Shopify not charging sales tax at checkout? What to check

The most common reason a Shopify store charges no sales tax isn’t a bug: Shopify only collects tax where you’ve told it you’re registered. A new store has no registrations, so it charges nothing until you add one.

Shopify’s checklist

When tax isn’t being charged at checkout, Shopify’s help says to confirm these, in order:

1. Tax registration. Go to Settings → Taxes and duties → United States and check that there’s a registration for the customer’s state. If there’s no registration for that state, taxes won’t be collected there.
2. Physical product. Make sure the product is set as a physical product. Digital products are tax-exempt in many states.
3. Product category. Check that the product has a confirmed product category. Products without one might not calculate tax correctly.
4. Customer exemptions. Look at the customer’s profile — a tax exemption on the customer stops tax on their orders.

Also check the product’s Pricing section: if Charge tax on this product is turned off, that product isn’t taxed.

Adding a registration

You need to collect tax in a US state where you have economic nexus and sell taxable products. If you’re registered with a state:

1. Go to Settings → Taxes and duties.
2. Under Manage sales tax collection, click United States.
3. Add the state and your sales tax ID, then click Collect sales tax.

Shopify then sets the rates for that state automatically. Shopify can’t tell you whether you need to register — that’s a question for the state tax authority or a tax professional.

Tax is charged, but the amount looks wrong

• Address format affects which local jurisdiction is detected.
• State exemptions apply to some categories. Clothing is a common one — for example, New York exempts clothing items under $110 from state tax.
• For automatic category exemptions to work you need the right product category, no conflicting tax overrides (a $0 shipping override can turn exemptions off), and Shopify Tax — Basic Tax doesn’t use product categories for these exemptions.

Test before you contact support

Create a draft order for a test customer with an address in the state you’re checking, and see whether tax appears. If it still doesn’t, Shopify Support needs an admin link to the order — screenshots of checkout aren’t enough.

To see what Shopify’s payment fees take from each order, use the Shopify fee calculator.

Official references

• Basic Tax service in the US — Shopify Help Center