Reverse Sales Tax Calculator by State
Sales tax in the US is not one number. It's actually a stack of rates layered on top of each other, and the total you pay depends on where you happen to be standing when you swipe your card. Every state that charges sales tax sets a base state rate. Then the county you're in can tack on its own percentage. Your city might add another slice. And in some places, special taxing districts — transit authorities, sports stadium bonds, community improvement zones — pile on even more.
The result is somewhere around 12,000 distinct tax jurisdictions across the country. Twelve thousand. And they change. Louisiana bumped its state rate from 4.45% to 5% in January 2025, which shifted the combined average for the entire state to over 10% overnight. That kind of thing happens every year in at least a handful of places. So when you need to reverse-calculate the pre-tax price from a receipt, the rate you plug in matters. A lot. Pick your state below and you'll get a calculator pre-loaded with the right combined average, based on 2025 Tax Foundation data.
All 50 States + DC
States with dedicated calculator pages are linked directly. Combined rates include the average local component. Combined rates include the average local component. Source: Tax Foundation, 2025.
Highest and Lowest Sales Tax States
Top 5 Highest Combined Rates
| State | Combined Rate |
|---|---|
| Louisiana | 10.10% |
| Tennessee | 9.55% |
| Arkansas | 9.43% |
| Alabama | 9.24% |
| Washington | 9.23% |
Top 5 Lowest Combined Rates (Non-Zero)
| State | Combined Rate |
|---|---|
| Wyoming | 5.36% |
| Wisconsin | 5.42% |
| Virginia | 5.73% |
| Hawaii | 4.44%* |
| Alaska | 1.82%** |
* Hawaii technically charges a General Excise Tax (GET), not a traditional sales tax. ** Alaska has no state sales tax, but some local jurisdictions impose their own.
Source: Tax Foundation, 2025.
States with No Sales Tax
Five states technically have no statewide sales tax: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon. But "no sales tax" doesn't always mean what you'd expect, and the details matter if you're trying to figure out what you actually owe on a purchase.
Alaska is the most misunderstood of the bunch. The state itself charges zero, but it allows boroughs and cities to levy their own local sales taxes. Juneau charges around 5%. Several other boroughs collect between 2% and 7%. So if you're shopping in Anchorage, you pay nothing. Drive to Juneau, and suddenly there's tax on your receipt. The statewide average, factoring in all the local jurisdictions, comes out to about 1.82%. Not zero.
Delaware has no sales tax at all, but it does have a gross receipts tax that businesses pay on their revenue. Some economists argue this effectively functions like a hidden sales tax because businesses pass the cost along in higher prices. You won't see it as a line item on your receipt, though. Oregon is the cleanest case — genuinely zero sales tax, no local exceptions, no hidden equivalents. New Hampshire and Montana are the same: zero state tax, zero local tax, nothing resembling a workaround. If you're buying something in those three states, the price on the shelf is the price you pay at the register.
Why Local Rates Vary So Much
The reason combined rates swing so wildly from one side of a state to the other comes down to how tax jurisdictions are stacked. Think of it like layers. The state sets a base rate — that's the bottom layer. Then the county you're in can add its own percentage on top. Your city might add another fraction. And in certain areas, special taxing districts layer on even more. These special districts fund transit systems, convention centers, stadiums, water treatment facilities, and dozens of other things that voters approved at some point in the past.
Here's where it gets interesting. Louisiana has a state rate of 5%, which is unremarkable on its own. But once you add the parish (county) tax and any city or special district surcharges, the combined rate in New Orleans lands around 9.45%. Some parishes push it above 11%. Colorado is even more dramatic. The state rate is only 2.9% — one of the lowest in the country. But Denver's combined rate hits about 8.81% when you stack the city, county, RTD (transit), and special district taxes on top. That's almost three times the state rate.
This layered structure is why I built the custom rate field into every calculator on this site. The state average gets you close, but if you need the exact number for your specific address, you really do need to look up your local combined rate. Your county assessor's website or a quick search for "[your city] sales tax rate" will usually get you there in about 30 seconds. For anything legally binding — filing returns, reconciling books, setting up tax collection for an online store — use the exact rate, not the average.