TriMet Tax Calculator

TriMet and Lane Transit District taxes

Two local transit taxes, one statewide tax

Oregon has three transit taxes on pay. TriMet, the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District serving parts of Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties, and Lane Transit District (LTD), serving Eugene, Springfield and nearby communities, each levy a tax on employers' payroll and on self-employment earnings for work done inside their boundaries. The Oregon Department of Revenue collects both. On top of that, employees pay the statewide transit tax, which the employer withholds from wages.

For 2026 the TriMet rate is 0.8237% and the LTD rate is 0.80%, the same as in 2025. Both districts raised their rates by 0.01 percentage point a year from 2016 until they reached these levels in 2025. The statewide transit tax is one-tenth of 1%, or $1 for every $1,000 of wages.

TriMet Code 13.09 (payroll tax) and 14.10 (self-employment tax) and LTD Ordinances 50 and 51; the same rate applies to payroll and to self-employment earnings in each district.

Self-employed: the tax after the first $400

If you work for yourself, the district tax is a percentage of your net earnings from self-employment from activities within the district, and the first $400 is not taxed. If some of your work is done outside the district, only the part from inside it counts. The default example, a self-employed designer in Portland with $80,000 of net earnings, all from work inside the TriMet District, pays 0.8237% of $79,600, or $655.67 for the year. The same earnings in Eugene would owe $636.80 to LTD.

Our calculation: rate times net earnings from self-employment over $400, for a full year of work inside the district.

The self-employment tax is paid once a year, on or before the 15th day of the fourth month after the end of your tax year, which is April 15 for most people, on a return filed with the Oregon Department of Revenue. A partnership may choose to pay the tax for its partners; if it does, a partner files a personal return only for self-employment earnings from other sources, and no one gets the $400 exclusion twice.

Employers: payroll for work inside the district

For employers the tax is imposed directly on the business and is based on gross payroll for services performed inside the district. That includes traveling salespeople and employees working from home, because the tax follows where the work is done, including jobsites and home locations. It is not deducted from employees' pay. Wages here include salaries, commissions, tips, bonuses, fees and payments to a deferred compensation plan, so 401(k) contributions count; Section 125 cafeteria plans do not, and household employees are exempt. An employer with $250,000 of quarterly payroll in the TriMet District owes $2,059.25 for the quarter, and separately withholds $250.00 of statewide transit tax from those employees if all of it is subject to Oregon withholding.

The payroll tax is reported every quarter on the Oregon Quarterly Tax Report, Form OQ. Federal credit unions, public school districts, 501(c)(3) nonprofits other than hospitals, insurance companies other than domestic insurers, and domestic service in a private home are exempt. Some public bodies, such as port authorities, fire districts, and city and county governments, are exempt from the LTD tax but pay the TriMet tax.

Payroll services do not always know that an employee works inside a transit district, so the Department of Revenue tells employers to check with them. For the statewide tax, TriMet notes that employers who do not withhold it or do not file and pay on time may face a penalty of $250 per employee, up to $25,000 for each tax period, on top of other penalties and interest under state law.

Remote and cross-border work

Because both the district taxes and the statewide tax look at where the work is done, location matters for remote staff. An employee who works from home in Beaverton or Gresham brings the TriMet tax with them, even if the employer's office is elsewhere in Oregon. An employee who lives and works from home in Vancouver, Washington does not: that work is outside the district, and a nonresident owes the statewide transit tax only on services performed in Oregon. A hybrid schedule splits the wages between the two, which is what the share field in the calculator is for.

Employees and the statewide transit tax

If you are an employee, the TriMet and LTD taxes are your employer's cost, not yours. What comes out of your pay is the statewide transit tax, 0.1% of wages, withheld from Oregon residents wherever they work and from nonresidents working in Oregon. On $70,000 of wages that is $70.00 a year. The Oregon statewide transit tax guide covers it in detail.

Is an address in the district?

TriMet lists 45 ZIP codes that lie completely inside its district, 21 that lie partly inside and 22 P.O. Box ZIP codes; the calculator checks a ZIP code against those lists. A partial ZIP code needs the exact address on TriMet's interactive map, and TriMet notes that not every address in a listed ZIP code is subject to the tax. For Lane Transit District, use LTD's boundary map. The Department of Revenue also treats its ZIP code lists as a guideline only.

Portland residents have other local taxes too: the Metro supportive housing services tax and the Multnomah County Preschool for All tax are in the Portland metro tax guide, and the arts tax has its own Portland arts tax calculator. For take-home pay try the Portland salary calculator, Oregon salary calculator or Oregon salary after taxes, and self-employed readers can add the self-employment tax calculator. Commuters from Vancouver can compare working in Oregon and living in Washington.