%, also withheld. Neither is included here, and together they commonly exceed the state tax.
How much taxes are taken out of paychecks in Ohio?
On a $60,000 salary in 2026, a single filer in Ohio pays about $5,020 in federal income tax, $4,590 in Social Security and Medicare, and about $870 in Ohio state income tax, leaving roughly $49,520 a year or $1,905 every two weeks before local tax. Someone working in Columbus would pay a further $1,500 in city tax, and a resident of a 1% school district $600 more.
The state share is 1.4% of gross, the lowest of any state that taxes wages at that salary, because the first $26,050 is untaxed. The 2026 change is worth about $110 a year to that earner compared with 2025's 3.125% bracket.
Ohio compared with its neighbours
On a $60,000 single salary the state tax is about $870 in Ohio, $1,740 in Indiana, $1,980 in Kentucky, $1,840 in Pennsylvania, $1,970 in West Virginia and $2,300 in Michigan. Ohio is the cheapest of the six on state tax alone.
Every neighbour except Michigan (in most places) and West Virginia (a small flat fee) also has local income taxes, so the state-plus-city comparison is the fair one. A Columbus worker at 2.75% plus 2.5% and an Indianapolis worker at 2.95% plus 2.02% end up within a few hundred dollars; a Pittsburgh worker at 3.07% plus 3% is in the same range. Ohio's reform shifted the state's income tax burden toward its cities without reducing it as much as the headline suggests.
Withholding forms and filing status in Ohio
Ohio employers withhold from Form IT 4, which asks for exemptions and the school district of residence, because school district income tax is withheld with the state tax; municipal tax is withheld separately for the city where the work is done. The flat rate applies to both filing statuses above the same $26,050 threshold, so a married couple's joint return shelters $4,800 in exemptions but faces the same threshold as a single filer, one of the few marriage penalties left in Ohio's structure. Ohio's joint filing credit, up to $650, offsets some of that on the return.
Ohio has reciprocal agreements with Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia for state tax; municipal taxes are outside them, so a Kentucky resident working in Cincinnati pays Cincinnati's 1.8% but not Ohio's state tax. Ohio's flat rate is set in statute with no trigger.