Tax-Free Weekend in El Paso: What Qualifies and the $100 Rule

Tax-free weekend in El Paso runs Friday, August 7 through midnight Sunday, August 9, 2026, and during those three days you pay no sales tax on most clothing, footwear, school supplies, and backpacks priced under $100 per item.¹ That wipes out the full 8.25 percent combined rate El Pasoans normally pay — 6.25 percent state tax plus local sales and use tax.² There’s no limit on how many items you can buy, and the $100 cap is applied to each item individually, not to your total.

What Qualifies

Clothing and footwear “designed to be worn on or about the human body” are exempt as long as each piece is priced under $100.³ That covers everyday items like shirts, jeans, dresses, sneakers, socks, pajamas, diapers, and school uniforms. Swimsuits, jogging suits, and tennis shoes qualify too, because people wear them off the field as well.¹ Cloth and disposable fabric face masks also count as clothing.

School supplies — notebooks, binders, pens, pencils, crayons, rulers, lunch boxes and the like — are tax-free when priced under $100 and purchased for a student in a public or private elementary or secondary school.⁴ Stores don’t ask for proof. The retailer only needs an exemption certificate when someone buys the kind of quantity that suggests the supplies aren’t going to a student.

Backpacks have their own definition. Qualifying bags include messenger bags, book bags, and any pack with straps worn on the back, including wheeled versions that can also be carried.⁴

What Doesn’t Qualify

Some categories stay fully taxable at 8.25 percent, and these are the ones that catch shoppers off guard.

Accessories are out. Jewelry, watches, handbags, purses, wallets, briefcases, luggage, and umbrellas all remain taxable because the law treats them as items carried on the body rather than worn as clothing.³ On the backpack side, luggage, athletic bags, duffel bags, gym bags, computer bags, and framed backpacks don’t qualify either.

Clothing and footwear primarily designed for a sport or protective use that you wouldn’t normally wear otherwise stays taxable. Golf cleats, football pads, and track spikes are the classic examples. Running shoes you’d wear to the grocery store qualify; spikes you’d only wear on a track do not.¹

N95 respirators and similar personal protective equipment are excluded, even though basic cloth masks qualify. Computers, tablets, software, and textbooks are not covered. Neither are fabric, thread, buttons, zippers, or other materials used to make or repair clothing. Clothing subscription boxes, alteration services, embroidery, and rentals of clothing or footwear all remain taxable.¹

How the $100 Rule Really Works

The cutoff is strict. A shirt at $99.99 is tax-free; a shirt at $100.00 is fully taxable, and there’s no partial exemption on the first $99.⁵ Each item is evaluated on its own, so a $95 jacket and $110 boots in the same transaction means zero tax on the jacket and the full rate on the boots.

Shipping is the trap. Under Texas law, shipping and handling charges are part of the item’s sales price.⁶ A $95 pair of shoes with $10 shipping has a sales price of $105, which blows past the threshold and makes the whole purchase taxable. When you shop online, look for free shipping or in-store pickup to keep qualifying items under the limit.

One more angle worth watching: if an item you want is listed at $105 or $110, check whether a store coupon or discount brings the shelf price under $100 before tax applies. The price that actually rings up at the register is what counts.

Online Orders, Layaway, and Rain Checks

Online, phone, and catalog purchases qualify as long as you pay during the three-day window. Shipping and arrival dates don’t matter. Order and pay for a $75 backpack on Friday, August 7, and it’s tax-free even if it doesn’t land on your porch until the following Wednesday.¹ Buy-online-pick-up-in-store orders work the same way.

Check your digital receipt after any online purchase. Automated tax engines occasionally miscalculate, especially where local rates vary across Texas. If tax is charged on an item that should be exempt, contact the retailer before the order finalizes.

Layaway lets you lock in the exemption. Put a qualifying item on layaway during the holiday and it stays tax-free even if you don’t make the final payment or pick it up until weeks later.¹

Special orders qualify only if you pay during the holiday itself. If the store takes your order on Sunday but you don’t pay until the item arrives the following week, no exemption applies.

Rain checks are the strictest. A rain check issued during the holiday does not preserve tax-free status for a later purchase. Get a rain check Saturday for an out-of-stock $50 shirt, pay for it Tuesday, and you owe full tax. The exemption only applies when you both select and pay during the holiday window.¹

What El Paso Shoppers Save

At 8.25 percent, a family spending $500 on qualifying clothes, shoes, and supplies keeps about $41. A $95 pair of shoes saves roughly $7.84. Every dollar spent on a qualifying item under $100 saves a little over eight cents in tax, so the real value of the weekend comes from the volume of a full back-to-school list rather than any single purchase.

1
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Sales Tax Holiday
2
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Sales and Use Tax
3
State of Texas. Texas Tax Code Section 151.326 – Clothing and Footwear for Limited Period
4
State of Texas. Texas Tax Code Section 151.327 – School Supplies and School Backpacks Before Start of School
5
Cornell Law Institute. 34 Texas Admin Code 3.365 – Sales Tax Holiday-Clothing, Shoes and School Supplies
6
Cornell Law Institute. 34 Texas Admin Code 3.303 – Transportation and Delivery Charges