Sales Tax Nexus by State: The Thresholds for All 50 and DC

Since June 21, 2018, a state can require sales tax from sellers who have no office, no warehouse and no employees there. On that day, in South Dakota v. Wayfair, the Supreme Court abandoned the rule that physical presence was what mattered. Ever since, each state has set its own threshold above which a seller without presence must register, charge the tax and remit it. This page puts the thresholds of all 50 states and the District of Columbia side by side, each row checked against the website of the relevant tax authority, and explains how to read a row. For how sales tax works overall for sellers from Europe, see our article Sales tax and nexus for European sellers.

1What the table shows and what it doesn't

The table shows economic nexus: the threshold above which a state requires a seller to collect sales tax purely because of its sales revenue or number of sales into that state. It applies to sellers without physical presence, which US law calls remote sellers. California states explicitly on its tax authority's website that sellers outside the United States are remote sellers too. So an online shop in Oslo, Stockholm or Amsterdam falls under the same rule as one in Ohio.

The table does not show physical nexus. If you have an office, employees, a representative or inventory in a warehouse in a state, the threshold is not what matters for you. Ohio and Wisconsin say explicitly on their websites that the minimum thresholds do not apply to businesses with a presence in the state. So if you store goods in several states through a fulfillment service, check presence first and the threshold second.

The threshold itself does not create a tax. It decides whether you must collect the tax from your customers. The tax is owed by the end customer, but it becomes your problem if you don't collect it, because you can hardly recover it from the customer after the fact.

The ruling reviewed a South Dakota law covering sellers who deliver more than $100,000 in goods or services into the state each year or make 200 or more sales there. Most states adopted this pattern, and many of them have since changed exactly this pattern. South Dakota itself repealed its transaction threshold effective July 1, 2023.

2How to read a row

2.1Amount, transactions and the little word in between

The threshold column gives the amount and, where it still exists, the number of transactions. What matters is how they connect. In most states that use both, the word is or: reach either the amount or the number of sales and you must collect. A seller with lots of small orders can therefore become liable through the 200 transactions long before reaching $100,000 in sales into that state. Two states require both at once: Connecticut $100,000 and 200 retail sales, New York over $500,000 and over 100 sales.

2.2Over or at

The laws distinguish between reaching and exceeding. Where the table says "over", the state requires the threshold to be exceeded. Where the amount stands alone, the authority uses "at least", "or more" or a limit below which no one has to collect. In practice the difference is small. It only matters if your sales land exactly on the threshold.

3Period and what counts: why the same numbers don't mean the same thing

3.1The period

Most states look at the current or previous calendar year. Reach the threshold in either year and you must collect. Some look only at the previous year, such as Alabama, Florida, Michigan and New Mexico. Others use a rolling period: Texas the preceding twelve calendar months, Minnesota, Tennessee and Vermont the preceding twelve months, Mississippi any twelve months. Illinois and Missouri check the past twelve months at the end of each quarter, New York the four preceding sales tax quarters, Connecticut the twelve months ending September 30 before the reporting period. For you, that means in a rolling state the obligation can start mid-year, regardless of the calendar year.

3.2What counts

Which sales count varies just as much. Some states count all gross sales into the state, including exempt sales and sales for resale, for example Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington. Washington even includes all receipts from the state, so wholesale and services too. Others count only retail sales, like Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Nevada and Virginia, or only taxable sales, like Florida, North Dakota and Oklahoma. A wholesaler that sells almost exclusively to resellers can therefore cross the threshold in North Carolina but not in Florida.

3.3Marketplace sales

If you sell through a marketplace that collects and remits sales tax for you, the question is whether those sales count toward your own threshold. The states answer differently. California, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Washington, Alaska and DC include them. Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine and Massachusetts count only your direct sales, and Pennsylvania excludes sales through remitting marketplaces. If you sell both on a marketplace and in your own shop, you have to calculate differently for each state. For more on what marketplace sellers need to know, see Registration for marketplace sellers.

4The thresholds for all 50 states and DC

For each state, the table gives the threshold, the period and what counts. Every row is based on that state's tax authority website, and for Arizona, Louisiana and Wyoming on the statute itself, because the authority does not reproduce it on its website, or not in its current version. For Alaska, the threshold is that of the Alaska Remote Seller Sales Tax Commission, because there is no state sales tax there, only local ones. Hawaii and New Mexico don't levy a sales tax in the strict sense but a tax on the business's receipts: the General Excise Tax and the Gross Receipts Tax. For you as a seller, they work much the same way.

States change these figures. Before every registration decision, check the authority's own website and calculate your sales for each state the way that state counts them.

5The outliers and what has changed

5.1Higher thresholds

Five states set a higher dollar amount. Alabama requires over $250,000 in retail sales in the prior year, Mississippi over $250,000 in any twelve months. California requires over $500,000 in the current or preceding calendar year and counts the sales of related persons. Texas uses $500,000 in Texas revenue over the preceding twelve calendar months, and New York requires over $500,000 and over 100 sales in the four preceding sales tax quarters.

5.2States with a transaction threshold

A threshold based on the number of sales still applies in Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia, as well as New York with its 100 sales and the District of Columbia. In all of these, if your order values are small, the number of deliveries alone is enough, except in Connecticut and New York, which require both the dollar amount and the number of sales.

5.3Transaction thresholds that have been scrapped

Many states have dropped the 200-transaction test because it burdens small sellers with lots of small orders. According to the authorities and the statutes, only the dollar amount now counts in Alaska since January 1, 2025, in Illinois since January 1, 2026, in Indiana since January 1, 2024, in Kentucky since August 1, 2026, in North Carolina since July 1, 2024, in South Dakota since July 1, 2023, in Utah since July 1, 2025 and in Wisconsin since February 20, 2021. Louisiana repealed it with Act 15 of 2023, Wyoming with the 2024 law, Chapter 67, and Maine with the 2021 law, Chapter 181. Some agency websites still show the old rule; the table follows current law.

5.4States without a general sales tax

Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon levy no general sales tax. That does not mean sales there go untaxed: Delaware levies a gross receipts tax, which the seller pays on its gross receipts. In Alaska, many municipalities levy their own sales tax, and sellers without a presence register with the Alaska Remote Seller Sales Tax Commission once they reach $100,000 in gross sales in the current or preceding year.

6When the obligation starts after you cross the threshold

Crossing the threshold does not mean you must collect from the very next order. Most states give you a grace period. It ranges from one month to a quarter or more, and it often depends on whether you hit the threshold in the current year or already in the prior year. The table shows the rules the listed states publish on their websites.

The grace period does not let you off the hook for keeping a constant eye on your numbers: if you only notice in your year-end review that you crossed the threshold in spring, you may already have missed the deadline.

7Registering: state by state or through the Streamlined system

You register with the tax authority of every state where you have an obligation, separately for each state. For 24 states there is a shared route: the members of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement run a central, free registration system that lets you register in all member states or just selected ones. Full members are Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming; Tennessee is an associate member.

For sellers from Europe, one sentence in the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board's registration FAQ matters: foreign sellers without a Federal Employer Identification Number, without an ITIN and without a US address can register by choosing "Other" as the number type; the system then issues its own number. So you do not need a US company to register. Whether you need one for your business is a separate question, covered in the article Sales tax and nexus for European sellers.

The big states outside the system, including California, Texas, Florida and New York, you register with directly through their own tax authority. Each authority asks for its own details. If you have a US company, you provide its tax number; how the company gets one is explained in the article Applying for an EIN without an SSN.

For a general introduction to state nexus laws, see the state-by-state guide to nexus laws; for the basics of the tax itself, see Sales tax in the USA; and for an overview of every tax obligation of a US company, see the guide Tax obligations of a US company.

In short

• Since the South Dakota v. Wayfair ruling of June 21, 2018, states can tie sales tax to revenue even without a physical presence; each state sets its own threshold.
• Most states require $100,000 in sales; Alabama and Mississippi $250,000, California and Texas $500,000, New York $500,000 and 100 sales.
• 16 of the sales tax states plus DC still have a transaction threshold; many have scrapped it, Illinois as of January 1, 2026 and Kentucky as of August 1, 2026.
• Measurement periods and counting rules differ: calendar year or twelve months, gross or taxable sales, with or without marketplace sales.
• Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon levy no general sales tax; in Alaska, municipalities levy their own.

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