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United States VAT Rate 2026
United States does not levy VAT — it uses a State and local sales taxes (no federal VAT) system instead, which works differently from the credit-invoice VAT used in most of the world.
No VAT — State and local sales taxes (no federal VAT) applies instead
The United States is the only major economy without a VAT or GST. Instead, 45 states plus DC levy single-stage retail sales taxes, with combined state-and-local rates ranging from 0% (Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, and statewide-exempt Alaska) to roughly 10% in parts of Louisiana, Tennessee and Washington. There is no input-credit mechanism: tax applies once, at the final retail sale, and B2B purchases for resale are exempt via resale certificates. Since the 2018 Wayfair ruling, remote and foreign sellers must register state-by-state once they cross economic nexus thresholds — typically USD 100,000 of in-state sales — making US compliance a 50-jurisdiction patchwork rather than a single registration.
Registration and filing
| Registration threshold | No federal registration; state economic-nexus thresholds typically USD 100,000 in sales per state (post-Wayfair) |
Access rates via API
The TaxID API returns current VAT and GST rates for 200+ countries and territories. Use the /api/v1/rates/US endpoint to get United States data programmatically. Responses are cached for 24 hours.
curl http://localhost:3000/api/v1/rates/US
# No authentication required for rate lookups
# Response:
# { "country_code": "US", "tax_type": "sales_tax",
# "standard_rate": null, "reduced_rates": [],
# "currency": "USD", "last_updated": "2026-06-12" }About United States Sales Tax
Sources: PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries · Tax Foundation — State Sales Tax Rates (accessed Jun 2026)
Rate history
- 2018South Dakota v. Wayfair let states tax remote sellers via economic nexus
Frequently asked questions
What is the VAT rate in the USA in 2026?
There is no VAT in the United States. States levy retail sales taxes instead — combined state and local rates run from 0% to about 10%.
Why doesn't the US have a VAT?
Consumption taxation is constitutionally and politically the domain of the states; repeated federal VAT proposals have failed, leaving sales taxes set state-by-state.
Do foreign sellers need to collect US sales tax?
Often yes — after the 2018 Wayfair decision, crossing a state's economic nexus threshold (commonly USD 100,000 in sales) obliges even foreign sellers to register and collect that state's tax.
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