Ohio Pay Transparency: Salary Disclosure and History Bans

Ohio pay transparency laws work city by city rather than statewide. There is one statewide rule — a pay stub law that took effect in April 2025 — but the requirements that get the most attention, salary-history bans and salary ranges in job postings, exist only in Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Cleveland. Everywhere else in Ohio, employers face no state mandate to publish pay ranges or to avoid asking about prior salary.

What Ohio Requires Statewide: The Pay Stub Protection Act

Ohio’s Pay Stub Protection Act, House Bill 106, is codified at Ohio Revised Code Section 4113.14 and took effect on April 9, 2025.¹ Before it passed, Ohio was one of a shrinking group of states that did not require employers to hand workers a written record of their earnings.

Every Ohio employer now must give employees a written or electronic pay statement on each regular payday. The statement must show:

The employee’s name and address and the employer’s name.
Total gross wages earned and total net wages paid for the pay period.
An itemized list of every addition to and deduction from the paycheck, with a brief explanation of each.
The date of payment and the pay period covered.

For hourly employees, the statement must also list total hours worked in the pay period, the hourly wage rate, and any hours worked over 40 in a single workweek.²

The Act does not let employees sue. If you don’t get a compliant pay stub, submit a written request to your employer, who then has 10 days to comply. If nothing happens, you can report the violation to the Ohio Department of Commerce. The department investigates and, if it finds a violation, issues a written notice the employer must post in a conspicuous place on the premises for 10 days.² The statute specifies no monetary fines.³

Where Salary Ranges Must Appear in Job Postings

Two Ohio cities now require employers to publish salary information in job ads, and both rules cover employers with 15 or more employees.

Cleveland

Cleveland Ordinance No. 104-2025 took effect on October 27, 2025, after unanimous passage by City Council on April 28. It covers employers with 15 or more employees and at least one employee working inside Cleveland city limits.⁴ Covered employers must include the salary range or scale of a position in any job notification, advertisement, or formal posting. The ordinance defines “salary” broadly to include wages, commissions, hourly earnings, and benefits.⁵

Complaints go to the Cleveland Fair Employment Wage Board and must be filed within 180 days. Employers found in violation get 90 days to correct the problem without penalty. Unresolved cases can result in civil fines of up to $1,000 for a first offense, $2,500 for a second, and $5,000 for subsequent violations, with those amounts subject to annual inflation adjustments.⁴

Columbus

Columbus Ordinance 2898-2025 was signed by Mayor Andrew Ginther on November 4, 2025, and takes effect January 1, 2027. Employers with 15 or more employees inside Columbus will need to include a reasonable salary range or pay scale in any job posting for a specific available position. The rule applies to both electronic and printed postings. It doesn’t apply to internal transfers, internal promotions, or postings reproduced by third parties without the employer’s consent. Whether a range is “reasonable” turns on factors like budget flexibility, expected applicant experience, potential variation in job responsibilities, growth opportunities, cost of living, and market data on comparable roles.⁶ The Columbus Community Relations Commission will handle complaints and can impose civil penalties.

Everywhere Else in Ohio

No other Ohio city and no state law requires salary ranges in job postings. The only wage-notice provision in state law, Revised Code Section 4109.10, applies only to minor employees and only requires written notice before reducing a minor’s wages.⁷ No statewide bill on salary posting is advancing.⁸

What Employers Cannot Ask About Prior Pay

Four Ohio cities restrict salary-history inquiries. Each ordinance covers employers with 15 or more employees, but the rules differ on what employers must disclose in return and how the ban is enforced.

Columbus

Columbus Ordinance 0709-2023 took effect March 1, 2024.⁹ Covered employers may not ask about current or prior wages, screen candidates on salary history, or use past pay to set compensation. Retaliation against applicants who refuse to disclose is also barred. Employers can still discuss salary expectations and disclose what the job pays. The ban doesn’t cover internal transfers and promotions, voluntary disclosures the applicant initiates, positions under collective bargaining agreements, or rehires within three years where the employer already has the person’s pay data. Federal, state, and other local government employers are exempt, though the City of Columbus itself is not.¹⁰ Civil fines run from $1,000 to $5,000, administered by the Columbus Community Relations Commission.

Cincinnati

Cincinnati Ordinance No. 83, passed in March 2020, prohibits salary-history inquiries, screening candidates based on prior wages, and refusing to hire applicants who decline to disclose past earnings. Cincinnati does not require salary ranges in job postings, but an employer must provide a pay range upon request after extending a conditional job offer.⁹ Applicants enforce the ordinance through private lawsuits and can seek compensatory damages and attorney’s fees.

Toledo

Toledo’s Pay Equity Act, Ordinance No. 173-19, was signed in July 2019 and took effect June 25, 2020. It covers private employers with 15 or more employees inside the city and the City of Toledo itself, but not other units of local, state, or federal government.¹¹ It bans salary-history inquiries, screening, and retaliation. After a conditional offer, an employer must provide a pay scale on reasonable request, though the ordinance leaves “pay scale” undefined. Applicants have a private cause of action with a two-year statute of limitations and can recover compensatory damages, attorney’s fees, and court costs.¹²

Cleveland

Cleveland’s Ordinance No. 104-2025, the same law that requires salary ranges in postings, also bans salary-history inquiries. Enforcement runs through the Cleveland Fair Employment Wage Board on the same 180-day complaint window and tiered civil-fine schedule described above.⁴

Public Employee Pay Is a Separate Track

None of the rules above apply to public employee compensation, which Ohio treats as a matter of open records. Revised Code Section 149.43 defines a public record broadly as any record kept by a public office, and government salary information is generally a public record subject to disclosure upon request. Records must be promptly prepared and made available during regular business hours, with copies provided at the actual cost of reproduction.¹³ Ohio Checkbook, run by the Treasurer of State, publishes state financial and transactional data online.¹⁴

How Ohio Compares Nationally

Ohio’s city-by-city approach differs sharply from states with statewide salary-disclosure mandates. Colorado requires employers of any size to disclose pay ranges, compensation details, and benefits in job postings. New York covers employers with four or more employees and requires a compensation range and job description in postings. California requires pay-scale disclosure for employers with 15 or more employees and mandates pay-data reporting from larger companies. Illinois requires employers with 15 or more employees to disclose salary ranges and benefits in postings, carries fines of $500 to $10,000 per violation, and extends coverage to remote workers reporting to an Illinois-based supervisor.¹⁵

Ohio has none of these statewide mechanisms, putting it behind states like Illinois and California but ahead of neighbors like Indiana and Wisconsin, which have no pay transparency requirements at any level.⁸

1
Ohio Legislature. House Bill 106
2
Ohio State University Farm Office. Ohio’s New Pay Stub Law
3
Littler Mendelson. Ohio’s Pay Stub Protection Act: What Employers Need to Know
4
SHRM. Cleveland to Prohibit Salary Inquiries, Require Salary Ranges
5
Greenberg Traurig. Cleveland Enacts Salary History and Pay Transparency Law
6
Brightmine. Columbus, Ohio Enacts Pay Transparency Law
7
SixFifty. Ohio Pay Transparency Law Requirements
8
Policy Matters Ohio. Pay Transparency in Ohio
9
Forbes. Ohio Pay Transparency Laws: Salary History Bans and Compliance Guide
10
Jackson Lewis. Columbus, Ohio Bans Inquiries Into Applicants’ Salary History
11
Toledo City Council. Ordinance O-173-19
12
Littler Mendelson. Toledo Becomes Second Ohio City to Pass Salary History Ban
13
Ohio Attorney General. Public Records Act
14
Ohio.gov. Ohio Checkbook
15
Jackson Lewis. Navigating 2026 Pay Transparency Laws and Employer Obligations