Sales Tax Calculator

How this sales tax calculator works

Sales tax is a percentage added to the price of a retail purchase at the checkout. This calculator links the three quantities — before-tax price, sales tax rate and after-tax price — so that any two you know define the third, and it always shows you the tax amount in dollars.

Worked example

A $100 item at a 7.5% sales tax rate has $100 × 0.075 = $7.50 of tax, for an after-tax total of $107.50. Working backwards, a $107.50 total at 7.5% divides by 1.075 to give the $100 before-tax price and $7.50 of tax.

Understanding US sales tax

What is sales tax?

Sales tax is a consumption tax charged on the retail sale of goods and (in many places) services. The store adds it at the point of sale, collects it from the shopper, and forwards it to the government. There is no federal sales tax in the United States — it is set by states, counties and cities, so the rate you pay depends on where you buy.

Sales tax vs. VAT

Both are percentage taxes on what you buy, but they are collected differently. Sales tax is charged only once — at the final sale to the consumer. VAT is charged at every stage of the supply chain, with businesses reclaiming the tax they paid on their inputs. For a single purchase the arithmetic is identical, which is why this tool works either way; if you need VAT specifically, use our VAT calculator.

How much is sales tax in the US?

Rates vary widely by location. Five states charge no statewide sales tax — Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon — though Alaska and some others still allow local sales taxes. California has the highest state base rate at 7.25%, and once city and county taxes are added, combined rates can top 10% in some areas. Because local rates change often, always enter the exact rate for your location.

Can you deduct sales tax?

If you itemize deductions on your US federal return, you can deduct the state and local sales tax you paid — but only instead of deducting your state and local income tax, not on top of it. This is part of the SALT (state-and-local-tax) deduction, capped at $40,400 for 2026 — raised from the old $10,000 limit by the One Big Beautiful Bill, and phasing down for incomes above roughly $505,000. Because it is one or the other, deducting sales tax usually helps most if you live in a no-income-tax state such as Florida, Texas or Washington, or if you made large taxable purchases. You can total up actual receipts or use the IRS's optional sales-tax tables. If you take the standard deduction instead of itemizing, you can't claim it.

How to use it & key terms

Enter the price and your sales-tax rate, then press Calculate to see the tax and the total — or switch to work backwards from a tax-inclusive price.

Origin vs destination — and why online orders get taxed

The rate you pay is rarely a single state figure. Most US sales tax is combined from several layers — state, county, city and special districts — which is why two addresses a few miles apart can charge different totals. States also differ on which rate applies. Destination-based states charge the rate where the buyer receives the goods; a smaller number are origin-based and use the seller's location. For everyday shopping the difference is invisible, but it explains why an online order is usually taxed at your local rate, not the warehouse's.

That online treatment traces back to the 2018 South Dakota v. Wayfair decision, which let states require out-of-state sellers to collect tax once they pass a sales or transaction threshold — so-called economic nexus. The practical takeaway for shoppers is simple: enter your own local combined rate for the most accurate total, and remember that some categories, such as groceries, clothing or prescriptions in certain states, may be taxed at a reduced rate or exempt entirely.

What's taxable, what's exempt, and the use tax most people miss

Sales tax is rarely applied evenly to everything you buy. Many places deliberately soften it on essentials — groceries, prescription medicines and sometimes clothing are commonly taxed at a reduced rate or exempted altogether — on the reasoning that a flat consumption tax otherwise weighs most heavily on lower incomes. At the same time the tax has been spreading beyond physical goods: a growing number of services, from streaming subscriptions to repairs, are taxable where they once were not. The result is that the rate on your receipt can depend as much on what you bought as on where you bought it.

Timing can matter as well. Some jurisdictions run short sales-tax holidays — a weekend before the school year, for instance — during which certain categories are temporarily exempt up to a price limit. Retailers program the exemption for you at the till, but online orders do not always get it right. They are worth planning a big purchase around, though the rules on which items qualify tend to be narrow and change from year to year, so the safest habit is always to enter the exact rate you were actually charged rather than assume a category is covered.

The piece most shoppers have never heard of is use tax, the quiet twin of sales tax. When you buy something and no sales tax is collected — historically a common outcome for out-of-state or private purchases — you generally still owe your own state the equivalent amount, called use tax, at the same rate. It exists so that buying from an untaxed source does not sidestep the tax a local shop would have charged. For everyday retail it is now often collected automatically at checkout, but for larger untaxed purchases the duty to report it can still fall on the buyer.

So the true cost of a purchase is not always the sticker plus one fixed rate. It is worth knowing whether your item is taxed, reduced or exempt, whether a holiday applies, and whether any use tax is owed — then using the figure here as an estimate to confirm against current local guidance, since rates and rules vary from one place to the next.