How to Use an Arizona Resale Certificate (Form 5000A)

An Arizona resale certificate, filed on Arizona Form 5000A, lets you buy tangible personal property for resale without paying transaction privilege tax at the wholesale level. You complete the form, hand it to your vendor, and the vendor sells to you tax-free because the TPT will be collected once, from the end customer, at the retail sale. Form 5000A is narrower than the general Form 5000: it applies only to purchases of tangible personal property that you intend to resell in the regular course of business.¹

Who Can Use Form 5000A

You need a valid Transaction Privilege Tax license to use the certificate. Arizona law requires every person conducting taxable business in the state to hold a TPT license before starting or continuing operations.² Your TPT license number is what makes the certificate work.

Out-of-state buyers can use Form 5000A too. The form allows a wholesaler to accept the certificate from a purchaser who holds either an Arizona TPT license or another state’s sales tax license.¹ A Nevada retailer buying from an Arizona distributor, for example, can present a Nevada sales tax license to satisfy the requirement.

Filling Out the Certificate

The buyer completes every field, signs it, and gives it to the vendor. An incomplete certificate is not treated as accepted in good faith, so a form with blanks leaves the seller exposed and the sale in question.¹ You will need to provide:

Your legal business name and principal business address.
Your Arizona TPT license number, or the sales tax license number issued by your home state.
A description of your business and why the items qualify as resale inventory.
A description of the tangible personal property being purchased and how it will be used.
The specific dates during which the certificate is valid.
The signature of someone authorized to sign for the business.

These fields track what A.R.S. § 42-5009 requires a seller to obtain to establish a deduction from the tax base: the buyer’s name, address, nature of business, purpose of the purchase, and TPT license number.³

How Long the Certificate Stays Valid

You choose the validity dates yourself. The Arizona Department of Revenue encourages buyers to keep that window to 12 months or less. A vendor may accept a certificate in good faith for up to 48 months, but only if the vendor has documentation confirming the buyer’s TPT license remained valid for each calendar year the certificate covers.¹

Renewing annually is the cleaner approach. A multi-year certificate creates risk if a license lapses or the business changes hands, and many vendors prefer a fresh form each year regardless.

What the Vendor Does With It

The vendor keeps the certificate on file and processes the sale without collecting TPT. Form 5000A is not submitted to the Arizona Department of Revenue; it lives in the seller’s records as the documentation for why no tax was charged.

A vendor who has no knowledge of any event affecting the buyer’s qualification for the resale deduction is considered to have accepted the certificate in good faith, which shifts the burden of proving the transaction qualified from the seller to the buyer.¹ A vendor with reason to believe the certificate is inaccurate or incomplete loses that protection.³ Checking the buyer’s TPT license number against the Department of Revenue’s online license lookup is a simple way to strengthen the good-faith defense if the sale is later audited.

When You Owe Use Tax Instead

The certificate covers purchases you actually resell. If you buy items tax-free with Form 5000A and then use, store, or consume them in your own operations, you owe Arizona use tax on those items at the state use tax rate of 5.6%, which matches the state TPT rate.⁴

A common example: a retailer uses a resale certificate to buy office supplies from a wholesaler, then consumes those supplies in-house rather than selling them. The resale exemption no longer applies, and the retailer must self-report and pay use tax on the purchase price. Auditors look for this pattern when reviewing resale certificate usage.

Records You Need to Keep

Arizona law requires every person subject to TPT to keep the returns, records, books, and accounts needed to determine their tax liability, and to make them available for inspection by the Department of Revenue at any reasonable time.⁵

Return preparers handling TPT and use tax returns must retain copies for six years. Other returns and documents carry a four-year retention period.⁵ Buyers and sellers should keep the signed Form 5000A, related invoices, and any correspondence for at least the full retention period. Legible, accessible digital copies are acceptable.

Penalties for a Bad Certificate

If the buyer cannot establish the accuracy and completeness of the information on the certificate, A.R.S. § 42-5009 makes the buyer liable for an amount equal to the TPT, penalty, and interest that the vendor would have owed if the certificate had never been accepted.³ The tax bill moves from seller to buyer, with penalty and interest attached.

Arizona also imposes criminal penalties under A.R.S. § 42-1127 for willful tax violations, with fines up to $100,000 for individuals and $500,000 for corporations.⁶ The resale certificate is there to prevent double taxation on legitimate inventory, and using it for anything else carries real cost.

1
Arizona Department of Revenue. Form 5000A – Arizona Resale Certificate
2
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 42-5005 – Transaction Privilege Tax and Municipal Privilege Tax Licenses; Fees; Renewal; Revocation; Violation; Classification
3
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 42-5009 – Certificates Establishing Deductions; Liability for Making False Statement
4
Arizona Department of Revenue. Understanding Use Tax
5
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 42-1105 – Taxpayer Identification, Verification and Records; Retention
6
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 42-1127 – Criminal Violation; Classification; Place of Trial; Definitions