Ohio Non-Compete Law: What Is Enforceable and How Courts Decide

Most of what people believe about non-competes in Ohio is either borrowed from another state or borrowed from a news cycle. The federal ban never took effect. The Ohio bill that would ban them has not passed. There is no Ohio statute on the subject at all, not even for physicians. What Ohio has instead is fifty years of common law built on one 1975 Supreme Court decision, and that body of law is more employer-friendly than most employees expect on some points and more employee-friendly on others. This is the framework, what actually defeats or narrows a covenant, and what does not.

The Raimonde Test: Reasonableness, Not Enforceability

The starting point is Raimonde v. Van Vlerah, 42 Ohio St.2d 21 (1975). The Ohio Supreme Court held that a covenant restricting an employee's competition is enforceable to the extent it is reasonable, and it defined reasonable in three parts. The restriction must be no greater than is required to protect the employer's legitimate business interests. It must not impose undue hardship on the employee. And it must not be injurious to the public.

To apply those three parts, Ohio courts weigh a list of considerations that Raimonde carried forward from Extine v. Williamson Midwest, Inc., 176 Ohio St. 403 (1964). There are nine of them, and they are worth reading against your own agreement because they are the questions a judge will actually ask:

• Whether the covenant has limits on time and geography, and what they are.
• Whether you were the employer's sole contact with the customers you are being kept from.
• Whether you hold confidential information or trade secrets.
• Whether the covenant is aimed at competition that would be unfair to the employer, or merely at ordinary competition.
• Whether it stifles your inherent skill and experience, as opposed to skills the employer gave you.
• Whether the benefit to the employer is disproportionate to the detriment to you.
• Whether it bars your sole means of support.
• Whether the talent it restricts was actually developed during the employment.
• Whether the forbidden work is merely incidental to what you actually did.

Nothing on that list is about how the employment ended. That absence matters, and it comes up again below.

Ohio Reforms. It Does Not Void.

This is the point most often gotten backwards. In many states an overbroad covenant is simply unenforceable, and in "blue pencil" states a court may strike an offending clause but may not rewrite it. Raimonde expressly abandoned the blue-pencil rule for Ohio and adopted reformation instead. An Ohio court that finds a covenant unreasonable is authorized to modify it to what is reasonable and then enforce the modified version.

The Supreme Court applied that approach in Rogers v. Runfola & Assocs., 57 Ohio St.3d 5 (1991), narrowing a court reporter's covenant rather than striking it, and the Eighth District did the same in MetroHealth Sys. v. Khandelwal, 2022-Ohio-77, where a physician's covenant was trimmed to fit the interest the hospital could actually prove. The practical consequence for an employee is significant. A two-year, statewide covenant that a court finds excessive does not disappear. It becomes, say, a one-year covenant covering the counties where you actually worked. Saying "this is overbroad, so it is unenforceable" is not an Ohio argument. The Ohio argument is about where the line should be drawn.

Consideration: Continued Employment Is Enough

A common hope is that a covenant signed after the job started, with no raise or bonus attached, fails for lack of consideration. In Ohio it does not. In Lake Land Emp. Group of Akron, LLC v. Columber, 101 Ohio St.3d 242, 2004-Ohio-786, a divided Supreme Court held that an at-will employer's forbearance from firing the employee, in other words continued at-will employment, is sufficient consideration for a non-compete presented mid-employment. The decision was 4 to 3, and the dissent's concerns are still cited, but the rule stands.

What Columber does not say is how much continued employment is enough. An employee terminated shortly after signing has a plausible argument that the consideration was illusory, but no Ohio appellate decision has been located adopting that argument, so it should be treated as an argument rather than a rule.

A related question is what happens when the employer merges or is acquired. In Acordia of Ohio, L.L.C. v. Fishel, 133 Ohio St.3d 356, 2012-Ohio-4648, the Supreme Court held on reconsideration that the surviving company in a merger may enforce the original employer's covenant as the original employer could have, while leaving room for the employee to argue that the merger itself changed the covenant's burden enough to make it unreasonable. If your employer has changed hands since you signed, that history belongs in the analysis.

Being Laid Off Does Not Release You

The most persistent myth is that an employer who ends the relationship forfeits the right to enforce the covenant. There is no such rule in Ohio. The Supreme Court has never addressed the manner of separation as a factor, it is not among the nine Raimonde considerations, and no appellate district has adopted it as a defense. The cases that touch the question go the other way in practice. In Ohio Urology, Inc. v. Poll, 72 Ohio App.3d 446 (10th Dist. 1991), the covenant was enforced against a physician the practice had terminated. More recently, Adena Health Sys. v. Cohen, 2026-Ohio-2697 (4th Dist.), and Maccarone v. Mark Mandell-Brown, M.D., Inc., 2025-Ohio-5071 (1st Dist.), both proceeded on the assumption that the employer's decision to end the relationship did not, by itself, affect enforceability.

If you have been laid off with a covenant, the question is not whether the layoff released you. It is whether the employer still has a protectable interest in restricting you, and whether it kept its own side of the bargain. That is the subject of the next section, and it is covered in more depth in Laid Off With a Non-Compete? What Ohio Law Actually Says.

The Arguments That Actually Work

Two lines of argument have defeated or sharply limited Ohio covenants, and both are about the employer rather than about the employee's hardship.

The employer no longer has an interest worth protecting

A covenant protects a legitimate business interest. If that interest is gone, there is nothing left to protect. In Premier Associates, Ltd. v. Loper, 149 Ohio App.3d 660, 2002-Ohio-5538 (4th Dist.), the court declined to enforce a covenant where the employer had effectively left the line of business the covenant was written to protect. The ratio of that decision is loss of the protectable interest, not the manner of the employee's departure. It applies with force where a division was closed, a territory abandoned, a product line sold, or the customer base you served no longer exists on the employer's books. Where an employer lays off an entire department and then seeks to enforce covenants against everyone in it, this is usually the first question.

The employer breached first

A party in material breach of a contract generally cannot enforce it against the other side. In Klaus v. Hilb, Rogal & Hamilton Co. of Ohio, 437 F. Supp. 2d 706 (S.D. Ohio 2006), the court applied that principle to a covenant, holding that the employer's own material breach of the employment agreement, there a compensation dispute, barred enforcement of the restrictive covenant. Unpaid commissions, an unpaid bonus that was contractually earned, or a demotion that violated the agreement's own terms can all set this up.

One warning. Most modern covenants contain an independence or severability clause stating that the covenant is enforceable notwithstanding any claim the employee may have against the company. Courts have given those clauses effect, and where one is present the prior-breach argument is much weaker. Check for that clause before building a strategy around the employer's breach.

Non-Solicitation and No-Hire Clauses

The same reasonableness analysis applies to covenants that do not bar competition outright but restrict soliciting customers or recruiting former colleagues. Because those covenants are narrower by design, courts tend to view them as easier to justify, and a non-compete that fails may survive in part as a non-solicitation covering the customers you actually served. If your agreement stacks a non-compete, a non-solicitation, and a confidentiality clause, expect the analysis to treat them separately. Winning on the first does not dispose of the other two.

What Is Not the Law in Ohio

There is no Ohio statute. Ohio has no statute governing employee non-competes, including for physicians, where several other states have legislated. The only professional carve-out is for lawyers, under Ohio Prof.Cond.R. 5.6. Everything else is common law.

Senate Bill 11 is not law. Ohio S.B. 11 of the 136th General Assembly would broadly prohibit worker non-competes. It was introduced in January 2025, referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and has had hearings. As of this writing it has not been enacted. Do not make decisions on the assumption that it will be.

There is no federal ban. The FTC's 2024 rule was set aside before its effective date in Ryan LLC v. FTC, 746 F. Supp. 3d 369 (N.D. Tex. 2024), and in September 2025 the Commission voted to dismiss its appeals and accept vacatur. The agency still brings individual enforcement actions under Section 5 of the FTC Act, mostly against employers imposing sweeping covenants on large numbers of low-wage workers, and it has continued to do so into 2026. Those are agency actions, not a private right of action. They do not give an individual Ohio employee a defense.

What This Means If You Have a Non-Compete

Read the covenant against the nine Raimonde considerations and ask, honestly, where a court would draw the line if it narrowed the covenant rather than voiding it. That is the realistic worst case, and it is often far narrower than the letter your former employer's counsel sent. Then look past your own hardship to the employer's position: whether the interest the covenant protects still exists, and whether the employer has performed its own obligations to you. Check for an independence clause before relying on the second point. And do not build a plan around a layoff, a pending bill, or a federal rule that is not there.

You can read about how the firm handles these matters, from a single written review to defending a cease-and-desist, on the non-compete practice page.

The Bottom Line

Ohio non-compete law is common law, and it is settled in ways the headlines are not. Covenants are enforced when reasonable and narrowed when they are not. Continued employment is consideration. A layoff releases no one. What changes outcomes is the employer's side of the ledger: whether it still has an interest worth protecting and whether it kept its own promises. Those are questions answered from the agreement, the plan documents, and the pay records, which is why a written review before you sign, resign, or respond to a letter is the step that actually changes the result.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are non-competes enforceable in Ohio?

Yes, when they are reasonable. Under Raimonde v. Van Vlerah, an Ohio non-compete is enforceable to the extent it is no greater than required to protect the employer's legitimate business interest, does not impose undue hardship on the employee, and is not injurious to the public. There is no Ohio statute banning them and no federal ban in effect.

Can an Ohio court rewrite an overly broad non-compete?

Yes. Ohio follows a reformation approach. Raimonde v. Van Vlerah rejected the older blue-pencil rule, and courts modify an unreasonable covenant to what is reasonable and enforce the modified version, as in Rogers v. Runfola & Associates and MetroHealth System v. Khandelwal. An overbroad covenant is usually narrowed, not thrown out.

Does being laid off or fired without cause void my Ohio non-compete?

No. No Ohio court has adopted that rule, and the manner of separation is not among the factors Ohio courts weigh. What can matter after a layoff is whether the employer still has a protectable interest in the restriction and whether the employer breached the agreement first.

Is a non-compete I signed mid-employment enforceable if I got nothing new for signing?

Generally yes. In Lake Land Employment Group of Akron v. Columber, the Ohio Supreme Court held that continued at-will employment is sufficient consideration for a non-compete signed after the job began.

Is there an Ohio law banning non-competes, or a federal ban?

Neither is in effect. Ohio Senate Bill 11, which would broadly bar worker non-competes, has not been enacted. The FTC's 2024 rule was set aside in Ryan LLC v. FTC and the agency abandoned its appeal in 2025. Ohio non-compete law remains entirely common law.