United States Sales Tax Calculator

What this US sales tax calculator does

American sales tax is not one tax. It is a state rate, plus whatever the county thinks, plus whatever the city thinks, plus occasionally a transit district or a stadium levy that somebody voted for in 1998. The number you actually pay is all of those added together, and it can change when you cross a street.

So this calculator takes a price, a state rate, and optionally a local rate, and gives you the tax and the total with the two components kept separate.

Be clear about one thing before you start. You supply the rates. The state dropdown labels your result so you know which one you were pricing, but it does not fill the rate in for you. Given that local rates vary by thousands of jurisdictions and change several times a year, that is arguably the honest design, but it does mean you need the right number before you begin. The next section but one is about getting it.

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How to use it

1. Price Excluding Tax. The pre tax price, which in the United States is usually the price on the label.
2. Select State. Pick yours. This names the state in your result so the output is labelled, and does not set the rate.
3. State Sales Tax Rate. Type the state rate as a percentage.
4. Include Local Tax. Tick this if a county, city or district rate applies, and a second field appears for it.
5. Local Sales Tax Rate. The combined local rate for your specific address.

Press Calculate. Press Reset to clear it.

If you already know your all in combined rate and just want the arithmetic, our plain sales tax calculator takes one rate and is quicker.

Finding the rate that actually applies to you

This is the part everything else depends on, so it is worth doing properly rather than guessing from something you half remember.

Your state department of revenue is the authority. Every state that levies sales tax publishes a rate lookup, usually searchable by address or ZIP code, and that is the only source that is definitive for a specific transaction. Search for your state's name plus "department of revenue sales tax rate lookup" and you will land on it.

Look it up by full address, not by ZIP code, if you can. ZIP codes were designed for delivering post, not for administering tax, and they cross city and county lines all the time. A single ZIP can contain two different combined rates. Most state lookups will take a street address, and that is the one to trust.

For a general picture rather than a specific transaction, the Tax Foundation publishes state by state figures twice a year with population weighted local averages, which is the reference used throughout the rest of this page.

An average local rate is a genuinely useful number for planning and a genuinely bad number for a receipt. If you are budgeting a move or comparing states, averages are fine. If you are charging a customer or filing a return, get the address specific figure.

How state and local rates stack

They add. They do not compound. This trips people up because so much else in finance compounds, but sales tax does not.

Say the state rate is 7.25 percent and the local rate is 2.5 percent. The combined rate is simply 9.75 percent, applied once to the pre tax price:

Total = price × (1 + (state rate + local rate) ÷ 100)

So 100 becomes 109.75.

The wrong way, applying one on top of the other as 100 × 1.0725 × 1.025, gives 109.93. Eighteen cents adrift on a hundred dollars, and it compounds into something noticeable across a lot of transactions. The tool adds the two rates before applying them, which is correct.

Worth knowing that a few states blur the line deliberately. California, Utah and Virginia each impose a mandatory statewide local add on, and published figures generally fold those into the state rate rather than the local one. So if a source tells you California's state rate is 7.25 percent, that already contains a 1.25 percent local component that every part of the state pays.

A worked example: Texas

A 250 purchase in a Texas city with a full local add on. The state rate is 6.25 percent and the local rate is 2 percent, which is the statutory local ceiling in Texas.

Combined rate: 6.25 + 2 = 8.25 percent.

Tax: 250 × 0.0825 = 20.63.

Total: 250 + 20.63 = 270.63.

Now the same 250 purchase in Portland, Oregon, where there is no sales tax at any level. Tax: 0. Total: 250.

Twenty dollars and sixty three cents of difference on a single purchase, decided entirely by which side of a state line you were standing on. On a laptop or a sofa it is real money, which is why border towns between a taxing state and a non taxing one have the retail patterns they do.

Where rates stand across the country

Figures below are from the Tax Foundation's midyear 2026 survey, using population weighted averages for the local component. They are a guide to the landscape rather than a rate to charge anyone.

The nationwide population weighted average combined rate is about 7.53 percent.

Highest average combined state and local rates:

Highest average local rates, which is a different list and tells you where the local layer is doing the heavy lifting:

Alabama is the striking one. Its state rate is modest and its local rate is the highest in the country, which is exactly the situation where guessing from the state figure alone will leave you badly short.

California has the highest state level rate at 7.25 percent, though because it caps what localities can add, its combined average sits below the states at the top of the first table.

Statewide rates move rarely. Local rates move constantly, in small increments, several times a year. So treat the shape of this as durable and the decimals as perishable, and check the source for anything current.

The five states with no sales tax

They spell NOMAD, which is how everybody remembers them: New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Alaska, Delaware.

Four of those five have no sales tax at any level. Alaska is the exception and deserves its own line, because while it has no state sales tax, it lets boroughs and municipalities levy their own, and some do. So an Alaskan purchase can carry local sales tax while the state rate is zero. Enter 0 in the state field and your local rate in the second one.

Worth remembering that no sales tax does not mean no tax. Oregon has no sales tax and comparatively high income tax. New Hampshire has neither sales nor a broad income tax but leans hard on property tax. States raise money one way or another, and sales tax is one lever among several rather than a verdict on how cheap somewhere is to live.

The practical consequence most people notice is retail. Delaware sitting between Pennsylvania and Maryland, both around 6 percent, has made it a shopping destination for a very long time.

What gets taxed is not the same everywhere

The rate is the easy part. Whether your particular purchase is taxable at all is where the real variation lives, and it is state by state.

Groceries are the biggest divergence. Many states exempt unprepared food entirely, some tax it at a reduced rate, and a few tax it at the full rate. The line between grocery and prepared food is drawn differently everywhere, which is how you end up with famous arguments about whether a rotisserie chicken is hot food.

Clothing is exempt in a handful of states, exempt below a price threshold in others, and fully taxable in most.

Prescription medicine is exempt almost everywhere. Over the counter medicine is far less consistent.

Services are the quiet one. Sales tax was built for goods, and states have extended it to services at very different speeds. Hawaii, New Mexico and South Dakota have notably broad bases that reach many business to business services. Others tax almost no services at all.

There are also sales tax holidays, usually a weekend before the school year when a state suspends tax on clothing, supplies or computers below set prices. If your receipt is lower than expected, that may be why.

So the honest instruction is this: use this calculator once you know your purchase is taxable and at what rate. It prices the transaction, it does not classify it.

Buying online, and where the tax is owed

Most US sales tax is destination based, which means the rate that applies is the one where the buyer takes delivery, not where the seller sits. Order something to your home and you pay your own combined rate.

A minority of states use origin sourcing for sales inside the state, where an in state seller charges the rate at their own location. Between states, destination is the rule.

This became the general position after the 2018 Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, which removed the requirement that a seller have a physical presence in a state before that state could require it to collect. States now set economic nexus thresholds, typically based on sales volume or transaction count, and out of state sellers who cross them have to register and collect.

The practical upshot for a shopper: the rate at checkout should be yours, not the retailer's. If you are a seller, the thresholds are real and worth checking against each state you ship to.

And where a seller genuinely does not collect, most states have a use tax at the same rate that the buyer is technically supposed to remit. Compliance among individuals is famously low, but for a business it is a live audit issue.

Questions people ask

Why does picking a state not fill in the rate?

Because the tool asks you to supply both rates and uses the dropdown to label the result. Local rates vary across thousands of jurisdictions and change through the year, so the reliable source is your state's own address lookup. See finding your rate.

Which state has the highest sales tax?

By average combined state and local rate, Louisiana at about 10.13 percent as of midyear 2026. By state level rate alone, California at 7.25 percent.

Which states have no sales tax?

New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Alaska and Delaware. Alaska allows local sales taxes even though there is no state rate.

Can I just use my ZIP code to find the rate?

It will usually get you close and can get you wrong. ZIP codes cross city and county boundaries, so one ZIP can span two combined rates. Use a full street address wherever the lookup allows it.

Do state and local rates multiply together?

No, they add. State 7.25 plus local 2.5 is a combined 9.75 percent applied once. Multiplying them would overstate the tax.

Is food taxed?

Depends entirely on the state, and often on whether the food is prepared. Many states exempt unprepared groceries, some apply a reduced rate, a few tax them fully. Check your state revenue department.

How do I work out the tax inside a total I already paid?

Divide the total by 1 plus the combined rate as a decimal, then subtract. A 108.25 receipt at 8.25 percent gives a net of 100 and a tax of 8.25.

References

A note on sourcing and on dates. The rate figures on this page come from the Tax Foundation's twice yearly survey, which uses statutory state rates and population weighted averages for local rates. The figures quoted are from the midyear 2026 edition. Local rates change through the year, so for any specific transaction the definitive source is the relevant state revenue department's own address lookup.

1. Tax Foundation, State and Local Sales Tax Rates, Midyear 2026. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/2026-sales-tax-rates-midyear/
2. Tax Foundation, State and Local Sales Tax Rates, 2026. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/sales-tax-rates/
3. Tax Foundation, State Tax Maps. https://taxfoundation.org/datamaps/state-maps/