Restaurant Tax in Massachusetts: State and Local Rates, Taxable Meals, Alcohol

The restaurant tax in Massachusetts is 6.25% statewide, and most cities and towns add another 0.75%, bringing the typical total to 7% of your bill.¹ It applies to any food or drink prepared for immediate consumption, whether you dine in, take out, or hire a caterer. As of March 2026, 267 of the state’s 351 municipalities have adopted the local add-on, so most diners pay the full 7%.²

The State Rate and the Local Add-On

The 6.25% rate is uniform across Massachusetts. Every restaurant, food truck, café, hotel dining room, catering business, and snack bar must collect it on meals sold.³

On top of that, state law lets individual cities and towns adopt an extra 0.75% meals tax. It isn’t automatic. The local government has to vote to accept it, and it can vote to revoke it. Once adopted, the tax takes effect on the first day of the calendar quarter following 30 days after the vote.⁴

Where the local option is in effect, your combined rate is 7%. Restaurants may show the full amount as a single “state and local tax” line or split it into two lines on the receipt.⁵ The state collects the local portion along with the base rate and remits it to the municipality.

What Counts as a Taxable Meal

Groceries sold for home preparation are exempt. The statute lists the usual staples: cereals, flour, milk, meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, coffee, tea, and similar items.³ A gallon of milk or a loaf of bread from the supermarket carries no tax.

The moment food is prepared for immediate human consumption and provided by a restaurant, it becomes a taxable meal. That covers the obvious sit-down dinner, but also a deli sandwich, a bowl of hot soup from a supermarket counter, or a rotisserie chicken sold by the slice. A supermarket’s deli counter or hot-food bar counts as a “restaurant part of a store,” and everything sold from it is taxed as a meal.⁶ A whole unsliced barbecued chicken sold at the same supermarket is generally not taxed as a meal, because it’s treated as a food product for home use.

Vending machines have their own cutoff. A machine selling snacks or candy priced at $3.50 or more is treated as a restaurant, and those items are taxable. Machines selling only items under $3.50 are not.³

Alcohol at Restaurants and Bars

Beer, wine, cocktails, and other alcoholic beverages served for on-premises consumption at a restaurant or bar are subject to the same meals tax: 6.25% statewide, 7% where the local option applies.⁶ There is no separate alcohol tax layered on top for drinks consumed on-site. Packaged alcohol sold at liquor stores for off-premises consumption follows different rules under the state’s alcoholic beverages excise.

Catering and Delivery

Catering businesses are treated as restaurants for meals tax purposes. If you hire a caterer, the non-itemized total for food and beverage is fully taxable. Even when the caterer itemizes the invoice, anything tied to the food still gets taxed: preparation, setup, serving, bartending, cleanup, mandatory insurance, and rental of linens, tables, or dishware.⁷

A few separately stated charges escape the tax. Delivery charges are not taxable if they are listed separately, reflect the actual cost of getting the food to your location, and are set in good faith. Optional extras unrelated to the food itself, such as valet parking or live music, are also excluded when separately stated.⁷

Service Charges and Tips

Whether a service charge gets taxed depends on where the money goes. A mandatory service charge that the restaurant keeps, rather than distributing to wait staff, is included in the taxable sales price of the meal, so you pay meals tax on it.⁸ The same is true for a service charge that is only partially distributed to employees.

A service charge or gratuity fully distributed to service employees, wait staff, or bartenders is not part of the taxable sales price.¹ Voluntary tips you leave on your own are never taxed. So if a restaurant adds an automatic 20% gratuity to a large party’s bill and passes all of it to the servers, that amount is tax-free. If the house keeps a cut, the whole charge becomes taxable.

Convention Center Surcharges Don’t Apply to Meals

You may hear about convention center financing surcharges in Boston, Springfield, and Worcester. They are real, but they do not apply to restaurant meals. The surcharges fund convention center construction and renovation, and they hit hotel room occupancy (2.75% in Boston, Cambridge, Springfield, and Worcester), sightseeing tour tickets (5% for tours in Boston), parking at certain facilities ($2 per day), and vehicle rentals in Boston ($10 per contract).⁹¹⁰

A restaurant meal in downtown Boston is taxed at the same 7% as one in any other municipality that has adopted the local add-on. There is no extra convention center charge on the food. If you’re staying at a hotel in one of those cities, your room bill will carry the additional 2.75% on top of the standard room occupancy excise.

1
Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Sales Tax on Meals
2
Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Local Tax Option Effective Dates and Rates
3
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Code Chapter 64H Section 6 – Exemptions
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General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Code Chapter 64L Section 2
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Massachusetts Department of Revenue. TIR 09-13 Local Option Sales Tax on Meals and Local Option Room Occupancy Excise Rate Increase
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Massachusetts Department of Revenue. 830 CMR 64H.6.5 Sales Tax on Meals
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Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Directive 06-3 Catering Businesses
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Massachusetts Department of Revenue. 830 CMR 64H.6.5 Sales Tax on Meals – Section: Sales Price
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Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Massachusetts Convention Center Financing Surcharges
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Massachusetts Department of Revenue. TIR 01-15 Convention Center Financing Fee On Room Occupancy