Sales Tax Calculator (2025)

There is no federal sales tax in the United States. Rates are set by states, counties, cities and special districts, and they stack.

That produces more than 13,000 distinct taxing jurisdictions. A combined rate can differ between two addresses a few streets apart, which is why any single "state rate" is an average rather than a fact about your purchase.

For a purchase made in a shop, the rate is the shop's location — origin sourcing. For a delivery or an online order, most states use destination sourcing: the rate where the buyer receives the goods.

A handful of states use origin sourcing for intrastate sales, which means an online seller in those states charges their own local rate rather than the customer's. It is a genuine complication rather than an edge case.

Five states have no statewide sales tax: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon. Alaska is the qualified one — it has no state rate but its boroughs and cities levy their own, so an Alaskan purchase is frequently taxed anyway.

The rate is only half the question. What the rate applies to varies just as much.

Groceries are the biggest exemption. Most states either exempt unprepared food entirely or tax it at a reduced rate, on the reasoning that a flat sales tax falls hardest on low incomes and food is the largest unavoidable purchase. Prepared food — anything hot, or sold with utensils — is generally taxed at the full rate, which is why a rotisserie chicken and a raw one can be taxed differently in the same shop.

Prescription drugs are almost universally exempt. Over-the-counter medicines usually are not.

Clothing is exempt in several states, and in a few it is exempt only below a price threshold, which produces the odd situation where a more expensive coat is taxed and a cheaper one is not.

Services are the largest structural gap. Sales taxes were designed for goods, and most states still tax few services — which matters increasingly as the economy shifts toward them. A number of states have been extending sales tax to digital goods and streaming subscriptions for exactly this reason.

Sales tax holidays, usually around back-to-school, suspend the tax on defined categories for a weekend. The definitions are narrow and worth reading; they routinely turn on price caps and specific item types.

Nexus —

the connection that obliges a seller to collect a state's tax. Physical presence always creates it; since the 2018 Wayfair decision, so can sales volume alone.

Economic nexus —

crossing a state's revenue or transaction threshold — commonly $100,000 in sales — creates a collection obligation in a state you have never set foot in.

Use tax —

the counterpart owed by the buyer when sales tax was not collected. Legally due, almost never paid by individuals, and enforced against businesses.

Resale certificate —

lets a business buy inventory without paying tax, on the basis that tax will be collected when it is sold on.

Marketplace facilitator laws —

make platforms like Amazon and Etsy collect and remit on behalf of their sellers, which removed the obligation from a great many small sellers.

Sales tax you collect is not revenue. It is money held on behalf of a state, and treating it as income is how businesses end up unable to remit.

Register before collecting. Collecting tax in a state where you are not registered is a real problem, not a technicality, and remitting it afterwards does not cure it.

Nexus is the thing to monitor. Since Wayfair, economic nexus thresholds — often $100,000 of sales into a state — create obligations without any physical presence. A growing online business can acquire filing duties in a dozen states without noticing.

Filing frequency scales with volume: monthly, quarterly or annually depending on the state and how much you collect. Missing a filing generally attracts a penalty even when no tax was due, which catches out seasonal businesses.

Penalties for collecting and not remitting are severe, and in most states sales tax liability can pierce the corporate veil to reach owners and officers personally. It is one of the few business debts an LLC does not protect you from.

For anything beyond a single state, sales tax automation software is worth its cost — the compliance burden across jurisdictions is genuinely beyond manual tracking.