Ohio Tax Explainer
An interactive guide to the state and local taxes Ohioans pay — and who actually collects them.
Annual state & local tax collections (~$32B state, ~$38B local)
Annual property tax — the single largest tax (~$2,140/resident)
Share of the property tax that funds public schools
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 property tax — at $25.2B 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:
Where those choices land
Four switchable layers — counties, municipalities, school districts, townships — each shaded by its headline tax. Hover (or tap) any unit for its name, the taxes it levies, and the relevant rates and collections. Read sales tax as place-of-sale and income tax as place-of-work, not where residents live.
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, 369 of Ohio's 611 districts sit at the state's 20-mill floor for residential property (the red outlines). Piece 3 of the series walks through the full matrix — link coming when it publishes.
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 FY2026 (SD-2, Q4); municipal income CY2024 (LG-11); county permissive sales/use CY2025 (S-1). County population: ACS 2019–23; municipal per-resident figures use the boundary file's 2010 population (labeled in the panel).
Last updated: July 17, 2026