Ohio Sales Tax

Whether you’re planning to open a physical store or office in Ohio, or you’re selling goods online to Ohio customers, you need to know whether to collect and remit Ohio state sales taxes and at what rate. Of course, one determining factor in this equation is whether or not what you’re selling is subject to sales taxes. If it is, you’ll need to determine if you have a sales tax nexus in the state so that you can apply for the appropriate licenses to collect it.

Sales Tax Rates in Ohio

The state sales tax rate in Ohio is 5.75%. In addition to this, counties and local transit authorities are permitted to levy their own taxes in increments of 0.25% up to a total of 3%. This means that the applicable sales tax rate can vary considerably from one zip code to another.

The Ohio Department of Taxation provides several resources for helping to determine what rates are applicable in various parts of the state. For instance, you can use their website to look up rates for any Ohio address or consult an updated list of rates for all jurisdictions in the state in alphabetical order.

Tax Sourcing

Ohio maintains a distinct distinction between in-state and out-of-state retail transactions under its sourcing statutes:

• Intrastate Sales (In-State Sellers): Sourced to the origin location (the vendor’s place of business) if the sale is consummated or delivery begins at that physical footprint inside Ohio.
• Interstate Sales (Remote Sellers): Sourced to the destination location (the delivery address where the consumer takes possession) for items shipped into Ohio from outside the state.

Ohio Nexus

Physical Nexus

A physical presence is established if an entity maintains an office, storefront, distribution center, or inventory storage inside Ohio, or uses employees, traveling agents, or independent contractors to solicit or maintain a market in the state.

Economic Nexus

Remote sellers meet substantial nexus criteria and must register if they cross either of the following benchmarks during the current or preceding calendar year:

• Gross Receipts: Exceeding $100,000 from sales into Ohio.
• Transactions: 200 or more separate retail transactions into Ohio.
• Exemptions Note: Ohio requires remote sellers to count all gross retail sales toward the threshold, including non-taxable retail transactions.

Marketplace Facilitators

Marketplace facilitators are required to collect and remit sales tax on all third-party sales delivered to Ohio.

• Nexus Inclusion: Sales made through a marketplace facilitator count toward an out-of-state seller’s $100,000 or 200-transaction economic nexus thresholds.
• Registration: If a remote seller sells only through marketplace platforms that collect the tax, the seller is not required to register for an individual Ohio account.

What is Taxable in Ohio

Tangible Goods

Most sales of tangible personal property are subject to sales tax in Ohio, with some notable exceptions. These exceptions include:

• Groceries, or any other food purchased with the intent of being prepared and consumed at home. This does not include alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, or dietary supplements.
• Prescription medications and durable medical equipment
• Meals served to students
• Newspapers
• Sales to churches and certified charitable organizations
• Purchases made with food stamps

Sales of tangible personal property are also not taxable if the consumer intends to utilize the goods purchased in the manufacture of tangible personal property for resale through some type of manufacturing or refining process.

Services

Quite a few types of services are taxable in Ohio as well. These include:

• Laundry and dry cleaning
• Repair and installation, unless the equipment being worked on is not taxable
• Recreation and physical fitness
• Washing, polishing, and painting of motor vehicles
• Landscaping
• Extermination
• Personal care, except hair care
• Transportation, except via public transportation or commercial airlines

The expansion of sales tax to include at least some services is an increasing trend across the states, and it’s likely to expand as the share of the economy that services make up continues to grow.

Shipping and Handling

• Taxable Status: Delivery charges—defined to include shipping, freight, movement, handling, crating, and packing performed by the vendor—are legally considered part of the taxable sales price.
• Proration Rules: Under Ohio Administrative Code Rule 5703-9-52, if a shipment contains a mix of taxable and tax-exempt items, the vendor must allocate the shipping cost using either the ratio of the items’ total prices or their total weight. The portion of shipping allocated to the exempt goods is tax-free.

Digital Goods and Services

• Digital Media: Digital audio, digital books, and digital audiovisual products are taxable as retail sales.
• SaaS Classification: Under Ohio law, Software as a Service is taxed under the category of Electronic Information Services (EIS).
• The Business vs. Personal Rule: EIS transactions are explicitly taxable when the service is used primarily in a business context (B2B). However, if the service is sold to an individual for personal, non-business use (B2C), it is legally exempt from Ohio sales and use tax.

Ohio Sales Tax Holiday

Ohio’s annual Sales Tax Holiday runs from Friday, August 7, 2026, through Sunday, August 9, 2026. The event has specific per-item price caps:

Clothing: Priced at $75 or less per item.

School Supplies: Priced at $20 or less per item.

Instructional Materials: Priced at $20 or less per item.

Registration and Filing

Before you collect sales tax from any customers in Ohio, you have to obtain a vendor’s license from the state. You can do this in a couple of different ways, and there are several types of licenses to choose from as well. If you will be operating a physical store or office, you can apply for a vendor license either through the Ohio Business Gateway or by contacting the local county auditor in your area directly. Each location you operate in Ohio must have its own license, and the licensing fee is $50 (increased from $25 on April 9, 2025). Remote seller licenses are offered with no fee.

Other types of licenses include:

• Transient Vendor – for retailers who make sales in various locations throughout the state and transport their goods to and from those locations.
• Seller – for retailers outside the state who make sales to customers within Ohio.
• Direct Pay Permit Holder – primarily for manufacturers or similar who purchase items with questionable taxable status at the time of purchase. That tax can later be paid directly to the state.

It’s important that you obtain the correct type of license before you begin making sales, and the applications can be easily completed through the Ohio Department of Taxation website, although an offline application process still exists as well. Filing of sales tax returns must be done online, however, with payment options available in the form of ACH debit or credit card.

Filing Frequencies

Based on the results of a tax calculator, determine what your liability will be. Returns must be filed and payments made by the 23rd of the month following that in which the tax was collected. Any taxpayer whose annual liability exceeds $75,000 must pay monthly. Direct pay permit holders can pay quarterly if they have less than $15,000 in tax liability per quarter on average. Vendors, sellers and transient vendors can pay semi-annually if their average six-month tax liability is less than $1,200.

Monthly Due Dates

Period	Due Date
January	February 23
February	March 23
March	April 23
April	May 23
May	June 23
June	July 23
July	August 23
August	September 23
September	October 23
October	November 23
November	December 23
December	January 23

Quarterly Due Dates

Period	Due Date
January – March (Q1)	April 23
April – June (Q2)	July 23
July – September (Q3)	October 23
October – December (Q4)	January 23

Semi-annual payments are due on July 23rd for the period running from January through June, and on January 23rd for the period running from July to December of the previous year. Zero returns are required in Ohio, so if you hold a license from the state that permits you to collect sales tax, you must file a return even if you owe no tax for the period in question.

Penalties and Interest

If you fail to file or pay your sales taxes on time, you will be assessed a penalty of $50 or 10% of the total sales tax compliance due, whichever is more, up to 50% of total tax due on each delinquent return. A fee of $50 will also be assessed for every returned check, and interest may be added on to late tax payments as well.

There is a discount rate of 0.75-1% of tax liability for filers who file and pay in full on time.

Resources

• Ohio Department of Taxation
• Local Taxes and Rate Changes
• Frequently Asked Questions

Ohio State Sales Tax Software

Making sure you’ve appropriately collected sales tax on purchases made by your customers in Ohio, as well as remembering to file your return and make timely payments can add significantly to the complexity of running your small business. That challenge is only multiplied when you sell in multiple states, each of which have their own sales tax rates and regulations. Fortunately, software exists to help you manage all of these variables, and TaxTools is just such a program.

With the tax calculator and features TaxTools provides, you can stay on top of any changes to local and state tax regulations, quickly pull up all tax collection and payment histories, complete with location information and rate charged. You can also integrate this software seamlessly with whatever eCommerce platform you currently use, making it only an asset when it comes to streamlining your business operations. If you’re interested in learning more about how TaxTools can help you stay on top of all state and local sales tax collection and filing, both in Ohio and elsewhere, click here to sign up for a free trial today.

Last updated June 2026