Local sales tax rates: how they stack, and where to find yours

Who may levy a local sales tax, state by state

How the rates stack

Think of an address as sitting inside several overlapping territories: the state, a county, perhaps a city, perhaps one or more special districts for transit, hospitals, stadiums or tourism. Each territory that levies a sales tax adds its rate. The mini-calculator above adds four layers; real addresses can have more. A store on one side of a city line can charge a point more than a store a block away, and a delivery outside the city limits of a city whose name is in the postal address may owe no city tax at all. This is the main source of errors in ZIP-based tables and in online checkouts that rely on them.

Where the sale takes place

For a purchase in a store, the store's address decides. For a delivery, most states tax at the delivery address (destination sourcing). A few states use the seller's location for some sales between businesses and customers inside the state (origin sourcing), which the state pages note when the official page says so. Services follow their own sourcing rules. When you check a receipt or an online checkout, use the address that the state's rule designates, then the lookup.

Caps on local rates

California, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming set a maximum on local rates in law, shown in the table. Elsewhere the cap, if any, is set per type of government or per purpose, and each new local tax usually needs a vote of the local electors or of the governing body. These rules are why combined rates rarely exceed a few points above the state rate, although special districts can push some addresses higher.

Who collects the local tax

In most states, the department of revenue collects local sales taxes together with the state tax and sends each locality its share, so a seller files one return and the state's lookup covers every local rate. A few states work differently, and it shows on receipts and in disputes. In Colorado, home-rule cities collect their own tax and set their own base and exemptions, so a purchase can be exempt from the state tax and taxable in the city. In Louisiana, parishes, municipalities and school boards collect locally rather than through the Department of Revenue. In Alabama, the state administers more than 200 local taxes and the rest are collected by the localities themselves. In Alaska, there is no state tax at all, and boroughs and cities run their own, with a commission of member communities collecting on remote sales. In those states, the local government is the one to ask about a local rate or a refund.

Some states also cap local tax on a single large purchase. Florida's county surtax applies only to the first part of the price of an item, and Arkansas limits local tax on vehicles, boats, aircraft and certain equipment to the first part of the price. The state pages give the thresholds as each state publishes them.

Groceries and other exemptions at the local level

Local taxes usually follow the state's list of what is taxable, with exceptions that matter: in some states that exempt groceries from the state rate, cities or counties may still tax them, and some local exemptions for clothing are optional. The grocery and clothing pages list them. Choose the right category in the calculator and it will apply the local rate only where the state's rules allow it.

Using the lookup and the calculator together

Open your state's page from the sales tax by state table, follow its lookup link, enter the full street address, and note the local part of the combined rate (or the combined rate minus the state rate). Type that local part into the sales tax calculator. If you are checking a past receipt, use the rate in force on the date of the sale: most lookups let you choose the period.