Gaylord has no city income tax

Gaylord’s chalet-fronted downtown runs on property taxes, not a paycheck tax. Neither Gaylord — Otsego County’s lone city — nor any township around it takes a cut of wages. Michigan law lets cities do that, and 24 of them currently do, but Gaylord isn’t among them.

The list does start 28 miles down I-75. Grayling charges its residents 1% and takes 0.5% from nonresidents who work inside its limits, so a Gaylord-to-Grayling commuter sees a small city-tax line anyway — just not Gaylord’s. Head the other direction and you can drive a long time before meeting another one: Traverse City, Petoskey, and Alpena all skip it too.

What Gaylord does collect shows up on the summer and winter property-tax bills. In 2025, a principal residence inside the city limits paid about 35 mills — roughly $35 for every $1,000 of taxable value. The same house out in Bagley Township, in the same school district, paid about 19. Between those two addresses the difference is 16 mills on the house. On the paycheck, it’s zero either way.