Sales tax
calculator.
Add sales tax to a price, remove it from a tax-included total, or work out the rate from a receipt. Start from any U.S. state's rate and add your local rate. It works for VAT and GST too.
$100.00 plus 8.875% sales tax is $108.88, of which $8.88 is tax.
- Sales tax
- $8.88
- Total with tax
- $108.88
- Rate used
- 8.875%
100.00 × 8.875 ÷ 100 = 8.875 → 8.88; 100.00 + 8.88 = 108.88Tax in, tax out,
to the cent.
- Tax = taxable price × rate ÷ 100, worked to the third decimal and rounded to the nearest cent, with half a cent rounding up. Minnesota and New Jersey, for example, publish this rule.
- To remove tax, divide the total by (1 + rate ÷ 100). The calculator then checks which whole-cent price really produces your total once the tax is rounded.
- State rates are the statewide general rates as of July 1, 2026. Most places add county, city or district tax, so your combined rate is usually higher.
- It does not know which items are taxable where you are. Food, clothing and medicine are taxed differently in many states.
How do you calculate sales tax?
Multiply the price by the tax rate and divide by 100, then add the result to the price. $49.99 at California's 7.25% statewide rate is 49.99 × 7.25 ÷ 100 = $3.624275, which rounds to $3.62, for a total of $53.61. A quicker way to get the total is to multiply by 1 plus the rate: 49.99 × 1.0725.
tax = price × rate ÷ 100 (rounded to the cent)
total = price + taxHow do you take sales tax out of a total?
Divide the total by 1 plus the rate. A receipt total of $21.65 with 8.25% tax was 21.65 ÷ 1.0825 = $20.00 before tax, and the tax was $1.65. Do not subtract 8.25% of the total: that gives $19.86, because the tax was charged on the smaller pre-tax price.
Because tax is rounded to the cent, the division does not always land on a whole cent. $108.88 at 8.875% divides to $100.0046. The calculator searches the nearby whole-cent prices and shows the one whose rounded tax adds up exactly to your total, here $100.00 plus $8.88.
price before tax = total ÷ (1 + rate ÷ 100)
tax included = total − price before taxHow do you find the sales tax rate from a receipt?
Divide the tax by the price before tax and multiply by 100. $24.99 before tax and $27.11 after means $2.12 of tax, or 2.12 ÷ 24.99 × 100 = 8.48%. The tax on the receipt was rounded to the cent, though, so any rate from about 8.46% to 8.50% gives the same $2.12. The calculator shows that range. The larger the purchase, the narrower the range.
rate = (total − price) ÷ price × 100What is the sales tax in my state?
Statewide rates in 2026 run from 0% to 7.25%. California has the highest statewide rate (7.25%, including its mandatory local add-ons), followed by Indiana, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Tennessee at 7%. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon have no statewide sales tax, although many Alaska cities and boroughs charge their own.
Local taxes can more than double the total. Tax Foundation's population-weighted averages for mid-2026 put the combined state and local rate highest in Louisiana (about 10.1%), Tennessee (9.61%) and Washington (9.57%). Your exact rate depends on the address where you take delivery, so check your state tax agency or a recent receipt and enter it as the local rate.
Rounding: per item or per receipt?
States that publish a rounding rule generally say to work the tax to the third decimal place and round to the nearest cent, rounding half a cent up. Minnesota lets a seller round either per item or once for the whole invoice. In its worked example at 7.5%, items of $19.65 and $3.56 have tax of $1.47 and $0.27 when rounded separately, and $1.74 on the $23.21 invoice total. The two methods can differ by a cent on other baskets. Some states, New Jersey among them, also let sellers use a printed tax bracket schedule. This calculator rounds once on the total you enter.
Worked examples.
Add tax to a price
$49.99 at California's statewide 7.25% rate.
$3.62 tax, $53.61 in total.
Load this exampleNew York City
A $100 purchase in New York City: 4% state plus 4.875% city and transit district tax, 8.875% combined.
$8.88 tax (8.875 rounded up), $108.88 in total.
Load this exampleTake tax out of a receipt total
A Texas receipt shows $21.65 including 8.25% tax.
$20.00 before tax and $1.65 tax.
Load this examplePart of the basket is exempt
A $120 shopping trip where $45 is exempt groceries, at 6.5%.
Tax of $4.88 on the taxable $75, $124.88 in total.
Load this exampleFind the rate from a receipt
$24.99 before tax and $27.11 after.
$2.12 of tax: 8.48%, or anything from about 8.46% to 8.50% once rounding is allowed for.
Load this exampleRemove 20% VAT
A UK price of £59.99 including 20% VAT.
£49.99 before VAT and £10.00 VAT.
Load this exampleWhat this calculator
does not do.
- It does not look up the rate for an address. Statewide rates are built in; add your county, city or district rate yourself.
- It does not know which products are exempt or taxed at a reduced rate where you are. Enter exempt amounts separately.
- It is not tax advice. Businesses collecting tax should follow their state's rules, including any required bracket schedule or rounding method. VAT rounding rules differ between countries.
Common questions.
How do I calculate 7% sales tax?
Multiply the price by 0.07 for the tax, or by 1.07 for the total. $80 × 0.07 = $5.60 tax, $85.60 in total.
How do I work out the price before tax?
Divide the total by 1 plus the rate. $53.50 including 7% tax is 53.50 ÷ 1.07 = $50.00.
Which states have no sales tax?
Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon have no statewide sales tax. Alaska allows local sales taxes, and some Montana resort areas have local taxes.
Is sales tax charged before or after a discount?
A store's own discount usually lowers the taxable price, so tax is charged on the discounted amount. The discount calculator applies tax after the discount.
- Tax Foundation: State and Local Sales Tax Rates, Midyear 2026 — statewide and average local rates as of July 1, 2026
- Minnesota Department of Revenue: Revenue Notice 05-08, rounding on an item or invoice basis — half a cent or more rounds up; worked 7.5% example
- New Jersey Division of Taxation: Calculating the Tax — third-decimal rounding and the bracket option
- California CDTFA: Detailed Description of the Sales & Use Tax Rate — components of the 7.25% statewide rate
- Texas Comptroller: Sales and Use Tax — 6.25% state rate, up to 2% local, 8.25% maximum
- New York State Department of Taxation and Finance: Sales and use tax rates — 4% state rate plus local and MCTD rates
- Missouri Department of Revenue: Sales/Use Tax — state rate 4.225%
- New Jersey Division of Taxation: Sales and Use Tax — 6.625% rate
- Louisiana Department of Revenue: What is the sales tax rate in Louisiana? — 5.00% from January 1, 2025
- South Dakota Department of Revenue: Sales and Use Tax — 4.2% rate and the June 30, 2027 sunset
- Hawaii Department of Taxation: General Excise Tax — 4% rate and 4.712% maximum pass-on
- Minnesota Statutes 297A.62: Sales tax rates — 6.5% plus 0.375%
Tax is calculated in whole cents with exact integer arithmetic, so a rate such as 8.875% is never distorted by floating-point error, then rounded half up to the cent. Removing tax searches the whole-cent prices around the division and reports the ones that reproduce your total exactly. Our tests compare 2,000 random cases with a separately written reference, check every reverse result by brute force, and reproduce Minnesota's published worked example.
Built and reviewed by CalculatorLab against the sources above; every worked example on this page is re-checked by our automated test suite before each release. How we build and check calculators. Found a problem? Tell us.