Reverse Sales Tax Calculator
Work backwards from a tax-included total to the pre-tax price and the exact sales tax amount. Any US state rate. Free, instant, no signup.
You know the final receipt total and the state rate — but the expense report needs the pre-tax amount and the tax broken out. A reverse sales tax calculation divides the total by (1 + rate), which is easy to get subtly wrong by hand, especially at rates like 8.875%.
Enter the total and the rate (or pick the state) and get the base price, the tax portion, and a per-line breakdown you can paste into accounting software.
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Sales Tax Calculator
Calculate combined state + local sales tax for all 50 states + DC, including grocery and clothing exemptions.
State sales tax rates are current as of January 2026. Local rates are averages and may vary by city/county. Some states have special tax districts or additional taxes not reflected here. Grocery and clothing exemptions vary — some states have conditional exemptions (e.g., NY exempts clothing under $110). This tool is for estimation only.
How combined sales tax stacks up — illustrated
Every state sets a base rate, and cities, counties and special districts stack a local rate on top — so the rate you actually pay at checkout is the combined figure. A $100 purchase in a 6.00% state with a 1.75% average local rate costs $107.75 at the register. Some states go the other way and exempt groceries, clothing, or both from the base entirely — which is why the category selector above can change the result even when the sticker price never moves.
A $100 purchase in a 6.00% state with a 1.75% average local rate: the segments show each rate's share of the combined 7.75%, and the register total is $107.75.
About this reverse sales tax calculator
This page covers back out sales tax from total, calculate price before tax, extract sales tax from receipt total, pre-tax price calculator — all the same underlying task as reverse sales tax calculator. The tool above is FreeToolHub's sales tax embedded in full: every feature works right here, and nothing you process is uploaded to any server.
Frequently asked questions
How do I back sales tax out of a total?
Divide the total by 1 plus the tax rate: a $107.25 receipt at 7.5% is $107.25 ÷ 1.075 = $99.77 pre-tax, with $7.48 tax. Subtracting 7.5% from the total instead gives the wrong answer — this is the most common reverse-tax mistake, and the calculator avoids it.
Does it work for any state's rate?
Yes — enter any combined state + local rate manually, or pick a state to use its headline rate. For precise city-level combined rates, use the exact rate from the receipt; the reverse math is only as accurate as the rate you supply.