Louisiana use tax is what you owe when you buy something taxable and the seller didn’t charge Louisiana sales tax, most often on an online or out-of-state purchase shipped or brought into the state. The 2026 rate is a flat 9 percent of the purchase price, made up of 5 percent state and 4 percent local, and it applies the same way no matter which parish you live in.1Louisiana Department of Revenue. Louisiana Consumer Use Tax Return You report it on your Louisiana income tax return or on a standalone form, and the deadline tracks the income tax filing deadline.
When You Owe Louisiana Use Tax
The obligation falls on you as the buyer whenever a taxable item ends up in Louisiana and Louisiana sales tax wasn’t collected at the point of sale. A few common situations:
- You order something online from a seller that doesn’t charge Louisiana sales tax, and it ships to your Louisiana address.2Louisiana Department of Revenue. Consumer Use Tax
- You buy furniture, electronics, or other goods on a trip to another state and bring them home. If you paid no sales tax there, you owe the full Louisiana use tax; if you paid tax at a lower rate, you owe the difference.
- You placed the order by catalog or phone instead of online. The channel doesn’t matter; the lack of Louisiana tax collection does.
- A business buys inventory tax-free with a resale certificate and then uses the items itself instead of reselling them.
When the Seller Already Collects for You
Plenty of online purchases don’t create a use tax bill, because Louisiana requires remote sellers to collect sales tax once they cross a volume threshold: more than $100,000 in gross revenue from Louisiana deliveries, or 200 or more separate transactions shipped to Louisiana, in the current or prior calendar year.3Louisiana Sales and Use Tax Commission for Remote Sellers. Frequently Asked Questions Large retailers like Amazon normally meet those thresholds and charge Louisiana tax at checkout. Check your receipt. If Louisiana sales tax appears there, you have nothing more to pay.
Items That Aren’t Taxable
Use tax follows sales tax, so anything exempt from Louisiana sales tax is also exempt from use tax. The exemptions most relevant to household purchases are groceries bought for home preparation (bakery goods, dairy, fresh produce, packaged foods you cook yourself), residential natural gas, electricity, and water, and prescription drugs.4Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 47 RS 47-3055Louisiana Department of Revenue. How Does the Amendment Affect Sales Taxes Charged on Groceries, Utilities, and Prescription Drugs A number of narrow, industry-specific exemptions were repealed in the 2024 tax reform, so if you’re relying on an exemption you remember from a few years ago, verify it against the Department of Revenue’s current guidance before skipping the tax.
How Much You Owe
Multiply the purchase price of your taxable items by 0.09. A $500 piece of furniture bought online without Louisiana tax produces $45 in use tax. The rate is flat statewide, so you don’t need to look up your parish’s combined sales tax rate for this calculation.
Credit for Sales Tax You Paid in Another State
If you paid sales tax to another state on the same purchase, Louisiana credits that against your use tax, but only the state-level portion of what you paid elsewhere counts. Local taxes paid in the other state don’t.6Legal Information Institute. Louisiana Administrative Code Title 61 Part I Section 4307 – Collection The credit also can’t exceed what you’d owe Louisiana, so it never produces a refund.
Say you bought a $1,000 item in a state with a 6 percent state sales tax and paid $60 there. Your Louisiana use tax at 9 percent is $90. The $60 credit leaves $30 owed to Louisiana. If you also paid $20 in local tax in the other state, that $20 doesn’t change the math; you still owe Louisiana $30.
The $90 Cap for New Residents’ Vehicles
If you moved to Louisiana with a car, the use tax after any out-of-state credit is capped at $90 on vehicles registered on or after January 1, 2025, as long as all three of these are true:7Louisiana Department of Revenue. Revenue Information Bulletin No 25-011 – Calculation of Use Tax on Vehicles Registered by New Residents
- The vehicle is primarily for personal use.
- It was previously registered or leased in your name in another state.
- You register it in Louisiana within 90 days of bringing it into the state.
The cap only matters when your post-credit figure would exceed $90. If it would be less, you just pay the smaller amount.
How and When to Pay
Individuals have two ways to pay. The simpler one is the consumer use tax line on your Louisiana income tax return, Form IT-540, where you enter total taxable purchases for the year.8Louisiana Department of Revenue. 2025 Louisiana Resident Income Tax Return If you’d rather not wait, you can file Form R-1035, the standalone Consumer Use Tax Return, any time after the purchase.
Either way, the deadline matches your income tax deadline. Use tax on 2025 purchases is due by May 15, 2026, and use tax on 2026 purchases is due by May 17, 2027.9Louisiana Department of Revenue. Louisiana Consumer Use Tax Return You can file and pay electronically through the Louisiana Taxpayer Access Point (LaTAP) portal.10Louisiana Department of Revenue. File and Pay Online Businesses report use tax on their regular sales tax returns rather than through either of these consumer forms.
What Happens If You Don’t Pay
Penalties and interest stack, so an unpaid balance grows on more than one track.
Late-Filing and Late-Payment Penalties
Failing to file on time, or filing but not paying, triggers a penalty of 5 percent of the tax due for the first 30 days and another 5 percent for each additional 30-day period, capped at 25 percent of the unpaid tax.11Justia Law. Louisiana Revised Statutes 47-1602 – Penalty for Failure to Make Timely Return or Remit Tax Consumer use tax reported on your individual income tax return carries a lower late-payment penalty of 0.5 percent per 30-day period.
Negligence Penalty
On top of that, the Department of Revenue can add a 10 percent negligence penalty on the tax deficiency when you failed to comply without intending to defraud. If you understated your tax by 25 percent or more, the add-on climbs to 15 percent for non-willful understatements and 20 percent when the department finds you willfully disregarded the law.12Justia Law. Louisiana Revised Statutes 47-1604.1 – Negligence Penalty
Interest
Interest runs from the day the tax was due. The 2026 rate is 10.50 percent annually, or 0.875 percent per month, and it accrues separately from any penalty.13Louisiana Department of Revenue. Interest Rate Schedule R-1111 A $500 use tax balance left unpaid for six months picks up roughly $26 in interest before any penalty is added. The rate adjusts each year under a formula tied to the state’s judicial interest rate.