Sales Tax Nexus Across US States (2026 Guide)

What "nexus" actually means

Nexus is the legal connection between your business and a state that gives that state the power to make you collect its sales tax. Before 2018, nexus required physical presence - an office, employees, inventory, or a warehouse in the state. A non-resident running an online business from abroad simply had no nexus anywhere, and collected no US sales tax.

That changed with South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. (2018). The US Supreme Court ruled that a state can require an out-of-state (or out-of-country) seller to collect sales tax based purely on economic activity - volume of sales into the state - with no physical presence required. South Dakota's challenged law used a threshold of $100,000 in sales OR 200 separate transactions, and the Court signaled that this design was constitutionally reasonable. Within two years, virtually every state with a sales tax had copied it.

So as a non-resident Wyoming LLC owner you can now have economic nexus in a state you have never visited, simply because enough of your customers live there. There are two kinds of nexus to track:

• Physical nexus - inventory in a US warehouse (the classic case for Amazon FBA, where Amazon stores your goods in fulfillment centers), an employee, an office, or a US-based contractor in some states. Holding stock in a state's FBA warehouse can create physical nexus there even below the economic threshold.
• Economic nexus - crossing a state's sales or transaction threshold from remote sales. This is what most pure-digital and Stripe-direct sellers care about.

Economic nexus thresholds by state (2026)

The "$100K or 200 transactions" rule is the template, but the details now vary meaningfully, and 2025–2026 brought real changes. A clear trend: states are dropping the transaction-count trigger because it forced tiny-dollar sellers (think 200 sales of a $5 digital download) to register. Per Avalara's tracker, Alaska dropped its 200-transaction threshold effective January 1, 2025; Utah dropped it July 1, 2025; Illinois dropped it January 1, 2026; and Kentucky drops it August 1, 2026 - joining a growing list of 16+ states that are now sales-dollar-only.

Here are the thresholds that matter most for non-resident sellers in 2026:

Source: Sales Tax Institute Economic Nexus State Chart, Avalara state-by-state economic nexus guide, and Wolters Kluwer's threshold guide. Always confirm against the state Department of Revenue before registering - thresholds change every legislative session.

Two practical takeaways:

1. The big three markets - California, Texas, and New York - have high thresholds ($500K). A new or mid-sized seller usually hits the $100K threshold in smaller states long before touching the giants. Counterintuitively, your first registration obligation might be in a state like Florida, Washington, or Georgia, not California.
2. Measurement is per state, per calendar year (current or prior). A founder doing $90K total across the entire US, spread over 30 states, typically has nexus nowhere - because no single state crosses $100K. This is the most common situation for early-stage non-resident sellers, and it means zero sales tax registrations.

Marketplace facilitator laws - your biggest shield

This is the part that saves most non-resident sellers thousands in compliance cost. Every US state with a sales tax now has a marketplace facilitator law. These laws shift the obligation to collect and remit sales tax onto the marketplace - not you - for sales made through that marketplace.

In plain terms: if you sell through Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Walmart, or Shopify (via Shopify's marketplace/Shop functionality), those platforms calculate, collect, and remit the state sales tax for your buyers. They cross their own thresholds (typically $100K per state, as confirmed by Numeral's marketplace facilitator guide and TaxJar) almost everywhere, so collection happens automatically from your very first sale.

What this means by seller type:

• Etsy / eBay / Amazon-only sellers: In the great majority of states, the marketplace handles sales tax end-to-end. You usually do not need to register at all unless a state specifically requires marketplace sellers to hold a permit (a handful do, even when the marketplace remits), or you also have inventory/physical nexus.
• Amazon FBA sellers: Amazon collects and remits the sales tax under marketplace facilitator laws. The wrinkle is physical nexus from inventory - Amazon moves your stock between state warehouses, which can create a registration or income-tax-style filing obligation in some states independent of sales tax collection. Most FBA sellers are well covered on sales tax, but should watch states that require registration for inventory presence.
• Shopify sellers: It depends on the setup. Sales through Shopify's own marketplace surfaces may be covered, but a standard Shopify store using Shopify Payments / Stripe to take card payments on your own domain is treated as a direct sale - that is your responsibility, not a marketplace facilitator scenario. Shopify Tax can calculate and help you remit, but the legal duty is yours.

The line to remember: marketplace = covered; your own checkout = your job.

Direct sales (Stripe) - what you actually owe

If you sell from your own website and collect payment through Stripe, PayPal, or a similar direct processor, no marketplace is stepping in for you. You are the retailer of record. You must:

1. Track your sales by state.
2. Register in any state where you cross the economic nexus threshold.
3. Collect the correct rate from customers in those states.
4. File returns and remit on each state's schedule (monthly, quarterly, or annually depending on volume).

The relief, again, is that you only do this where you have nexus. A SaaS founder doing $150K/year spread across 40 countries and 45 US states - with maybe $20K from any single state - has no US sales tax registration obligation at all. Only when a single state crosses its line does the work begin.

A note on what is even taxable. Two product categories trip up non-resident founders:

• Services are generally not taxed by most US states. A few states tax services broadly (notably Hawaii, New Mexico, South Dakota, and West Virginia, with Connecticut taxing a wide list). If you sell consulting or done-for-you services, you likely owe little to nothing in most states.
• Digital products and SaaS are taxed by roughly half the states, and the list keeps growing. Washington, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Massachusetts are among the stricter states for SaaS and downloadable products. A SaaS business is far more likely to face sales tax than a services business.

Tools to monitor and automate nexus (2026 pricing)

You do not need to track 46 thresholds in a spreadsheet. Automation tools watch your sales feed and flag states as you approach nexus. Note that 2026 brought price changes across the board, so verify current rates before committing.

Source: Stripe Tax pricing and TaxCloud's 2026 TaxJar pricing review. Stripe acquired TaxJar, so the two now overlap - most Stripe-first founders simply enable Stripe Tax rather than running a separate TaxJar subscription. The 0.5% Stripe Tax fee only applies in states where you have actually registered, so before you cross any thresholds the cost is effectively zero.

Common nexus scenarios for non-resident LLCs

• Pre-revenue / early-stage SaaS founder via Stripe: Almost certainly no nexus anywhere. Don't register. Enable Stripe Tax monitoring and revisit when a single state nears $100K.
• Growing SaaS founder ($300K+ US, concentrated): Watch the $100K states first (Florida, Washington, Pennsylvania, Georgia). Register where triggered; let Stripe Tax collect and file.
• Etsy seller: Marketplace facilitator law covers you in essentially every state. Usually zero registrations.
• Amazon FBA seller: Amazon collects sales tax; your real homework is inventory-driven physical nexus in FBA warehouse states.
• Shopify dropshipper on own domain: Treated as direct sales - your responsibility. Use Shopify Tax or Stripe Tax and register where you cross thresholds.

A worked example: tracking nexus as you grow

Numbers make the "register only where triggered" rule concrete. Suppose a non-resident SaaS founder sells through their own Stripe checkout and, in a calendar year, books direct sales into:

• Florida: $130,000 → over the $100,000 threshold → register, collect, remit.
• Washington: $112,000 → over $100,000 → register, collect, remit.
• Texas: $180,000 → under the $500,000 threshold → no obligation yet.
• California: $260,000 → under the $500,000 threshold → no obligation yet.
• 38 other states: $40,000 each or less → none over $100,000 → no obligation anywhere.

Even though total US revenue is well into seven figures, this founder registers in just two states - Florida and Washington - because nexus is measured per state, per year. The counterintuitive result is that a founder can owe sales tax in mid-sized states while owing nothing in the two largest US markets, simply because California and Texas set $500,000 bars. This is why blanket pre-registration is a mistake: every state you register in creates an ongoing filing obligation (often monthly or quarterly) even in months you owe $0, so you only want registrations the data forces on you.

How to actually register in a state

When a single state crosses its threshold, the mechanics are the same whether you are a US resident or a non-resident:

1. Go to that state's Department of Revenue website and apply for a sales tax permit / seller's permit. You will need your LLC's legal name, EIN, formation date, NAICS/business activity code, and an estimate of monthly taxable sales. Most states issue the permit online, often within days.
2. Set the registration's effective date to when you crossed nexus, not an arbitrary date - registering with a backdated nexus date can expose prior uncollected periods, so coordinate the start date deliberately.
3. Enter the registration into Stripe Tax (or TaxJar) so the platform begins collecting the correct state-plus-local rate from buyers in that state.
4. File on the state's assigned schedule - monthly, quarterly, or annually depending on your volume - and remit what you collected. File even in zero-sales periods, because most states require a "zero return" once you hold a permit; missing zero returns still triggers penalties.

A handful of states charge a small permit fee; most are free. None require US residency or a US Social Security Number - your EIN and LLC documents are sufficient.

What happens if you do not register

State revenue departments do enforce, and being a non-resident offers no shield - once you have nexus, you are treated exactly like a US-resident LLC. The exposure when you ignore a triggered obligation:

• Back taxes for the full period you should have been collecting - and because you never collected from customers, this comes out of your own pocket.
• Late-filing and late-payment penalties layered on top.
• Interest accruing from each missed due date.
• Registration assessment and, in aggressive states like California and Texas, audits.

The practical risk for most small non-resident sellers is low because they never cross a threshold. The danger zone is the growing seller who blows past $100K in three or four states and never registers. The fix is cheap: turn on nexus monitoring early and register only when the data tells you to.

The non-resident angle: banking, privacy, and the tax that actually matters

For most non-resident Wyoming LLC owners, sales tax is not your biggest tax obligation - your federal filing is. Don't let 46 states distract you from the one form the IRS will fine you $25,000 for missing.

Federal filing (Form 5472 + pro forma 1120). A single-member US LLC owned by a non-resident is, by default, a disregarded entity treated as a foreign-owned one. Even with zero US tax due, you must file IRS Form 5472 attached to a pro forma Form 1120 every year, reporting transactions between you and your LLC (the "reportable transactions" include capital you contributed and money you withdrew). The penalty for failing to file, or filing late, is $25,000 per the IRS - and it applies even if you owed no tax. This is the single most expensive mistake non-resident owners make, and it has nothing to do with sales tax. wyomingllc.xyz offers Form 5472 + 1120 filing as a $99/year add-on, or you can refer to a CPA.

Income tax vs. sales tax - keep them separate. Sales tax is collected from your customers and passed to the state; it is not a tax on your profit. Your LLC generally owes no US federal income tax unless it has Effectively Connected Income (ECI) from a US trade or business. Crossing a sales tax nexus threshold does not automatically create a federal income tax bill - they are different regimes with different triggers.

Banking for collection and remittance. You will need a US business bank account to fund sales tax remittances cleanly and keep your books auditable. The standard non-resident stack is Mercury, Relay, and Wise. Mercury is the popular default but declines a meaningful share of non-resident applications; Relay is a strong second option; Wise Business has the highest acceptance rate and excellent multi-currency features for moving money in from abroad. wyomingllc.xyz includes direct introductions to all three with formation, plus guidance on what each reviewer looks for.

Privacy. Wyoming does not list LLC members or managers in its public Secretary of State records, and a registered agent address shields your home address. That privacy is unaffected by sales tax registration - when you do register in a state, you disclose business details to that state's revenue department, not to a public member registry.

Step-by-step: how to handle sales tax as a non-resident

1. Form the LLC cleanly first. Wyoming LLC, EIN, registered agent, US bank account. Get the foundation right before worrying about state-level sales tax. ($397 all-in at wyomingllc.xyz, state fee included.)
2. File your federal Form 5472 + 1120 every year. This is non-negotiable and carries the $25,000 penalty. Calendar it.
3. Identify your sales channels. Marketplace (Amazon/Etsy/eBay/Walmart) = mostly covered. Direct (Stripe/PayPal on your own site) = your responsibility.
4. Turn on nexus monitoring from day one. Enable Stripe Tax or TaxJar so you have clean per-state sales data before you ever approach a threshold.
5. Watch the $100K states first. Florida, Washington, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and other standard-threshold states will trigger before California/Texas/New York.
6. Register only when a single state crosses its threshold. Use that state's Department of Revenue portal (or let your tool file). Do not pre-register everywhere - that creates filing obligations you don't need.
7. Collect, file, and remit on schedule in each registered state, and keep records.
8. Reassess each January. Thresholds use current-or-prior-year sales, and legislatures change rules annually.