US sales tax rates by state

There is no national sales tax in the United States. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia levy one, five do not, and the rate you actually pay at a till is almost never the state rate on its own.

Sales tax rates by state

The state rate on its own tells you very little, so this table carries all three numbers: what the state levies, the population-weighted average of what counties, cities and districts add on top, and the combined rate an average purchase actually meets.

State rates effective 1 July 2026, local averages as of 1 January 2026. Source: Tax Foundation, State and Local Sales Tax Rates, Midyear 2026; checked 17 September 2026. Legislatures and county boards revise these constantly — confirm with the state's department of revenue before filing anything.

The national population-weighted average combined rate is 7.53%. The five heaviest are Louisiana (10.13%), Tennessee (9.61%), Washington (9.57%), Arkansas (9.48%) and Alabama (9.46%).

Read down the local column and the point of the table appears: in 5 states — Alabama, Louisiana, Colorado, Oklahoma and New York — local government collects more than the state does. Alabama is the extreme, with a 4.00% state rate carrying a 5.46% local average on top of it.

What changed in 2026

No state changed its statewide rate between January and July 2026. Everything that moved, moved locally:

Illinois is the instructive one. Repealing the 1% state grocery tax did not make groceries 1% cheaper, because the repeal came with permission for municipalities to levy their own — so in much of the state the tax changed hands rather than disappeared. A statewide headline and a checkout receipt are different stories more often than not.

The five states with no sales tax

A useful mnemonic is NOMAD — New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Alaska, Delaware.

Alaska is the one that trips people up. "Alaska has no sales tax" is a statement about Juneau, not about the checkout in Ketchikan — the state rate is zero and the average combined rate is still 1.82%. Only 4 states reach a genuine zero once local taxes are counted: Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon.

Hawaii is not a sales tax state

Hawaii's General Excise Tax looks like sales tax and behaves differently in a way that matters. It is levied on the seller's gross receipts rather than on the buyer's purchase, at 4% statewide with a county surcharge that takes Oahu to 4.5%.

Because it is the seller's tax, businesses are allowed to pass it on and to charge tax on the passed-on amount. That is why Hawaiian receipts often show 4.712% rather than 4.5% — the visible rate is the gross-up of a 4.5% tax that is itself taxable. It also applies to services and wholesale transactions that a conventional sales tax would leave alone, so it reaches far more of the economy than the low headline rate suggests.

Why the rate changes street by street

A combined US rate is a stack:

combined = state + county + city + special district

Special districts fund transit authorities, stadium bonds, hospital levies, and tourism development, and their boundaries follow neither city nor county lines. A single ZIP code can contain several different combined rates.

The stack can also run backwards. New Jersey's average local rate is negative, at −0.02%, which is not an error. Designated Urban Enterprise Zones collect at half the statewide rate to support struggling city centres, so the state's local average pulls the combined rate below the 6.63% headline instead of above it. It is the only state where that happens.

Colorado is the clearest illustration. Its 2.90% state rate is the lowest of any state that levies one, and its 4.99% local average takes the combined rate to 7.89% — above the national average. The headline number tells you almost nothing.

Origin vs destination sourcing

For a delivered or online order, which rate applies? Most states use destination sourcing: the rate is the buyer's address. A handful — including Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Texas for intrastate sales — use origin sourcing, where the seller's location sets the rate.

Since the Supreme Court's 2018 Wayfair decision, states can require out-of-state sellers to collect once they pass an economic nexus threshold, commonly $100,000 of sales or 200 transactions in a year. That is why online orders now show sales tax where they once did not.

What gets taxed differs as much as the rate

Two states with identical rates can produce very different bills, because the base is defined separately:

• Groceries — exempt in most states, taxed at a reduced rate in some, and fully taxed in a few.
• Prescription drugs — exempt almost everywhere; over-the-counter medicine usually is not.
• Clothing — exempt in Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; exempt below a price threshold in Massachusetts and New York.
• Prepared food — normally taxed even where groceries are not, and often at a higher restaurant rate.
• Digital goods and services — a patchwork, and the fastest-changing area of all.

Sales tax holidays add another layer. Many states suspend tax on school supplies, clothing, or emergency preparedness items for a few days each year, usually in late summer.

Working the arithmetic

gross = net × (1 + rate)  ·  net = gross ÷ (1 + rate)  ·  tax = gross − net

Removing tax is a division, not a subtraction. On a $108 total at 8%, the pre-tax price is 108 ÷ 1.08 = $100. Taking 8% off $108 gives $99.36 — wrong, and wrong in the direction that under-reports your revenue.