Does Missouri Have Sales Tax? Rates, Exemptions & Holidays

Yes, Missouri does have a sales tax. The statewide rate is 4.225%, and cities, counties, and special districts add their own levies on top, so the combined rate you actually pay at the register typically falls somewhere between about 7% and 10% depending on where you shop.¹

How the 4.225% State Rate Breaks Down

The headline state rate is made up of four pieces. The main sales tax statute sets a base rate of 4%, and three voter-approved constitutional amendments add 0.125% for conservation, 1% for education, and 0.1% for parks and soils.² Added together, those produce the 4.225% that appears on every taxable receipt in the state.

Groceries are the main exception. Qualifying food, generally items eligible for purchase with federal SNAP benefits, plus seeds and plants for home gardens, is taxed at a reduced state rate of 1.225%.¹ Prepared food sold hot or for immediate consumption does not qualify and is taxed at the full 4.225%. Local jurisdictions can still apply their own tax to groceries, so the reduction is only on the state portion.

Why Your Receipt Shows a Higher Rate

Cities, counties, fire districts, transportation districts, and community improvement districts can each add their own sales tax on top of the state rate.¹ Those local taxes pay for things like roads, emergency response, and parks, and because multiple levies can stack, the combined rate depends entirely on where the sale happens. In Springfield, for example, the combined rate reaches 8.1%.³ Other Missouri cities run from around 7% to over 10%.

Local rates shift fairly often as voters approve new taxes or let old ones expire. The Missouri Department of Revenue publishes quarterly rate tables and an interactive map that let you look up the current combined rate for any address.¹

What Missouri Taxes

The core of the sales tax is a tax on retail sales of tangible personal property, meaning physical items you can carry out of a store. Clothing, electronics, furniture, auto parts, and similar goods are all taxable unless a specific exemption applies.²

Several non-goods charges are taxable too:

Admissions to concerts, sporting events, theaters, amusement parks, and other recreational venues. Fees for instructional classes are excluded.²
Electricity, water, and gas delivered to a home or business.²
Local and long-distance phone service, including cellular and landline plans. Internet access fees are specifically excluded.²

What Missouri Doesn’t Tax

Several large categories are fully exempt. Prescription drugs, insulin, prosthetic devices, and hearing aids carry no sales tax. Agricultural inputs, including livestock and poultry feed, seed, fertilizer, limestone for crops, and registered pesticides, are exempt when the harvest or the animals raised will ultimately be sold.⁴ Raw materials that become part of a finished product for sale, and replacement machinery used directly in manufacturing, mining, or fabricating, are also exempt.⁵ Motor fuel already subject to the state’s excise tax is exempt unless the excise tax is refunded, and goods bought purely for resale are excluded when the buyer provides a valid exemption certificate.

Digital goods fall outside the tax entirely. Music downloads, ebooks, apps, streaming video subscriptions, and other electronic products are not treated as tangible personal property.⁶ Cloud-based software (often called SaaS) is also not taxable. One wrinkle: if a seller ships a digital product on a physical medium such as a flash drive, the sale can become taxable because the buyer is now receiving a physical item.

Buying from Out-of-State Sellers

If an out-of-state seller doesn’t charge Missouri sales tax at checkout, the purchase may still be taxable. Missouri imposes a consumer use tax at the same 4.225% state rate, plus any local use tax, on goods bought from sellers that don’t collect it.¹ The use tax exists so that buying from out of state isn’t a way around the sales tax.

Missouri doesn’t fold use tax into the individual income tax return the way some states do. If your total taxable out-of-state purchases for the year exceed $2,000, you must file a separate Individual Consumer’s Use Tax Return with the Department of Revenue. In practice, most large online retailers now collect Missouri sales tax at checkout, because remote sellers that cross $100,000 in gross receipts into the state are required to collect it,⁷ and marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy have been required to collect on behalf of their third-party sellers since January 1, 2023.⁸ Use tax now bites mainly on purchases from smaller out-of-state vendors.

Sales Tax Holidays

Missouri suspends both state and local sales tax on certain goods during two annual holidays. The back-to-school holiday is the better known one. In 2026, it runs from Friday, August 7 through Sunday, August 9, and covers:⁹

Clothing items priced at $100 or less per item
School supplies of $50 or less
Computer software at $350 or less per item
Personal computers and accessories at $1,500 or less per item
Graphing calculators at $150 or less per item

A separate Energy Star holiday each spring exempts qualifying energy-efficient appliances up to $1,500 per item. The exact 2026 spring dates are posted on the Department of Revenue website and can shift year to year.

If You’re the One Collecting the Tax

Any business making taxable sales in Missouri must register for a sales tax license before collecting tax, either through the Department of Revenue’s online portal or by submitting a paper Missouri Tax Registration Application (Form 2643).¹⁰ New applicants also post a security bond set at three times the expected average monthly tax liability, which can take the form of cash, a surety bond, a certificate of deposit, or an irrevocable letter of credit.¹¹

Filing frequency depends on how much tax you collect. Businesses collecting $500 or more per month in state sales tax file monthly, smaller sellers file quarterly, and those collecting under $200 a quarter file annually by January 31.¹² A return is required even in periods with no taxable sales, and records must be kept for at least three years from the filing date.¹³ Late filing triggers a penalty of 5% of the unpaid tax for the first month and 5% for each additional month up to 25%, with interest accruing on top.¹⁴

1
Missouri Department of Revenue. Sales/Use Tax
2
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Revised Statutes of Missouri, RSMo Section 144.020
3
Springfield, MO – Official Website. Sales Tax
4
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Revised Statutes of Missouri, RSMo Section 144.030
5
Cornell Law School. Missouri Code of State Regulations 12 CSR 10-111.010 – Manufacturing Machinery and Equipment Exemptions
6
Missouri Department of Revenue. Letter Rulings – LR 8248
7
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code Title X Chapter 144 Section 144-605
8
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Revised Statutes of Missouri, RSMo Section 144.752
9
Missouri Department of Revenue. Back to School Sales Tax Holiday
10
Missouri Department of Revenue. Business Tax Registration
11
Cornell Law School. Missouri Code of State Regulations 12 CSR 10-104.020 – Sales and Use Tax Bonds
12
Missouri Department of Revenue. Maintain Sales/Use Tax
13
Missouri Department of Revenue. 12 CSR 10-101.800 Record Keeping and Record Retention
14
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Revised Statutes of Missouri, RSMo Section 144.250