How to Complete and File Form OL-3: Louisville Occupational License Return

Louisville Form OL-3 is the annual occupational license return that businesses and certain individuals file with the Louisville Metro Revenue Commission (LMRC) to reconcile a year’s net profit and payroll activity against any estimated payments already made. Calendar-year filers owe the completed return by April 15. You can file it through the LMRC’s online portal, EMINTS, at emints.metrorevenue.org, or on paper.

Who Has to File

Every business entity with a nexus in Louisville Metro must file if it earned net profit from activity conducted inside the county. That covers sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, LLCs, estates, and trusts.¹ Where your headquarters sits doesn’t matter; what matters is whether revenue was earned or services performed within Louisville Metro.

Individuals file an OL-3 when the full occupational tax wasn’t withheld from their wages by an employer.¹ The LMRC also extends the filing requirement to individuals earning executor fees inside Louisville, and to estates and trusts with business income subject to the tax.² There is no minimum income threshold. If you conducted business activity in the county, you owe a return, even if the tax comes out to zero.³

The Rates the Form Applies

The occupational tax rate turns on residency. The resident rate is 2.2%, made up of a 1.25% Louisville Metro tax, a 0.2% Transit Authority tax, and a 0.75% School Board tax. Non-residents who work inside Louisville Metro but live outside the county pay 1.45%, which is the Metro and Transit components without the School Board portion.⁴

On the OL-3 itself, the rates appear as two columns. Column A applies the 1.45% Metro-plus-Transit rate; Column B applies the 0.75% School Board rate.⁵ Non-resident filers leave Column B at zero.

What to Gather Before You Start

Have your federal return and its supporting schedules open before you begin. What you need depends on how your business is organized:

Sole proprietors: Form 1040 with Schedule C (or C-EZ), Schedule E for rental income, Schedule F for farm income, and any Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-K you received.
Partnerships: Form 1065, including Schedule K.
Corporations: Form 1120, or 1120-S for S corporations.
Capital gains from business property: Form 4797, or Form 6252 for installment sales.

You’ll also need your LMRC account number, your federal tax identification number, and records of any quarterly estimated payments you made during the year. If your business operates in and outside Louisville Metro, pull your local and total payroll figures and your local and total sales revenue. Those go into the apportionment step.

Working Through the Return

Net Profit for Individuals

Several lines on the OL-3 pull directly from your federal return. For sole proprietors, the key entries are:⁶

Line 2: totals from Form 1099-NEC (line 1) and Form 1099-K (line 1a).
Line 3: net profit or loss from Schedule C, line 31.
Line 4: short-term and long-term capital gains from business property carried from Form 4797 or Form 6252 to Schedule D.
Line 5: rental income or loss from Schedule E, line 26.
Line 6: net farm profit or loss from Schedule F, line 34.
Line 10: any deduction you took on your federal schedules for state income tax or occupational license tax, which gets added back.

Line 13 totals those entries into an adjusted net profit. Two deductions may follow before apportionment: Line 15 covers alcoholic beverage sales, calculated as Kentucky alcohol sales divided by total sales multiplied by net profit, and Line 16 addresses certain federal employment credits that reduced your expense deductions.⁶ Line 20 gives you the net profit figure that carries to page 1.

Net Profit for Partnerships and Corporations

Partnership filers start at Line 8 with the ordinary income or loss from federal Form 1065, line 23. Line 11 adds the income items from Schedule K (lines 2–11) that are allocated to partners but not included on the 1065 itself. The same add-back for state income tax and occupational license tax appears at Line 10.⁶ Corporate filers follow a parallel structure keyed to Form 1120.

Apportionment When You Operate in More Than One Place

If your business operates entirely inside Louisville Metro, the apportionment percentage is 100% and you can skip the calculation. If you have payroll or sales outside the county, the Louisville Metro Code uses a two-factor formula that averages your local payroll share and your local sales share.⁷

The payroll factor is compensation paid for services performed inside Louisville Metro divided by total compensation everywhere. The sales factor is sales revenue earned in Louisville Metro divided by total sales revenue everywhere. Add the two fractions and divide by two. If only one of the factors exists (payroll everywhere but sales only in Louisville, for example), use only the factor that exists; the missing one is dropped, not counted as zero.⁷

Multiply your net profit by the apportionment percentage to get the taxable income on Line 29. Line 30 then applies 1.45% (Column A) and 0.75% (Column B) to that figure to produce the tax owed.⁵

Reconciling Against Payments Already Made

Once you have the full-year tax, subtract whatever you already paid through quarterly deposits on Form OL-3D or through employer withholding. If your payments overshot the actual liability, request a refund or apply the credit to next year’s estimates. If you still owe, the balance is due with the return.

Deadline and Extensions

The return is due April 15 for calendar-year filers, or the 15th day of the fourth month after your fiscal year ends.

If you need more time, Form OL-3EXT grants an automatic six-month extension to file. The request must be postmarked or hand-delivered on or before the original due date.⁸

The extension covers the paperwork, not the money. You must still pay at least 90% of your estimated final tax liability by the original due date to avoid interest and penalties.⁸ Any remaining balance is due by the same 15th-day-of-the-fourth-month deadline that an on-time return would have carried.

How to Submit and Pay

Electronic Filing Through EMINTS

EMINTS (emints.metrorevenue.org) is the LMRC’s online portal and the primary filing channel. First-time users request a Notice ID through the EMINTS homepage and receive it by mail. Once you have it, create an account: choose the “Master” logon if you’re filing for yourself or your employer, or “Third Party” if you’re filing on behalf of a client.⁹

Tax preparers who file 10 or more returns per year are required to file electronically. The mandate covers the OL-3 and has been in effect since January 1, 2024.¹⁰

Paper Filing

If you file on paper, mail or hand-deliver the completed return to the Louisville Metro Revenue Commission at 617 W. Jefferson Street, Louisville, Kentucky. The return must be postmarked or hand-delivered by the due date.¹ Payments can be dropped off without an appointment.¹¹

Paying the Balance

You can pay electronically through EMINTS or by check with the mailed return. Keep a copy of the return, any confirmation number from the portal, and proof of payment. Processing during peak season can take several weeks.

Quarterly Estimated Payments

Businesses whose occupational tax exceeds $5,000 for the year must make quarterly estimated payments. Individuals are not required to make estimated payments.⁵ Deposits are filed on Form OL-3D. To avoid penalties, your combined payments must equal the lesser of:

90% of the current year’s tax liability, split into four equal installments (22.5% each);
100% of the prior year’s tax liability, in four equal installments (25% each); or
100% of the average tax liability for the past three years, in four equal installments, but only if any of those three years exceeded $20,000 in tax due.⁵

Payment due dates follow the LMRC’s tax calendar, based on your fiscal year end.

What Late Filing Costs

Late filing or late payment triggers a penalty of 5% of the unpaid tax for each month or partial month the return is overdue, up to 25%. A minimum $25 penalty applies to any return filed past the due date, even if no tax is owed.¹²

Interest runs at 12% per year on unpaid balances from the original due date until paid.¹² That’s 1% a month, so a $10,000 balance adds $100 in interest each month on top of the late-filing penalty. The two are separate. You can hit the 25% penalty ceiling and still keep accruing 12% annual interest on whatever remains unpaid.

Getting Help From the LMRC

The Revenue Commission can be reached at (502) 574-4860, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., closed on Louisville Metro holidays. In-person visits require an appointment scheduled by phone. For security reasons the LMRC does not accept questions by email; use the secure messaging feature inside EMINTS instead.¹¹

1
LouisvilleKY.gov. Form OL-3 (Occupational License Return)
2
LouisvilleKY.gov. Occupational License Tax Regulations
3
LouisvilleKY.gov. Forms and Publications
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LouisvilleKY.gov. Form W-1 Instructions
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LouisvilleKY.gov. OL-3 Tax Form Instructions
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LouisvilleKY.gov. OL-3 Occupational License Return Instructions
7
Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government. Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Code 110.06 – Apportionment of Net Profit
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LouisvilleKY.gov. Form OL-3EXT (Occupational Extension Request)
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LouisvilleKY.gov. Signing Up for EMINTS
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LouisvilleKY.gov. LMRC Modernized Electronic Filing (MeF)
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LouisvilleKY.gov. Contact the Louisville Metro Revenue Commission
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LouisvilleKY.gov. Frequently Asked Questions