Ohio Tax Explainer
An interactive guide to the state and local taxes Ohioans pay — and who actually collects them.
Annual state & local tax collections ($33B state, $39B local)
Annual real property tax — the single largest tax (~$1,915/resident)
Share of the property tax that goes to school districts
Governments that typically tax a single Ohio parcel
Property tax collected by the State of Ohio (it levies none)
88 counties · 900+ cities & villages · ~1,300 townships · 600+ school districts. Source: Ohio Department of Taxation Tax Data Series; U.S. Census / ACS.
This page collects the interactive maps and key numbers behind our newsletter series, "Ohio's Taxes, Explained." Everything here is built from public Ohio Department of Taxation data.
Ohioans pay a surprising number of overlapping taxes — to the state, a county, a city or township, a school district, and a cluster of special districts — and this is where we make that visible. We'll keep adding maps as the series continues.
1 · The stack — who taxes you?
Hover anywhere in Ohio to see the full stack of governments that can tax that spot. Cities and townships are mostly mutually exclusive (incorporated vs. unincorporated), so usually only one of those fills in. This map shows the big, general-purpose governments; libraries, parks, transit, and other special districts also tax the parcel and aren't drawn here.
Every Ohio address sits under a stack of taxing governments — the state, a county, a city or a township, a school district, and a cluster of special districts. That stack, not any single tax, is what makes an Ohio tax bill hard to read. Read piece 1 of the series →
2 · The menu — what kinds of taxes?
Those governments choose from a short menu. The state leans on a 5.75% sales tax (with local add-ons on top) and a nearly flat 2.75% income tax on income above ~$26,000, plus a small 0.26% commercial-activity tax on business receipts. Local governments lean on the real property tax — at $22.6B a year, the single largest tax Ohioans pay (the stat band above carries the headline numbers). Read piece 2 →
3 · The matrix — who can levy what?
Ohio law hands each kind of government a different slice of that menu:
One term to have before you hover the map below: property-tax rates come as millage — mills per dollar of assessed value, which in Ohio is 35% of a property's market value. One mill is $1 per $1,000 assessed, or roughly $35 a year per $100,000 of home value. The effective rate is what a homeowner actually pays after Ohio's HB 920 reduction factors trim the voted (gross) rate — that's the number below, and the one worth comparing across places.
Where those choices land
Four switchable layers — counties, municipalities, school districts, townships — each shaded by its headline tax rate. Hover (or tap) any unit for its name and the rates it charges.
Two asymmetries do most of the work here. Most local governments can levy only the property tax — the income and sales taxes belong to a select few. And rates are local decisions that vary enormously: on the school-district layer, 366 of the 606 districts we can match sit at the state's 20-mill floor for residential property (the red outlines). Read piece 3 →
4 · The money — how much, and who gets it?
Ohio's state and local governments collect about $72 billion a year in taxes — roughly $33 billion at the state level and $39 billion locally, or about $6,100 per resident. Local government raises more than the state does. The two halves are built differently: the state's total is three-quarters sales and income tax, while 58% of all local tax revenue is the property tax. Follow that property-tax dollar to the government that receives it and the split is lopsided — about 67 cents goes to a school district, another 2 to a joint vocational district, 15 to the county, 7 to a township, 5 to special districts like libraries and parks, and 4 to a municipality. Read piece 4 →
Where each tax is collected
County totals for the three biggest local taxes, with a per-resident toggle. Switch layers and the hot spots move: retail hubs light up for sales tax, job centers for municipal income tax, and property tax draws a third map again. Remember that where a tax is collected is not where its burden falls — sales tax is collected where you shop and municipal income tax where you work, not where you live.
Two scope notes for anyone adding up the counties. The property layer is real property only — the $22.6B the November amendment would target — so it leaves out the separate $2.6B tax on public-utility equipment. And the sales layer is the county permissive piece alone, $3.0B; Ohio's eleven regional transit authorities levy roughly $1.0B more, and because their districts cross county lines there is no honest way to draw them on a county map. The map states both on screen.
5 · What it buys — where the money goes
Ohio's local governments spent about $68.6 billion in 2022 — a different total than the $39B in local taxes above, because spending also runs on state and federal aid, fees, and charges, not taxes alone. Education is 43% of it, $29.6 billion — almost all inside school districts, and more than the next five services combined. After administration (a catch-all, 12%), the biggest specific services are police and utilities at about 5.5% each. Broken out by government instead of by service, school districts alone account for 42% of all local spending — far ahead of municipalities (24%), the next-largest type.
Where each dollar goes
Toggle between spending by government (see how completely education dominates the school-district bar) and spending by service (see which government does each job). Hover any segment for the dollar amount and its share.
This is spending, not the tax collections shown above — a different Census survey, a different year (2022), and a wider funding base than taxes alone, so don't add this total to the $72B figure higher on this page. Read piece 5 →
Sources & notes
- Tax totals: Ohio Department of Taxation Tax Data Series. Boundaries: U.S. Census TIGER (counties, school districts) and Ohio ODOT/OGRIP (cities, townships).
- The map names general-purpose governments only; special districts (library, parks, transit, etc.) also levy taxes and are not shown.
- Income tax follows where you work, not only where you live, so it isn't fully captured by a residence map.
- Authority-map vintages: property rates TY2025 (incl. the Class I 20-mill Floor Rate column); school-district income-tax rate FY2026 (SD-2, Q4); municipal income-tax rate CY2024 (LG-11). The map shows rates only, not collections; ODT does not publish a per-county permissive sales-tax rate table (Table S-1 reports dollars collected, not the rate), so the county layer is shaded by county property millage instead and the sales-tax row is labeled accordingly.
- County-collections map vintages: real property taxes charged TY2025 (PD-23, Class I + Class II, net of HB 920 reduction factors); county permissive sales/use CY2025 (S-1); municipal income CY2024 (LG-11); population ACS 2020–24. The property layer excludes the public-utility tangible personal property tax ($2.6B), and the sales layer excludes the regional transit authorities ($1.0B), which levy across county lines.
- Collections totals are statewide sums across all local governments in a county, not any one government's take, and the three taxes have different bases — do not compare the layers directly.
- Spending chart: U.S. Census Bureau Survey of State & Local Government Finances, 2022 (Government Finance Database). Covers Ohio's local governments (counties, municipalities, townships, school districts, special districts) only — state direct spending is excluded. Spending is funded from all revenue sources (taxes, fees, and state and federal aid), not taxes alone, and 2022 is a different vintage than the tax figures elsewhere on this page — do not add this total to the $72B collections figure above.
Last updated: August 25, 2026