Sales tax calculator

Why the rate is the least useful number about sales tax

Every sales tax calculator asks the same thing: how much, and which state. Neither question decides what you pay. The same $100 of groceries carries no tax at all in 30 states and $6.20 in South Dakota, and the difference has almost nothing to do with the headline rates.

What decides it is what a state has chosen to exempt, and the states disagree about almost everything. 28 exempt groceries outright. 7 exempt them from the state tax only, so the receipt still shows the local share. 8 give food a rate of its own. 2 tax the weekly shop at the full rate.

Clothing splits the country differently again: 4 states exempt it with no price limit, 3 set a threshold — and those three do not even agree on what a threshold means.

And two states have no sales tax at all while still taxing what you buy, because they tax the seller's gross income instead: Hawaii, New Mexico.

The weekly shop, which is where states differ most

Exempt, state and local: Arizona, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

Exempt from the state tax only — the local rate still applies, so "exempt" does not mean free: Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina. This is the single most common mistake in the subject, and on $100 of shopping with a 2% local rate it is the difference between $0 and $2.00.

Taxed at a rate of their own: Alabama, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia.

Taxed at the full rate: Hawaii, South Dakota.

Every state that exempts food draws the line at "prepared food", and the definition is about how the shop handed it over rather than what it is — heated, or combined from two ingredients, or given to you with a fork. The same bagel is exempt cold and taxable warm.

The rules changed a lot in the last two years

This is the fastest-moving corner of American tax, which is why an old figure is a poor guide and why a compiled rate table is a bad source.

Oklahoma removed its 4.5% state tax on food on 29 August 2024. Kansas finished a three-year phase-out on 1 January 2025 — 6.5% to 4% to 2% to zero. Arkansas repealed its remaining 0.125% food rate on 1 January 2026. All three left the local tax untouched, so in all three the shopping is cheaper and the receipt still shows tax.

Arizona went the other way round: the state had exempted groceries for years, and from 1 July 2025 its cities were prohibited from taxing them. Sixty-five of Arizona's ninety-one incorporated cities had been doing so.

Illinois abolished its 1% state grocery tax on 1 January 2026 and in the same law allowed municipalities to impose a 1% of their own. More than six hundred did before the deadline, so for most Illinois shoppers the 1% never went away — it changed owner.

Louisiana raised its state rate to 5% on 1 January 2025. Alabama cut its grocery rate from 3% to 2% on 1 September 2025, the second step of a phased reduction.

Clothing, and three states that mean different things by a threshold

Exempt with no price limit: Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont. A $500 coat carries no tax in any of them.

With a threshold: New York at $110, Massachusetts at $175, Rhode Island at $250 — and the mechanic differs. New York's is a cliff: reach $110 and the whole price is taxed. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are allowances: only the amount above the threshold is taxed, so a $275 suit is taxed on $25 in Rhode Island rather than on $275.

Rhode Island also closes the obvious trick: an outfit normally sold as one item cannot be split into pieces to get each under the threshold.

Almost every state that exempts clothing then excludes the same categories — accessories, protective equipment and sports gear. Minnesota goes further and taxes the service: the coat is exempt, having it altered, dry-cleaned or rented is not.

Working backwards from a total: divide, do not subtract

The second most common reason to reach for a sales tax calculator is to take the tax out of a figure that already includes it — a receipt with no breakdown, an expense claim, a price quoted inclusive.

Almost everyone does it by subtracting the percentage from the total, and that is wrong. On $108 at 8%, subtracting gives $99.36; the right answer is $100.00, because the 8% was applied to the price and not to the total. You divide by 1.08.

The error is $0.64 on $108 and scales with the invoice: on $10,000 at the same rate it is $59.26, and it compounds if you then apply a margin to the wrong base.

The calculator above does it either way round, and shows the subtraction answer beside the correct one so the gap is visible rather than asserted.

Where the state rate is the whole answer

In most of the country the local part is a third to a half of what you pay, and in a few states it is larger than the state part. In 10 states there is no local part at all: Connecticut, District of Columbia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island.

Those are the only states where a single published number is the truth everywhere inside the border. Anywhere else, a rate quoted for the state is a floor rather than an answer, and the rate is set by address rather than by town — two sides of a street can differ where a special district boundary runs between them.

Which address governs depends on what was bought. Goods delivered to you generally follow the delivery address; something carried out of the shop generally follows the shop. Vehicles and other titled property often follow their own rule, and several states use the buyer's home address for those.

The two states with no sales tax that still tax your shopping

Hawaii and New Mexico have no sales tax. They have a tax on the seller's gross income — Hawaii's general excise tax, New Mexico's gross receipts tax — and the difference is not a technicality.

The shop is not obliged to pass it on, though almost all do. When it does, the amount passed on is itself income and is taxed again — which is why the most a Hawaii seller may add to your bill is 4.7120% rather than the 4.5% the rates suggest, a figure the department publishes precisely because the arithmetic is not obvious. And services are inside the net rather than outside it.

The two then reach opposite answers on food. Hawaii taxes the weekly shop: its brochure lists the common deductions and the only food among them is food paid for with SNAP or WIC. New Mexico leaves groceries untaxed by a different route — the shop deducts the receipts from selling food at a retail food store, which comes to the same thing at the till and to something quite different on the shop's return.

Services, digital goods and delivery charges

Sales taxes were written for physical goods and have been stretched over everything else unevenly, which is where most of the surprises are.

Services are taxed in some states and not others, and rarely all of them. Repairs, cleaning, landscaping, gym memberships and pet grooming are each taxable somewhere and exempt somewhere else. The rough pattern is that a service leaving you with a repaired or altered object is taxed more often than one that does not — and in Hawaii and New Mexico services are inside the net as a matter of course, because the tax is on the seller's income rather than on retail sales.

Digital goods — a downloaded film, an ebook, software delivered electronically — are taxed in about half the country, and several states distinguish between buying a copy and subscribing to access it.

Delivery charges are taxable in many states when the goods are, and in some only when they are not separately stated on the invoice. That makes the invoice format itself worth a glance.

Prescription drugs are exempt almost everywhere. Over-the-counter medicines are much less consistent, and several states tax them fully.

Sales tax holidays

Around twenty states suspend the tax on particular goods for a weekend or a week each year, usually before the school year and usually on clothing, school supplies and sometimes computers.

They are worth less than the headlines suggest for three reasons. The qualifying lists are specific — a backpack may qualify where a briefcase does not. There are price caps per item, commonly $50 to $100 for clothing. And the dates move every year, set annually rather than fixed in statute in most states.

The price cap is the part that catches people, because it applies per item rather than per basket: two $60 coats both qualify under a $100 cap and one $120 coat does not qualify at all.

Check your own state's announcement for the current year rather than a list of what it did last time.

If you are the one collecting it

These pages are written for the person paying. The seller's side is three separate obligations.

Registration comes before collection, not after, and selling into a state from outside it triggers it once you pass that state's economic threshold — commonly $100,000 of sales into the state in a year, sometimes with a transaction count as well.

Collecting at the right rate means knowing which address governs, which differs by state and by what was sold. The liability is the seller's either way: tax you failed to collect is still tax you owe.

Filing and remitting runs on a calendar set by your volume, and many states penalise a late return even when it reports nothing. A few give a small discount for filing on time, which is the only part of this that pays.

And keep the exemption certificates. A sale treated as exempt without a certificate on file is a sale an auditor will treat as taxable.

Using this properly

Pick your state below and the page applies that state's own rules rather than a rate: what it does with groceries, what it does with clothing, whether there is a local part and whether "exempt" means exempt from everything.

Enter what you are buying, not just how much. It is the question that changes the answer, and it is the one no other calculator asks.

Add your local rate where the page asks for one. It is set by address, it changes at quarter and year boundaries, and in most of the country it is a third to a half of what you pay.

Use the reverse mode when you have a total and need the price — and look at the comparison it prints, because subtracting the percentage is the standard mistake and the page shows you what it costs.

Each state page carries the documents its figures came from and the date they were read, so you can check the source rather than take our word for it.

How these figures were gathered

Every rate and every exemption on this site was read in a document published by the body that sets it, with the date recorded next to it on each state's page.

No figure here comes from a compiled rate table, and this subject is the reason that rule exists. During this work a widely repeated summary told us that South Dakota had lowered its state tax on food to zero. It had not — that was a bill that did not pass, and South Dakota's own guide for January 2026 lists exactly one food-related exemption, for purchases made with food stamps. We would have published the opposite of the law.

4 states have no page here, deliberately: Delaware, Idaho, New Hampshire, Oregon. In each case the rule could not be read in a document published by that state — their sites refuse requests from us. For three of them the answer is almost certainly "no sales tax", and publishing that without having read it would be the same unverified zero we refuse everywhere else.

Questions

How do I calculate sales tax?

Multiply the price by the combined rate — state plus local — for the address that governs the sale. The part people get wrong is what the rate applies to: 28 states exempt groceries entirely, 7 exempt them from the state tax only, 4 exempt clothing with no price limit, and prepared food is taxable almost everywhere even where groceries are not.

How do I find the price before tax?

Divide the total by 1 plus the rate. On $108 at 8% the price was $100.00 and the tax $8.00. Subtracting 8% from the total gives $99.36, which is wrong: the percentage was applied to the price, not to the total.

Which states have no sales tax?

Of the states verified here, Alaska, Montana. Delaware, New Hampshire and Oregon also levy none, but we have not yet read that in a document published by those states, so they have no page here rather than an unverified zero. Hawaii and New Mexico are often listed as having no sales tax, which is true and misleading: they tax the seller's gross income instead, and your shopping still carries it.

Are groceries taxed?

It depends on the state and on what "exempt" means there. 28 exempt food from state and local tax. 7 exempt it from the state tax only, so the local rate still applies and the receipt still shows tax — Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina. 8 apply a reduced rate, and 2 charge the full rate.

Is clothing taxed?

In most states yes. 4 exempt it with no price limit: Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont. Three set a threshold and do not agree on how it works — New York taxes the whole price once an item reaches $110, while Massachusetts and Rhode Island tax only the amount above $175 and $250.

Do I owe sales tax on an online purchase?

Usually the seller collects it, because since 2018 a state can require that once a seller's sales into the state pass a threshold. Where the seller does not collect, the same amount is owed by you as use tax and reported on your state return. It is enforced in practice on things that get registered — vehicles, boats, aircraft — rather than on small parcels.

Why do some states have no page here?

Because their rules could not be read in a document published by that state: Delaware, Idaho, New Hampshire, Oregon. Their sites refuse requests from us. Publishing an unverified figure dressed like the verified pages would be worse than publishing nothing.