Sales Tax Calculator

Add or remove US sales tax with your state's rate and your own local rate, using the rounding rule the register actually applies — plus the combined rate for all 50 states and DC.

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State

Local rate (county + city)

Price before tax

Discount

Total with tax

$108.99

Sales tax

$8.99

on $100.00 at 8.99%

Combined rate

8.99%

7.25% state + 1.74% local

Enter the subtotal of the taxable items only. The local rate starts at California's population-weighted average — there is no ZIP-code lookup on this page, so check a recent receipt if your city or county charges its own.

California's 7.25% already includes a mandatory statewide local add-on of 1.25%, which is why it reads higher than the 6% in the statute. Whatever your county or city adds on top goes in the local field.

How this is calculated

Tax = $100.00 × 8.99% = $8.99

Total = $100.00 + $8.99 = $108.99

Sales tax by state — rates as of January 1, 2026

State	State rate	Average local	Combined
Alabama	4%	5.46%	9.46%
Alaska	0%	1.82%	1.82%
Arizona	5.6%	2.92%	8.52%
Arkansas	6.5%	2.96%	9.46%
California	7.25%	1.74%	8.99%
Colorado	2.9%	4.99%	7.89%
Connecticut	6.35%	0%	6.35%
Delaware	0%	0%	0%
District of Columbia	6%	0%	6%
Florida	6%	0.98%	6.98%
Georgia	4%	3.49%	7.49%
Hawaii	4%	0.5%	4.5%
Idaho	6%	0.03%	6.03%
Illinois	6.25%	2.71%	8.96%
Indiana	7%	0%	7%
Iowa	6%	0.94%	6.94%
Kansas	6.5%	2.19%	8.69%
Kentucky	6%	0%	6%
Louisiana	5%	5.11%	10.11%
Maine	5.5%	0%	5.5%
Maryland	6%	0%	6%
Massachusetts	6.25%	0%	6.25%
Michigan	6%	0%	6%
Minnesota	6.875%	1.26%	8.135%
Mississippi	7%	0.06%	7.06%
Missouri	4.225%	4.22%	8.445%
Montana	0%	0%	0%
Nebraska	5.5%	1.48%	6.98%
Nevada	6.85%	1.39%	8.24%
New Hampshire	0%	0%	0%
New Jersey	6.625%	-0.02%	6.605%
New Mexico	4.875%	2.79%	7.665%
New York	4%	4.54%	8.54%
North Carolina	4.75%	2.25%	7%
North Dakota	5%	2.09%	7.09%
Ohio	5.75%	1.54%	7.29%
Oklahoma	4.5%	4.56%	9.06%
Oregon	0%	0%	0%
Pennsylvania	6%	0.34%	6.34%
Rhode Island	7%	0%	7%
South Carolina	6%	1.49%	7.49%
South Dakota	4.2%	1.91%	6.11%
Tennessee	7%	2.61%	9.61%
Texas	6.25%	1.95%	8.2%
Utah	6.1%	1.32%	7.42%
Vermont	6%	0.39%	6.39%
Virginia	5.3%	0.47%	5.77%
Washington	6.5%	3.01%	9.51%
West Virginia	6%	0.59%	6.59%
Wisconsin	5%	0.72%	5.72%
Wyoming	4%	1.56%	5.56%
California 1.25%, Utah 1.25%, Virginia 1% include a mandatory statewide local add-on inside the state rate, so those rates read higher than the statute. New Jersey's average local rate is -0.02% because Urban Enterprise Zones charge half the state rate. Rates from the Tax Foundation.

Find your rate from a receipt

Subtotal on the receipt

The pre-tax line, before any tax was added.

Total on the receipt

What you actually paid, tax included.

Outside the US? The VAT calculator adds or removes tax by country.

This calculator is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice.

Sales tax calculator. What the tax adds to a price, and what it hides inside a total.

A sales tax calculator adds your state and local rate to a price and reports the tax and the total, or works the other way to pull the tax out of a total. It holds every amount in whole cents and rounds the way a register does, so the tax it prints is the tax on the receipt.

State Rate, Average Local, Combined: Reading Your Own Rate off the Table

US sales tax has no national rate. Each state sets its own, counties and cities and special districts layer theirs on top, and the number charged at the register is the sum of all of them — the combined rate. The table further down this page gives that sum for all 50 states and the District of Columbia as of January 1, 2026, sourced from the Tax Foundation: California's 7.25% state rate plus a 1.74% average local layer makes the 8.99% the calculator opens on, which turns a $100.00 purchase into $8.99 of tax and a $108.99 total.

Louisiana carries the highest combined average at 10.11%, ahead of Tennessee at 9.61% and Washington at 9.51%, with Alabama and Arkansas tied at 9.46%. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon levy nothing statewide. Only Alaska has a local layer underneath, which is why its average comes out at 1.82% while the other four are the four rows in the table that read 0% straight across — select Delaware and the tax card reads $0.00 and the total is the price you typed.

Three of the state rates in that first column are not the number in the statute. California, Utah and Virginia each fold a mandatory statewide local add-on into the state figure, of 1.25%, 1.25% and 1% respectively, so California reads 7.25% here against a 6% statute, Utah 7.42% combined off a 6.1% state rate whose statute is 4.85%, and Virginia 5.3% where the statute says 4.3%. The footnote spanning the bottom of the table says so, and a line of prose under the result cards repeats it whenever one of the three is selected. Without it, a reader comparing the California row against the rate their state legislature passed would conclude the table is broken.

The middle column is the one to read carefully. Average local is a population-weighted average across every taxing district in the state, not a rate anybody is charged. Texas shows how far that can sit from an actual receipt: the state rate is 6.25%, the statutory ceiling the Comptroller publishes caps the local layer — "the sum of the rates levied by all local taxing authorities can never exceed 2 percent" — and the population-weighted average local rate is 1.95%. An average that lands five hundredths of a point under a hard ceiling only happens when most of the state's population is at the ceiling, so a Texan checking a receipt should expect 8.25% rather than the 8.2% this page prefills.

That distance between an average and an address is why there is no ZIP-code box here. Address-level rate lookup is a product, sold on a subscription and refreshed continuously, and TaxJar, which sells the dataset, is candid about what five digits are worth: its own calculator page carries the line "A zip code is just the beginning. It doesn't account for specific state rules." Rather than promise a jurisdiction it cannot verify, this page prefills your state's average, leaves the local field editable, and gives you two ways to replace the average with your own figure — type the local rate off a recent receipt, or use Find your rate from a receipt below the results, which turns a subtotal and a total into the exact rate your register applied.

Four state rates carry a third decimal: Minnesota 6.875%, Missouri 4.225%, New Jersey 6.625% and New Mexico 4.875%. That third digit is not decoration, and the rounding section below shows the cent it moves. New Jersey also holds the only negative figure in the table. Its average local rate is −0.02%, because Urban Enterprise Zones charge half the state rate and drag the population-weighted average below zero; the table shows the sourced −0.02% while the local field prefills 0, since no shopper is charged a negative rate.

For a tax-inclusive price in another country, the VAT calculator runs the same two directions by country. For a markdown that lands before the tax does, the discount calculator works the sale price first. For a restaurant check where the tax and a tip both sit on the same bill, the tip calculator handles both at once.

The Same $100.00 Purchase, Six Ways Down the State Select

State selected	Combined rate	Sales tax on $100.00	Total with tax
California, the state the page opens on	8.99%	$8.99	$108.99
New Jersey, local field at its prefilled 0	6.625%	$6.63	$106.63
Missouri, local field cleared to 0	4.225%	$4.23	$104.23
Missouri, with its 4.22% average local	8.445%	$8.45	$108.45
Alaska, where every cent of it is local	1.82%	$1.82	$101.82
Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire or Oregon	0%	$0.00	$100.00

Whole Cents, Three Decimals, and the Half-Cent That Rounds Up

T_{\text{mils}} = \left\lfloor \frac{P_{\text{cents}} \times r_{\text{milli}}}{10^{4}} \right\rfloor \qquad T_{\text{cents}} = \left\lfloor \frac{T_{\text{mils}} + 5}{10} \right\rfloor

$P_{\text{cents}}$ = The taxable price as a whole number of cents. A $100.00 purchase is 10,000, and a discount is subtracted here before anything is multiplied.
$r_{\text{milli}}$ = The combined rate in thousandths of a percentage point, state plus local. 8.99% is 8,990 and Missouri's 4.225% is 4,225 — which is why the third decimal survives the arithmetic.
$T_{\text{mils}}$ = The tax carried to the third decimal of a dollar and truncated there. On $100.00 in Missouri it is 4,225, meaning $4.225.
$T_{\text{cents}}$ = The tax the register collects. Adding 5 before the final division is what rounds a third digit of 5 or more up to the next cent.
$r$ = The same combined rate as a decimal — 0.0899 for 8.99% — used by the reverse direction, which divides rather than multiplies.

Every amount on this page is held as a whole number of cents and every rate as a whole number of thousandths of a percentage point, because the rule those two integers feed is statutory rather than a matter of taste. The Florida Department of Revenue states it in a single sentence in TIP #21A01-02, published when the state replaced its old bracket chart: the algorithm "carries the tax computation to the third decimal place" and "always rounds up to the next whole cent when the third decimal place is greater than 4." Three steps, in order:

1. Carry the tax to the third decimal by truncation, not by rounding. Rounding at the third decimal first compounds: a raw 0.0048 becomes 0.005 and then a whole cent, where the statute charges nothing.

2. Round up to the next cent when that third digit is 5 or more. Drop it otherwise.

3. Apply the rule once, to the state and local tax added together — never to each component and then again to the sum.

Florida's own two illustrations are the shortest test of any implementation: $5.045 becomes $5.05, and $3.213 stays $3.21. Enter $100.90 at a flat 5% here and the tax card reads $5.05; enter $53.55 at 6% and it reads $3.21.

Two more states put the same rule in their own words, which helps if you are checking a receipt against a statute rather than against another calculator. New Jersey's Division of Taxation tells sellers to "calculate the tax to the third decimal point," then "round up to the next cent, if one-half cent (that is, $0.005) or higher" and "round down, if less than one-half cent" — and works it on twenty dollars of flowers: $20.00 × 0.06625 = $1.325, collected as $1.33. Minnesota writes it into statute at § 297A.76, subdivision 1: "amounts of tax less than one-half of one cent must be disregarded and amounts of tax of one-half cent or more must be considered an additional cent."

The third decimal is exactly where ordinary floating-point arithmetic loses a cent, and Missouri is the cleanest demonstration. Its state rate is 4.225%, so the tax on $100.00 is $4.225 to the mil; the third digit is a 5, it rounds up, and the register collects $4.23. A spreadsheet or a script that multiplies and then rounds returns $4.22 instead, because 4.225 times 100 evaluates to 422.49999999999994 rather than 422.5 and the rounding step sees a 4 where the statute sees a 5. Scanned across 25 real US rates and every price from one cent to $1,000.00, that one-cent divergence turns up on 1,147 prices. Working in integers removes the whole class of error, which is why the two expressions above use a floor and an addition of 5 rather than a multiplication and a round.

Removing tax runs the other way and rounds in a different place. The price before tax is the total divided by one plus the rate, rounded to the cent, and the tax is then the subtraction:

P_{\text{pre}} = \mathrm{round}\!\left(\frac{\text{total}}{1 + r}\right), \qquad T = \text{total} - P_{\text{pre}}

Deriving the tax by subtraction guarantees the two figures add back to the total you typed, which is what reconstructing a receipt requires. It has a cost, and the page states it on screen: at 8.99%, 413 of the 5,001 totals between $10.00 and $60.00 are not producible by any price before tax at all. That is 8.3% of them, and when you type one, a note names the two nearest totals a register could have printed.

One further clause of the same rule accounts for most receipts that look a cent off. The Streamlined Sales Tax rounding paper lets a seller "elect to compute the tax due on a transaction on an item or an invoice basis," and recommends that "rounding rules should be applied to the aggregated state and local taxes" — wording Minnesota's own notice hardens into "shall." A till that rounds every line and a till that rounds the invoice total will not always agree, and a till that rounds the state, county and city tax separately instead of once on the total is a third variant — TaxJar puts that spread at "up to 3 cents for an invoice with only 3 items." This calculator takes one subtotal and rounds once on the aggregated tax, which is the invoice-basis answer, so a store that taxes line by line can legitimately collect a couple of cents more than the figure here.

Seven Cases, Worked Against the Live Numbers

California at 8.99%: the state the page opens on

Nothing needs touching to get a complete answer. The direction sits on Add sales tax, the state select reads California — 7.25%, the local rate is prefilled at 1.74%, and Price before tax holds $100.00.

Three cards answer across the top of the results: Total with tax at $108.99, Sales tax at $8.99 with the copy button beside it, and Combined rate at 8.99% subtitled 7.25% state + 1.74% local. The Sales tax card carries its own second line, on $100.00 at 8.99%.

Open the fold marked How this is calculated and the working is two monospace lines:

Tax = $100.00 × 8.99% = $8.99
Total = $100.00 + $8.99 = $108.99

At a price of exactly $100.00 the tax in dollars and the rate in points are the same number, which makes California the easiest rate on the table to sanity-check in your head. Change the price to $249.99 and the relationship stops being obvious: the tax is $22.47 and the total $272.46.

Missouri's $100.00: why the tax is $4.23 and not $4.22

Select Missouri and the local field refills itself to 4.22%, the state's average local rate, giving 8.445% combined, $8.45 of tax and a $108.45 total. Clear the local field to 0 and the combined rate drops to Missouri's bare state rate of 4.225%.

On $100.00 that produces $4.23 of tax and a $104.23 total. The exact tax is $4.225, the third decimal is a 5, and the statute rounds it up. A spreadsheet that multiplies and rounds at two decimals returns $4.22 for the same inputs, because the multiplication lands a hair under the half-cent before the rounding step ever sees it.

One cent on one purchase is beneath noticing. Repeated across a day of transactions it is what leaves a till short at closing, which is why the rule is written into state guidance instead of left to whichever software the store bought.

Removing tax: a $108.99 total split back into $100.00 and $8.99

Switch the direction to Remove sales tax. The Discount controls disappear, since a discount applied before tax means nothing on a figure that already includes it, and the price field relabels itself Total including tax.

Type $108.99 with California still selected. The first card now reads Price before tax at $100.00, the Sales tax card reads $8.99 subtitled already inside $108.99, and the fold reads:

Price before tax = $108.99 ÷ 1.0899 = $100.00
Tax = $108.99 − $100.00 = $8.99

Round numbers rarely survive the return trip. A $53.98 total at the same 8.99% splits into $49.53 before tax and $4.45 of tax. Check it the way an auditor would: the two parts add back to the $53.98 you typed, exactly, because the tax is the subtraction rather than a second multiplication.

A $10.00 total that no register can print

Stay in Remove sales tax at 8.99% and type a total of $10.00. The cards report $9.18 before tax and $0.82 of tax — the parts still add to $10.00 — and a note appears underneath:

At 8.99% no price before tax rounds to $10.00. The nearest totals a register can print are $9.99 and $10.01.

Walk it forward and the gap is visible. A $9.17 price takes $0.82 of tax and lands on $9.99; a $9.18 price takes $0.83 and lands on $10.01. Nothing in between exists, because prices move in whole cents while the total they produce moves in steps of about 1.09 cents, so roughly one total in twelve is skipped over entirely.

The honest reading of a total like this is that one of two things is true: the receipt mixes taxable and exempt items, so the tax was charged on less than the total shown, or the rate was not exactly the one in the field. Both are common, and the second is what the receipt block below is for. $10.00 is the lowest of the 413 unreachable totals between $10.00 and $60.00 at this rate, and $10.12 and $10.24 follow it.

Maryland's $1.17: the register collects 8 cents, not 7

Maryland is the one state on this page whose tax does not come from a percentage at all. Select it, leave the local field at its prefilled 0 for a flat 6%, and type $1.17. The Sales tax card reads $0.07 and a note appears:

Maryland charges from a bracket schedule rather than a flat 6%: on $1.17 the register collects $0.08, not $0.07.

The Comptroller of Maryland publishes the schedule in Business tax tip #8. Above a dollar it is 6¢ on each exact dollar plus a band on the excess: 1¢ for an excess of 1 to 16¢, 2¢ for 17 to 33¢, 3¢ for 34 to 50¢, 4¢ for 51 to 66¢, 5¢ for 67 to 83¢, and 6¢ from 84¢ up. Below a dollar there is a discontinuity the statute puts there deliberately — 20¢ is taxed a single cent, and 21¢ is taxed two.

On $1.17 that is 6¢ for the dollar plus 2¢ for the 17¢ excess, against $0.0702 of straight percentage that rounds to 7¢. The schedule and the percentage disagree on 4,799 of the 10,000 cent-prices under $100.00, always by a cent, and the note only appears on the prices where they part company. Type $19.99 instead and both routes give $1.20, so no note is shown.

15% off $100.00, and the coupon that changes nothing

Set Discount to % off and a Percent off field appears beneath it. Type 15 against the $100.00 price in California and the fold grows a third line:

Taxable = $100.00 − $15.00 = $85.00
Tax = $85.00 × 8.99% = $7.64
Total = $85.00 + $7.64 = $92.64

Switch Discount to $ off, type 25, and the taxable price becomes $75.00 with $6.74 of tax and an $81.74 total. Tax is charged on what you hand over, which is the ordinary rule for a markdown or a store's own coupon: the shop's revenue fell, so the tax base fell with it.

A manufacturer's coupon is the exception, and the note under the cards states it. The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance sets out the reason in Tax Bulletin ST-140: the seller is reimbursed for the coupon's value, so the selling price never actually falls and the tax stays on the full amount. If you are holding a coupon from the brand rather than the store, leave the Discount control on No discount and tax the undiscounted price.

A $42.50 subtotal and a $46.27 total: finding the 8.871% you paid

This is the block for anyone who has a receipt but no idea what their jurisdiction charges. Below the state table, Subtotal on the receipt and Total on the receipt sit side by side and stay empty until you use them. Type $42.50 and $46.27.

Two figures appear: Rate you were charged, 8.871%, and Tax paid, $3.77. Those three decimals are the arithmetic your own register performed, which beats any average for your area.

The note under the cards turns the figure into a setting for you. 8.871% is a combined rate and the local field holds only the local part, so the note does the subtraction and names the number to type: in California, 8.871% is the 7.25% state rate plus 1.621% of local, and typing 1.621 makes the Combined rate card read 8.871% and every figure above it match your receipt. In Alaska, where the state charges nothing statewide, the note points at the whole figure instead, because every cent of it is local.

A rate that comes out well below your state's own rate is a signal in itself: it usually means part of the subtotal was exempt — groceries in most states, clothing in a few — so the tax was charged on less than the full subtotal and the division understates the rate, or the receipt was rung up in another state.

Driving the Calculator: What Each Control Does

Every control on this page arrives filled in, so a complete answer is on screen before you touch anything. There is no Calculate button — the figures move as you type.

1. Set the direction with the two pills, Add sales tax or Remove sales tax. Add takes a price with no tax in it and returns the checkout figure; Remove takes the checkout figure and returns the price underneath it. The amount field renames itself between Price before tax and Total including tax, so the label tells you which of the two the page is reading right now.

2. Choose your State. The select carries all 50 states plus the District of Columbia with each state's own rate in the label, so California reads California — 7.25% and you can compare without opening it twice. Picking a state does two things beyond changing the rate: it refills the local field with that state's average local rate, and it highlights that state's row in the table below.

3. Correct the Local rate (county + city) if you know it. The field accepts anything from 0 to 12, decimals included — 1.621 and 2.75 both go in as typed. There is no custom-state option because this field is the custom option: someone who knows only their combined rate picks their state and edits this number until the Combined rate card matches.

4. Enter the amount, up to a hundred million dollars, formatted with grouping commas as $1,234,567.89. In Add mode the guidance line under the cards is explicit about what belongs in it: enter the subtotal of the taxable items only. A minus sign is refused as you type it, in every field on the page.

5. Apply a Discount if there is one, in Add mode only. The select offers No discount, % off and $ off, and the value field appears beneath it once you pick a type, labeled Percent off or Amount off to match. A percentage above 100 or a dollar amount larger than the price both clamp the taxable figure to zero rather than going negative.

Three cards report across the results: the total or the pre-tax price, the Sales tax with the page's one copy button beside it, and the Combined rate with its state-plus-local split as a subtitle. Under them sits a band of prose that changes with your selection — the guidance line always, plus a caveat for California, Utah and Virginia, for Alaska, for New Jersey, for a state charging nothing at all, for Maryland where its schedule disagrees with the percentage, for a discount, and for a reverse total no register can produce. Below that, the fold How this is calculated prints the working in two lines, or three with a discount.

The Sales tax by state table renders open rather than collapsed, because the rate is what most visitors came for. Its four columns give the state name, its state rate, the average local rate and the combined figure, with the selected state's row highlighted and a footnote across the bottom for the two quirks that otherwise look like errors. Its heading carries its own vintage — rates as of January 1, 2026 — read from the data file rather than typed into the prose, so it cannot drift out of step with the numbers under it.

Under the table, Find your rate from a receipt takes a subtotal and a total and returns the rate your register used to three decimals plus the tax you paid. The two figures stay hidden until the subtotal is above zero and the total is at least as large. At the very bottom, one line points outside the country: the VAT calculator adds or removes tax by country for a price that already includes it.

What This Page Declines to Answer

Several of the gaps below are design decisions, and a reader is better served by seeing them named than by discovering one halfway through a calculation.

No lookup by address, ZIP code or city. The page cannot tell you your rate from where you live, and never claims to. No public dataset of US taxing-district boundaries is maintained well enough to build one on, a single ZIP code can cover more than one district, and TaxJar — which sells the dataset — writes on its own calculator page that "a zip code is just the beginning." The substitutes here are your state's rate as a floor, an editable local field, and the receipt block for turning a charge you were billed into the exact rate behind it.

No maximum-local-rate column. Calculator.net and Omni Calculator both carry one. It reports the single steepest jurisdiction in a state, it ages faster than any other figure on the table, and it invites the address-level promise the rest of the page declines to make. An average is a poorer guess for one shopper and a truer description of a state.

No Puerto Rico or Guam. Calculator.net files both inside a table headed by state, and both run a separate regime — Puerto Rico levies an 11.5% IVU under its own code rather than a state sales tax.

No ruling on what is taxable. Groceries, prescriptions, clothing, digital goods and services are treated differently in nearly every state, and the exemptions move with each legislative session. Sales-tax holidays are the same problem with a date attached. Both are handled by leaving the exempt items out of the subtotal you type, which is what the guidance line under the cards asks for.

One bracket schedule, not fifty. Maryland's is implemented and cited. Florida's was repealed by S.B. 50 effective July 1, 2021, the Streamlined Sales Tax states voted brackets out, and third-party sites still circulating the old Florida card are years stale. Where a state's own current schedule could not be located in a primary publication, this page claims nothing about it.

No use tax, nexus, filing or the federal deduction. Those are seller-side and filing-season questions rather than checkout arithmetic; the IRS runs its own Sales Tax Deduction Calculator for the last of them.

The rates have a vintage, and it is printed. The table is the Tax Foundation's January 1, 2026 edition, and that source publishes twice a year. Between editions the arithmetic is unaffected and every rate on the page is still yours to overwrite, which is the reason the local field is editable in the first place.

Where a Sales Tax Figure Goes Wrong

Typing the receipt total into Price before tax. The Add side taxes whatever you give it, so a total that already contains 8.99% gets taxed a second time and the answer climbs where you wanted it to split. Before you read the cards, read the caption on the amount field: under Add it asks for Price before tax, under Remove for Total including tax, and it rewrites itself the moment you move the pills.
Treating the prefilled local rate as your local rate. It is a population-weighted average across the whole state, and in states with a wide spread it will be wrong for most individual addresses. In Texas the average of 1.95% sits under a statutory 2% ceiling that most of the population pays, so there the average understates; where a state's biggest cities charge less than its small towns it misses the other way. Replace it from a receipt.
Taxing a subtotal that contains exempt items. Most states exempt groceries or prescriptions and a few exempt clothing, so the taxable subtotal on a real receipt is often smaller than the printed subtotal. Feeding the full figure in produces too much tax, and running the same receipt backwards produces a rate that looks impossibly low.
Expecting the tax to match a till that rounds line by line. Sellers may compute the tax per item or on the invoice total, and the two passes do not always end on the same cent. This page rounds once, on one subtotal, which is the invoice-basis answer. A cent or two of daylight against a long receipt is the two methods disagreeing; neither of them is wrong.
Assuming a manufacturer's coupon lowers the tax. A store markdown reduces the taxable price; a coupon the brand reimburses does not, because the store gets the money back and its selling price never drops. Applying a manufacturer's coupon in the Discount field understates the tax, so leave the control on No discount for that case.
Reading California's 7.25% as the rate its legislature set. It is 6% in statute plus a 1.25% mandatory statewide local add-on that the Tax Foundation folds into the state column, and Utah and Virginia are the same shape. Comparing this table against a statute without the footnote produces a phantom discrepancy in exactly three states.
Trusting a reverse split of a suspiciously round total. At 8.99% about one total in twelve between $10.00 and $60.00 cannot be produced by any price before tax, and $10.00 itself is one of them. The parts the page reports still add to what you typed, but if the figure has to reconcile against a register, trust the printed tax line over any back-calculation.
Letting the rate go stale in a saved spreadsheet. State legislatures and thousands of local districts change rates every year, and a combined rate copied into a template eighteen months ago is a guess. The table on this page carries the date its rates were current, which is the thing to compare against before reusing an old number.

Sales Tax Rates and Calculation — Frequently Asked Questions

What is the sales tax rate in my state?

The table on this page lists all 50 states and the District of Columbia with the state rate, the population-weighted average local rate and the combined figure, current as of January 1, 2026. Selecting your state highlights its row and loads its rates into the calculator. The combined column is the one that matters at a register, because it already includes the average local layer — but it is an average across your whole state, so a receipt from your own city is the better source for the local half.

How do I calculate sales tax on a price?

Multiply the price by the combined rate and round to the cent. At 8.99%, a $100.00 purchase carries $8.99 of tax and comes to $108.99. The combined rate is your state rate plus whatever your county, city and any special district add on top.

How do you back sales tax out of a total?

Divide the total by 1 plus the rate. At 8.99%, $108.99 ÷ 1.0899 is $100.00 before tax, and the tax is the $8.99 left over. Switch the calculator to Remove sales tax and it reports both.

Which states have no sales tax?

Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon levy no statewide sales tax. Alaska is the only one of the five carrying a local layer in the table, at an average of 1.82% across its boroughs and cities; the other four read 0% combined.

Which state has the highest sales tax?

By combined state and local average, Louisiana at 10.11%, followed by Tennessee at 9.61%, Washington at 9.51%, and Alabama and Arkansas tied at 9.46%. By state rate alone the order is different: California's 7.25% is the highest, though 1.25% of that is a mandatory statewide local add-on rather than the statute rate. The lowest non-zero combined average is Alaska's 1.82%, where there is no state rate at all and the whole figure is local.

Why is the tax on my receipt a cent different from what I calculated?

Three causes cover most of it. The store may tax line by line rather than on the invoice total, which the Streamlined Sales Tax rule permits, and a per-item pass can land a cent or two away from a single pass on the whole invoice. Part of your subtotal may be exempt, so the tax was charged on less than the whole figure. Or the calculation that produced your number rounded at two decimals instead of carrying the tax to the third decimal first, which loses a cent whenever the exact tax lands on a half — $100.00 in Missouri is the textbook case, where the register collects $4.23 and a plain multiplication returns $4.22.

Does this page look up my sales tax rate by ZIP code or address?

No, by design. There is no dependable public map of US taxing-district boundaries to build a lookup on, and a ZIP code is not one of those boundaries anyway: five digits routinely cover more than one district, and the districts are what set the rate. The page prefills your state's average local rate, leaves that field editable, and puts a receipt block under the table for recovering your own rate exactly.

How do I find out what sales tax rate I was charged?

Divide the tax on your receipt by the taxable subtotal. Find your rate from a receipt does it for you to three decimals: a $42.50 subtotal and a $46.27 total means $3.77 of tax at 8.871%. That figure is a combined rate, and the note under the cards subtracts your state's share for you and names the number to type into the local field — 8.871% in California is 7.25% state plus 1.621% local. In a state with no rate of its own, such as Alaska, the whole figure goes in as it stands.

Is sales tax charged on the sale price or the original price?

On the sale price, for a markdown or a store's own coupon: the shop's revenue fell, so the taxable amount fell with it. Set Discount to % off or $ off and the calculator taxes the discounted figure — 15% off $100.00 gives $85.00 taxable, $7.64 of tax and a $92.64 total. A manufacturer's coupon is the exception. New York's Tax Bulletin ST-140 explains why: the brand reimburses the seller, so the selling price never actually falls and the tax stays on the full amount.

Why does Maryland collect 8 cents on $1.17 instead of 7?

Because Maryland taxes from a bracket schedule rather than by multiplying. The Comptroller's Business tax tip #8 sets it out: 6¢ on each exact dollar, plus a band on the excess that charges 2¢ on 17 to 33 cents. On $1.17 that is 8¢, where 6% of $1.17 is $0.0702 and rounds to 7¢. The schedule and the percentage disagree on 4,799 of the 10,000 cent-prices below $100.00, always by a single cent, and the calculator prints a note on the prices where they part. Maryland has no local sales tax, so the schedule is the whole story there.

My total says no price before tax can produce it. What does that mean?

It means the arithmetic has a gap and your total falls in it. Prices move in whole cents, so at 8.99% the totals a register can print skip about one cent in twelve: $9.99 and $10.01 are both reachable and $10.00 is not. The calculator still splits your total, and the two parts still add back to it exactly, but the split is the closest one rather than the register's. Two everyday causes are worth checking first — the receipt mixed taxable and exempt items, or the rate in the field is not quite the one the store used.

Is sales tax the same as VAT?

No. Sales tax is charged once, at the final retail sale, and quoted outside the shelf price; VAT is collected in stages along the supply chain and is normally already inside the advertised price. For a tax-inclusive price outside the US, use the VAT calculator.

What should I do with the sales tax figure once I have it?

For a purchase decision, read the total rather than the tax: a $249.99 item at 8.99% costs $272.46. A US shelf price is quoted before tax, so it undersells itself against a tax-inclusive price from abroad by exactly the tax the register still has to add. For bookkeeping, the copy button on the Sales tax card puts the bare number on your clipboard for a spreadsheet cell. For an expense claim or an invoice, keep the taxable amount and the tax on separate lines, which is the format the two figures on the fold already give you.

How accurate is this sales tax calculator?

The arithmetic is exact for the rate you give it: every amount is held in whole cents against a rate in thousandths of a point, and the rounding follows the statutory rule that carries the tax to the third decimal and rounds a half-cent up, applied once to the state and local tax together. Its two limits are both about the rate rather than the sum. The local field is only as good as the number you put in it, and the prefilled state average will not match every address. The state rates themselves carry the date they were current, January 1, 2026, because legislatures move them.

Is this sales tax calculator free to use?

Yes — all 51 rows of the rate table, the receipt block and the copy button on the tax card are open to anyone, with nothing to sign up for and no limit on how many prices you run in either direction. The sources behind the rates and the rounding rule are listed under the tool, and the calculator can be embedded on another site.

Sources & References

Content verified by the Smart Calculators Team