Sales Tax Calculator

US sales tax is added at the register, not built into the shelf price, and the rate depends on where the sale is delivered rather than on the item alone. This calculator handles the arithmetic; it does not know your address.

The cents matter

A 250.00 purchase at a combined rate of 8.25%:

• Sales tax: 20.63
• Total: 270.63

The exact tax is 20.625, which rounds to 20.63 at the till. Every figure here carries two decimal places, because rounding tax to whole units drifts by up to half a unit per line. Across a day of transactions that is the difference between a reconciled drawer and a variance report.

A smaller ticket shows the same behaviour: 19.99 at 6.35% adds 1.27 for a total of 21.26.

Tax   = price × rate ÷ 100
Total = price + tax

Where the rate comes from

You supply the rate. There is no ZIP code lookup and no rate table behind this, so the accuracy of the result is the accuracy of the rate you type.

That matters because the number you need is a combined rate, stacked from several authorities:

• A state rate, which is the figure usually quoted in the news.
• A county rate.
• A city or municipal rate.
• Special district rates for transit, stadiums, tourism or other local levies.

Two addresses on opposite sides of the same street can therefore carry different combined rates. For anything you are going to file, take the rate from your state department of revenue's own lookup for the exact delivery address, or from tax software that maintains those tables. A rate you remember from last year is a common source of underpayment.

Destination and origin

Most states charge tax based on where the buyer takes delivery. A handful use the seller's location for intrastate sales. If you ship, that distinction decides which rate applies, and it is not something a percentage calculator can decide for you.

Not everything is taxable

Assume the item is taxable and you will overstate the bill in a lot of common cases. Exemptions vary by state and typically cover some combination of:

• Unprepared groceries, often at a reduced rate rather than zero.
• Prescription medication, and sometimes over-the-counter drugs.
• Clothing, in a few states, occasionally with a per-item price ceiling.
• Purchases made during a declared sales tax holiday.

Resale certificates, nonprofit exemptions, and manufacturing exemptions remove the tax entirely for qualifying buyers. None of this is modelled here; the tool applies the rate you give it to the price you give it.

Using it in reverse

There is no remove mode on this page, because US prices are quoted before tax and the backwards calculation is rarely needed. If you do have a tax-inclusive figure — an all-in price a vendor quoted you, for instance — divide by one plus the rate as a decimal to recover the base price.

Adjacent tax and pricing tools

For jurisdictions where tax is included in the advertised price, the VAT calculator has an explicit remove mode. For Indian GST with its four slabs, use the GST calculator. To apply a promotional reduction before tax is calculated, use the discount calculator.