Sales Tax Nexus in Florida: Thresholds, Filing, and Penalties

A business has sales tax nexus in Florida when it either has a physical presence in the state or exceeded $100,000 in taxable remote sales to Florida customers during the previous calendar year. Either trigger makes the business a “dealer” under Chapter 212 of the Florida Statutes, which means registering with the Florida Department of Revenue, collecting the 6% state sales tax plus any applicable county surtax, and filing returns on schedule.¹

What Creates Nexus

Physical presence is the older and broader test. Florida’s definition of “dealer” covers any business that maintains an office, warehouse, salesroom, distribution facility, or other place of business in the state, whether directly or through a subsidiary.¹ It also reaches businesses that solicit orders in Florida through direct representatives, indirect representatives, or manufacturers’ agents. Sales reps making client visits, technicians performing installations, and employees at meetings can all qualify if the activity generates or supports sales.

Inventory counts too. Products stored in a Florida fulfillment center, including Amazon FBA warehouses and other third-party logistics providers, give the inventory owner a physical presence in the state even if the seller has never set foot in Florida.

Trade show attendance is handled by the terms of the exhibitor agreement rather than a day count. If the agreement lets the exhibitor make retail sales of tangible personal property or taxable services, the exhibitor must register; an agreement limited to display, demonstration, or sales for resale does not, by itself, require registration.²

Remote sellers without any Florida footprint face the economic nexus test. If taxable remote sales to Florida buyers exceeded $100,000 in the previous calendar year, nexus attaches.³ The look-back is a full calendar year: a seller measuring their 2026 obligation reviews sales from January 1 through December 31, 2025. Florida uses a pure dollar threshold; there is no transaction-count test.

Sales made through a marketplace facilitator that already collects and remits Florida tax on the seller’s behalf generally do not count toward the individual seller’s $100,000 threshold, because the facilitator is treated as the dealer for those transactions.¹ That covers platforms like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart Marketplace. Your direct sales through your own website, phone orders, or in-person channels still need to be tracked against the threshold, and crossing that line on direct sales alone requires you to register and collect independently on those transactions.

What Sales Count

The 6% state tax applies to retail sales of tangible personal property, so most physical goods sold to Florida customers count toward both collection and the nexus threshold.⁴ Florida taxes relatively few services, but a business providing one of the taxable categories in Section 212.05 can create nexus and collection duties through that activity alone. The taxable service categories include:

Security and investigation services, including detective work and burglar protection, though off-duty law enforcement performing approved duties in uniform is excluded.
Nonresidential cleaning, meaning commercial janitorial and building cleaning services, but not cleaning of transportation equipment interiors.
Nonresidential pest control, though residential pest control is not taxed.⁵

Digital goods sit in an evolving area. The Department of Revenue has treated subscription-based digital content, digital newspapers, digital books, and online media access as taxable in Technical Assistance Advisements, so those sales count toward the threshold and require collection when nexus exists.

Software as a Service delivered entirely over the internet is generally not taxable in Florida because the state’s tax reaches tangible personal property and electronically delivered software does not meet that definition. If the same software ships on a CD or USB drive, it becomes taxable. Custom software installed remotely without physical media transfer stays exempt.

Registering With the Department of Revenue

Registration is mandatory before any collection begins. The Florida Business Tax Application, Form DR-1, is filed through the Department’s online portal or on paper.⁶ Electronic filing returns a certificate number within a few business days. You will need your Federal Employer Identification Number, your legal business structure details, and the date you began or will begin taxable activity in Florida. Without the registration certificate number, you are not legally permitted to collect Florida sales tax.

Filing, Remittance, and Rates

Returns and payments are due on or before the 20th of the month following the reporting period.⁷ When the 20th falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day. Anything after that is late.

Filing frequency is assigned by the Department based on tax liability over the prior four calendar quarters:⁷

Annual, if total tax remitted did not exceed $100.
Semiannual, if total tax remitted did not exceed $500.
Quarterly return with quarterly payment, if total tax remitted did not exceed $1,000.
Quarterly return with monthly payment, if total tax remitted exceeded $1,000 but did not exceed $12,000.
Monthly, if total tax remitted exceeded $12,000. Dealers who paid $200,000 or more during the preceding state fiscal year must also submit estimated payments.

New businesses are typically assigned monthly filing until a remittance history builds up.

Florida is destination-based for county surtax. Many counties add a discretionary sales surtax on top of the 6% state rate, and the rate that applies is the rate at the delivery address, not your business location.⁴ Sellers shipping across counties need to track each delivery address and apply the right rate. The Department publishes updated surtax rate tables covering every Florida county.

Dealers who file and pay electronically by the deadline may deduct a collection allowance of 2.5% of the tax due, capped at $1,200 per reporting period.⁸ The maximum benefit per return works out to $30, and it applies only to timely electronic filers.

What Noncompliance Costs

Late filing or late payment carries a penalty of 10% of the tax due, with a $50 minimum. Filing and paying late on the same return triggers a single 10% penalty, not two.⁸

When a dealer files a return but leaves tax unreported, the penalty starts at 10% of the undisclosed amount and grows by another 10% for every 30 days the shortfall continues, capping at 50% of the unpaid tax. Filing a false or fraudulent return with intent to evade brings a 100% penalty on the unreported tax, and willful evasion is a third-degree felony under Florida law.

Interest accrues daily on unpaid tax from the day after the return is due. For the first half of 2026, the annual rate is 11%, giving a daily rate factor of 0.000301370.⁹ Florida resets the rate every six months, so the figure for July through December 2026 may differ.

Fixing It After the Fact

If you discover you should have been collecting and never registered, the Department’s Voluntary Disclosure Program limits the review to three years before the date you submit your request.¹⁰ All penalties are waived when you pay the tax and interest owed, with one exception: a 5% penalty applies if you actually collected tax from customers and did not remit it.

The program is only open to businesses the Department has not already contacted about the liability. The written request must include a statement confirming that no prior contact has occurred. Once the Department reaches out first, that option closes and any later audit runs the full lookback with full penalties.

1
Florida Senate. Florida Code 212.06 – Sales, Storage, Use Tax; Collectible From Dealers; Dealer Defined
2
Florida Department of Revenue. Sales and Use Tax on Trade Shows and Convention Exhibitors
3
Online Sunshine. Florida Code 212.0596 – Taxation of Remote Sales
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Florida Department of Revenue. Florida Sales and Use Tax
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Florida Senate. Florida Code 212.05 – Sales, Storage, Use Tax
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Florida Department of Revenue. Account Management and Registration
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Florida Senate. Florida Code 212.11 – Tax Returns and Regulations
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Online Sunshine. Florida Code 212.12 – Dealer’s Credit; Penalties; Violations
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Florida Department of Revenue. Floating Rate of Interest
10
Florida Department of Revenue. Voluntary Disclosure Program