How to Get a Mississippi Resale Tax Certificate

Mississippi does not issue a standalone resale tax certificate. Instead, the Department of Revenue treats your active Mississippi sales tax permit as your resale documentation, and you give that permit number to your suppliers when you buy inventory you plan to resell.¹ Registration is free, done online, and lets you avoid paying the state’s 7% sales tax at the point of purchase on goods bought for resale in your regular line of business.²

Who Can Buy Tax-Free for Resale

Retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers qualify when the goods they’re buying will be resold in their regular line of business. Mississippi law defines a wholesale sale as a sale of tangible personal property for resale made in good faith to a licensed retailer who regularly sells that type of product.³ If your business is in Mississippi, you must hold a permit issued under Mississippi Code 27-65-27.

Intent at the moment of purchase controls everything. A retailer buying printer paper to stock on the shelves is making a legitimate tax-free purchase. The same retailer buying printer paper for the office copier owes sales tax on it. Manufacturers can buy raw materials tax-free when those materials become a physical part of a finished product that will be sold. Packaging that goes out with the product, including boxes, crates, and bottles, also qualifies.³

The statute specifically excludes transactions where property is delivered to someone who will consume it rather than resell it, even if a retailer is being billed.³ That matters for drop shipments and split billing arrangements.

How to Register for the Permit

Registration happens through the Department of Revenue’s Taxpayer Access Point (TAP) portal. There is no fee. You’ll need your Social Security Number or Federal Employer Identification Number, your legal business name, your physical address, and an estimate of your expected monthly sales.⁴

After you submit the application, expect to wait about two weeks for the DOR to mail a packet containing your permit and filing instructions. If two weeks pass with nothing, call the DOR at (601) 923-7700 with your registration date and confirmation number.⁴

Out-of-state businesses making wholesale purchases from Mississippi suppliers register for a seller’s use tax permit instead of the standard sales tax permit.¹ Both permit types are handled through the same TAP portal, and a resale certificate issued by another state will not substitute. Mississippi is not a member of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, so the multistate exemption certificate used by member states does not apply here.

How to Use Your Permit at Purchase

This is where Mississippi diverges from the states most people are used to. The DOR has stated plainly that it “does not accept or use blanket certificates.”¹ There is no form to fill out and hand to the vendor. You give the vendor your sales tax permit number, and the vendor keeps that number on file along with a description of what you bought and how much you paid.

Third-party resale certificate forms referencing Mississippi circulate online, and some businesses use them as internal paperwork between buyer and seller. They can be a useful record. What the state actually requires from the seller during an audit is your valid permit number and a record of the transaction, not any particular form.

Form 72-110 Is Not a Resale Certificate

Older guides sometimes point to Form 72-110 as a Mississippi resale certificate. It isn’t. Form 72-110 is the state’s use tax return, filed by out-of-state sellers or by buyers reporting consumer use tax on purchases where Mississippi sales tax wasn’t collected. Don’t hand it to a vendor expecting a tax-free purchase.

Verifying a Buyer’s Permit if You’re the Seller

If you’re the one accepting a resale claim, verify the buyer’s permit before completing the sale. The DOR provides an online verification tool through TAP that covers sales tax permits, Material Purchase Certificates, and Direct Pay Permits.⁵ If a buyer’s permit turns out to be invalid or revoked and you didn’t check, the uncollected tax can land on you during an audit.

Records You Need to Keep

Mississippi requires that tax records be retained for at least three years.⁶ For sellers making wholesale transactions, that means keeping each buyer’s permit number, a description of items sold, and the dollar amount of each sale.¹

Buyers should keep their own records showing what they purchased tax-free and how it was later resold. The buyer carries the burden of proving items were genuinely bought for resale, and thin records make audits expensive.

When You Pull Resale Inventory for Your Own Use

This catches more Mississippi businesses than almost any other sales tax issue. If you buy something tax-free for resale and then take it out of inventory for your own use, you owe sales tax on it. The regulation is explicit: items purchased at wholesale and withdrawn from inventory for use by the business, the owner, or employees are subject to sales tax.⁷

Picture a clothing store owner who orders a jacket through a wholesale shipment, decides to keep it, and never reports the tax. During an audit the DOR compares purchase records against sales records, and missing inventory raises questions. The fix is straightforward. When you pull an item from resale stock for personal or business use, report and remit 7% sales tax on it with your next return.

Keeping the Permit Current

Mississippi sales tax permits don’t expire on a set schedule. Yours stays valid as long as your business remains active and properly registered with the DOR. There’s no annual renewal filing for resale purposes.

You do need to update your vendors if your business name or physical address changes, because the permit information on their records has to match your current registration. When the seller’s file and DOR data don’t align, audits get messy.

Penalties for Misusing the Resale Exemption

Mississippi treats resale fraud as a criminal matter. It is specifically unlawful to tell a retailer that a purchase is for resale when you actually intend to use the item yourself, and it is equally unlawful to use any sales tax exemption to dodge tax you legally owe.⁸

Exposure comes in several forms:

A misdemeanor conviction carrying a fine of up to $500, up to six months in county jail, or both, for any violation of the sales tax chapter.⁸
A perjury conviction if you knowingly swore to or verified a false return or statement, which carries heavier penalties under Mississippi law.
Back taxes plus interest on every improperly exempted purchase.
Suspension or revocation of your sales tax permit, which means you can’t legally operate a taxable business in Mississippi.⁹

The $500 cap is per violation. A pattern of fraudulent purchases means each transaction can be charged separately, and the perjury exposure takes this well beyond a simple tax penalty.

Drop Shipping and Three-Party Transactions

Drop shipping raises a common question. If a retailer takes an order from a Mississippi customer and has a supplier ship the product directly, who owes the tax? Mississippi allows the resale exemption in these transactions. The retailer gives the supplier a permit number, the supplier ships tax-free, and the retailer collects sales tax from the end customer.

The retailer must actually be in the business of reselling the type of product being shipped. A company that occasionally has a supplier drop-ship an item it doesn’t normally carry is on shaky ground, because the “regular line of business” requirement from Mississippi Code 27-65-5 applies to drop shipments the same way it applies to any other wholesale purchase.³ A retailer with nexus in Mississippi needs a Mississippi sales tax permit; an out-of-state retailer needs the seller’s use tax permit.

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Mississippi Department of Revenue. Business Tax Frequently Asked Questions
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Mississippi Department of Revenue. Mississippi Sales and Use Taxes
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FindLaw. Mississippi Code 27-65-5
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Mississippi Department of Revenue. Registration Information for Sales and Use Tax Applicants
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Mississippi Department of Revenue. Sales and Use Tax
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Mississippi Department of Revenue. Record Keeping and Document Retention
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Cornell Law Institute. 35 Mississippi Code R 4-03-01-103
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Justia. Mississippi Code 27-65-85 – Penalties for Failure to Comply With the Chapter
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Mississippi Department of Revenue. Suspension and Revocations