How to Claim Your St. Louis City Earnings Tax Refund

If you live outside St. Louis but your employer withheld the city’s 1% earnings tax, you can request a St. Louis city earnings tax refund for the portion of the year you worked outside city limits by filing Form E-1R with the Collector of Revenue. The refund covers only whole days worked elsewhere, your employer has to sign off on those days, and you have one year from the April 15 due date to submit the claim.

Who Can File for a Refund

Only non-residents are eligible. St. Louis taxes two groups at 1%: people who live in the city and people who work in the city. If your permanent address is inside city limits, you owe the full 1% on every dollar you earn no matter where the work happens, and Form E-1R is not available to you.¹

If you live outside the city, had the tax withheld through payroll, and spent some full workdays outside St. Louis during the year, you qualify to file.

The Whole-Day Rule That Shrinks Most Claims

Any portion of a workday spent inside St. Louis makes the whole day a city day.¹ A morning meeting downtown before heading out to a job site in the county turns that day into a taxable city day. Only days you never physically set foot in St. Louis count toward the refund.

For hybrid schedules, the math is clean. Live in the county, commute into the city on Tuesdays and Thursdays, work from home the other three days? The two commute days are city days, and only the three full remote days count as out-of-city days.

How to Fill Out Form E-1R

Form E-1R is the only form the Collector accepts for non-resident refund claims. Download the fillable PDF from the Collector of Revenue’s website, complete it on screen or by hand, and mail a physical copy. There is no online filing option.²

The calculation is straightforward. Start with the total workdays in the year (usually 260 after weekends). Subtract vacation, sick days, holidays, and every day you physically worked inside St. Louis. What remains is your days worked outside the city. Divide that by total workdays to get the percentage of your withholding that comes back as a refund.

Three things need to be attached:

A copy of your W-2 showing total wages and the St. Louis earnings tax withheld.
Your employer’s signature on the form verifying the out-of-city days. Without it, the Collector will reject the claim.²
A log of dates and work locations supporting the days you are claiming.

The signature is where people get stuck. At larger employers, payroll or HR may route the request through an internal verification process that takes weeks. Ask early.

Where to Mail It

Send the completed form and attachments to:

Gregory F.X. Daly, Collector of Revenue
1200 Market Street, Room 410
St. Louis, MO 63103¹

Claims are processed in the order received, and the queue is longest right after April 15. Approved refunds come as a paper check in the mail. There is no online tracker; status checks happen by phone or in person at the Collector’s office.

Deadline and the One-Year Window

Form E-1R is due April 15 of the year after the tax year. For 2025 income, that means April 15, 2026.¹

The statute of limitations is one year from that original due date.¹ Miss it and the money is gone, even if your claim would have been valid. If you worked remotely during 2024 and never filed, check the calendar before you do anything else.

If You Live in the City

Residents cannot use Form E-1R, because they owe the tax on all income regardless of where they work. If you paid income tax to another city or political subdivision, you can claim a credit against your St. Louis liability on Form E-1CR to avoid double taxation.³ That is a credit, not a refund of St. Louis withholding, and it is a separate form on the same Collector of Revenue page.⁴

1
City of St. Louis. Individual Earnings Tax Information
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City of St. Louis. E-1R Form (Fillable)
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City of St. Louis. File Individual Earnings Taxes
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City of St. Louis. Earnings Tax Forms and Documents