Sales Tax Holidays for Online Sellers

A sales tax holiday is a short window in which a state does not tax certain items, usually clothing, shoes and school supplies below a price cap. If you sell online, a sales tax holiday can apply to your orders even though you have no store in that state, and the rules that decide whether a given order qualifies are not the same everywhere. This page explains why a remote seller has to care, how the holidays work, three rules that trip up online stores, and what the Texas, Florida and Tennessee revenue departments actually say about them. It ends with a checklist. This is not tax advice; confirm with the revenue department of each state you ship to.

Why a remote seller cares

Until 2018, a state generally could not require a seller to collect its sales tax unless the seller had a physical presence there. In South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., decided June 21, 2018, the Supreme Court held that the physical presence rule of an earlier case, Quill, was "unsound and incorrect," and overruled it together with National Bellas Hess. States can now require collection from sellers without a physical presence, and states set their own thresholds for when a remote seller must start.

That is why the holidays matter. If you collect tax in a state, you collect it on its terms: you have to know when the state stops taxing an item and when it starts again. Thresholds differ by state. Texas, for example, says remote sellers with total Texas revenue of less than 500,000 dollars in the preceding twelve calendar months are not required to get a permit or collect use tax. Check each state's own page for its own line.

How a holiday works

Each state decides three things.

• The dates. Texas and Tennessee run a weekend; Florida's runs a month (see the table below).
• The items and the cap. Clothing and footwear, school supplies and some computers are the common groups, each with a price cap per item. In Texas and Florida, an item above the cap is taxed in full, not just on the excess.
• The sale rules. What counts as "sold during the holiday", how shipping is treated and how discounts, sets and returns are handled.

The pages below give the specifics for three states. They are examples of how different the rules are, not a complete list of states that run holidays.

The three rules that trip up online stores

1. Shipping charges and the price cap

Texas treats shipping as part of the price. Its Comptroller says "delivery, shipping, handling and transportation charges by the seller are part of the item's sales price." Its example is a pair of jeans at 95 dollars with a 10 dollar delivery charge, a total of 105 dollars, and the Comptroller concludes that because the total is more than 100 dollars, tax is due on the entire 105 dollars. So under the Texas rule, a cheaper item with a shipping fee can fall outside the holiday, and free shipping above a threshold can pull it back in.

Florida handles it differently. Its Department of Revenue says that when separately stated shipping charges are part of the sales price and both taxable and exempt items are on the invoice, the shipping charge is allocated proportionally to each item to determine the total sales price of the item, and "if the item sold is exempt, the associated shipping charge is also exempt."

Two states, two mechanics, one question to answer: does the shipping line count toward the cap, and how is it divided across a mixed cart?

2. Payment date, order date and delivery date

Texas says the sale must take place in the holiday period and that "the purchaser must have given the consideration for the item during the period." Qualifying items can be bought "in-store, online, by telephone, mail, custom order, or any other means."

Florida phrases it as order acceptance. Eligible items bought from a remote seller are exempt "when the order is accepted by the marketplace provider or remote seller during the annual sales tax holiday period for immediate shipment, even if delivery is made after" the period. The Department lists actions that count as accepting an order, including confirming an internet order by email to the customer, and says an order is for immediate shipment even if shipment is delayed by a backlog or by stock that is out or on back order.

For a Shopify store that means the timestamp on the order and the date you pay, ship or confirm can fall on different sides of the line. Write down which event each state uses before you promote a pre-order or a back-ordered item.

3. Discounts, sets and bundles

Texas shows a seller discount reducing the price for the test: an 8.25 percent discount on a 100 dollar shirt brings it to 91.75 dollars and the shirt qualifies, while a 200 dollar shirt discounted to 183.50 does not.

Florida says store coupons and discounts reduce the sales price because they reduce the total amount received by the seller, while manufacturers' coupons do not, because the retailer is reimbursed. It adds that items normally sold as a unit cannot be priced and sold as separate items to qualify, that a set of exempt and taxable items is taxable as a unit, and that the total price of items advertised as "buy one, get one free" cannot be averaged so that both items qualify.

Tennessee says items sold together, such as shoes, "cannot be split up to stay beneath the $100 maximum."

If you sell bundles or run a tiered offer, read the department's text for your bundle before the holiday starts.

Three states, from their own pages

Dates are as each department published them on Oct. 10, 2026. Texas and Tennessee state their 2027 dates; Florida's page gives a recurring window and the notice we read is for 2026, so the Florida rules above are the 2026 rules. Rules and lists change by law, so use the department link in the sources for the year you sell.

What Shopify does and does not handle

Shopify's Help Center says tax holidays are a United States feature and that "special tax rates that apply on specific dates are automatically calculated," but that this feature "is included only in Shopify Tax"; Manual Tax does not offer it. If you set tax by hand instead, Shopify's tax overrides let you change rates for specific products, but they can be created at the country or state level, and customer tax exemptions take precedence over overrides. The Help Center tells you to consult your local tax authority to confirm which products are tax-exempt in your region.

The Shopify pages we read do not describe what happens to a bundle or a mixed cart under a given state's holiday rules. Treat that as your check, not the software's.

A checklist before the holiday

1. List the states where you collect tax and find each state's holiday page. Note whether it publishes the dates for the year you are selling.
2. For every item you plan to promote, find its price after discounts and, where the state counts shipping, after shipping.
3. Decide how you will treat bundles. Price components so that the set is not mistaken for separate items where the state forbids it.
4. Decide what date counts: order placed, order paid, order accepted. Write it in your promotion terms.
5. Run a test order in each state's address format and read the tax line before launch.
6. Keep the rule you applied and the department page you applied it from, with the date you read it.

If your holiday promotion is a quantity offer such as buy 2 and save, the Volume discount template in Freebies Engine by Log Studio Lab is described as "the more shoppers buy, the less each costs"; set the tiers with the per-item cap of each state in front of you. For the rest of the US retail calendar, see the Black Friday Cyber Monday offer plan, and for state detail, our pages on Texas, Florida and Tennessee.