Pennsylvania Sales Tax on Food: Groceries, Restaurants, and SNAP

Pennsylvania sales tax on food works on a simple split: food you take home from a grocery store is exempt, and food that’s ready to eat is taxable. The state rate is 6%, with 7% in Allegheny County and 8% in Philadelphia. Those higher local rates only matter for items that are already taxable, so exempt groceries cost the same across the state.¹

What’s Tax-Free at the Grocery Store

Pennsylvania exempts “food not ready-to-eat,” which covers most of a normal grocery run: fresh produce, meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs, bread, rice, pasta, canned goods, and frozen foods.²

Non-alcoholic beverages for home use are also exempt, including coffee beans, ground coffee, tea, milk, and plain bottled water. One that surprises people: candy and gum are tax-free when you buy them at a grocery or convenience store, which is not how many other states handle it.²

Drinks and Snacks That Are Taxable Anywhere

Some items stay taxable even when you’re buying them at a supermarket to take home. The main categories are:

Soft drinks, including soda, cola, and other carbonated beverages
Sports and energy drinks
Fruit drinks with less than 25% natural fruit juice, like fruit punch and most bottled lemonades
Flavored water and any water with added sweeteners
Breath mints

The line is fairly clean. A drink that’s 100% juice, plain water, milk, coffee, or tea is exempt. A sweetened or flavored drink that falls under the 25% real-juice threshold is taxable.³

Restaurants, Takeout, Delivery, and Catering

Anything sold by an “eating establishment” is taxable. Pennsylvania reads that phrase broadly. Restaurants, cafes, food trucks, pizzerias, snack bars, fast food counters, stadiums, and carnivals all qualify. It doesn’t matter whether you eat there, take it to go, or order delivery. There is no takeout exception.⁴

The rule flips items you’d expect to be exempt. A sandwich, a hot meal, a deli salad, a slice of pizza, a cup of coffee, even candy or gum at the register are all taxable when an eating establishment sells them. If the same item would be tax-free at a grocery store, it becomes taxable the moment a restaurant is the seller.⁴

On delivery orders, the delivery charge is part of the taxable amount. A tip is not, as long as it’s listed separately on the bill. Bundled gratuities get taxed with the rest of the order.³

Catering is fully taxable. That includes not just the food, but charges for tables, chairs, decorations, utensils, bartenders, and food servers. Separately stated charges for beer, wine, or liquor are the exception, because the caterer already paid sales tax when buying the alcohol.⁵

Bakery Items Depend on the Seller

Baked goods from a standalone bakery or the bakery section of a grocery store are exempt. The same muffin from a restaurant that happens to run a bakery counter is taxable, because the restaurant qualifies as an eating establishment.⁴ The item is identical; only the type of business changes the answer.

Vending Machines Follow Their Own Rules

Vending machines aren’t classified as eating establishments, so most snacks bought from one are tax-free. A bag of chips or a candy bar is exempt. These items stay taxable even from a vending machine:

Soft drinks
Sandwiches, hot or cold
Brewed coffee, hot chocolate, and hot tea
Salad bar items
Pizza, soup, and other food dispensed heated
Cold items sold alongside a microwave the operator provides

A soda or hot sandwich from the same machine as your tax-free chips will still get taxed.⁶

Philadelphia’s Extra Beverage Tax

If you’re shopping in Philadelphia, sweetened drinks carry an additional charge of 1.5 cents per ounce. That’s separate from the city’s 2% local sales tax and stacks on top of it. A 12-ounce can of soda picks up 18 cents in beverage tax before any sales tax is added.⁷

The scope is wider than many similar taxes elsewhere. Both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened drinks are covered, so diet soda is taxed at the same rate as regular. Covered drinks include soda (regular and diet), non-100% fruit drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, sweetened water, and pre-sweetened coffee or tea. Drinks made from 100% fruit juice with no added sweeteners are not subject to it.⁷ The tax is imposed on distributors, but the cost is generally built into the shelf price.

SNAP Purchases Are Always Tax-Free

Paying with SNAP benefits through an EBT card removes sales tax from the transaction, even on items that would otherwise be taxable like soft drinks. This comes from a federal rule that overrides Pennsylvania’s usual taxability categories, and retailers are not allowed to add sales tax, fees, or surcharges to a SNAP-eligible purchase.⁸

1
Department of Revenue. Current Tax Rates
2
Department of Revenue. Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax
3
Pennsylvania Code and Bulletin. Pennsylvania Code 61 Pa. Code 60.7 – Sale and Preparation of Food and Beverages
4
Cornell Law School. Pennsylvania Code 61 Pa. Code 60.7 – Sale and Preparation of Food and Beverages
5
Department of Revenue. What Foods, Services and Rental Fees Are Going to Need to Have Sales Tax
6
Cornell Law School. Pennsylvania Code 61 Pa. Code 31.28 – Vending Machines
7
City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia Beverage Tax (PBT)
8
Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. SNAP Retailer Notice – Sales Tax, Fees, and Refunds