Collecting where you owe it.
Since the Wayfair decision, your sales alone can trigger a sales-tax obligation in a state where you have no office and no employee. We monitor your sales by state, flag when you cross a nexus threshold, and register you for a permit before penalties start, so you collect where you are supposed to and nowhere you are not.
Your sales grew into a tax you didn't sign up for.
You never opened an office in California or hired anyone in New York. But you sold enough into those states that, under the rules set by the Supreme Court's Wayfair decision, you now owe sales tax there anyway. It is called economic nexus, and it is easy to cross without noticing, because it is measured in sales, not in buildings. Registering for a permit is how you get right with a state your growth quietly reached.
So where do you owe it now? Here's your record.
Add a permit where you crossed. Watch the rest.
Sales tax is state by state. Your record shows where you are already collecting, where you just crossed a threshold and need to register, and where you are close but not there yet.
Two ways a state pulls you in: physical presence, an office, a warehouse, or an employee, registers you immediately regardless of sales. Economic nexus registers you once your sales cross a threshold, commonly around 100,000 dollars in sales or 200 transactions a year, though several large states set theirs near 500,000 dollars. Register where you have crossed, not everywhere you make a sale, and keep an eye on the states you are approaching. That is exactly what we monitor.
The thresholds vary by state. Here's how they trigger.
What crosses the line, and what happens if you wait.
Nexus is not a judgment call once you know the rules. Here is what registers you, and what a state does when you owe tax you never collected.
- You have physical presence there: an office, a warehouse, or inventory.
- You have an employee or a contractor working in the state.
- Your sales cross the economic threshold, often near 100,000 dollars or 200 transactions.
- A marketplace stops collecting on your behalf and the duty shifts to you.
- Assess the uncollected tax back to the date you crossed, out of your own pocket.
- Add penalties and interest on top of the tax you never charged.
- Flag the gap in a sale or a funding round, where buyers price it as a liability.
- Escalate to audit once your sales into the state become visible.
The costly part is the lag: tax you should have collected from customers, but did not, comes out of the business later. Registering on time keeps it on the customer, where it belongs.
You know where you owe. Here's how we register you.
Monitored, flagged, and registered.
You connect your sales. We watch every state's threshold and register you the moment you cross, before a penalty clock can start.
Share your sales by state
Tell us where and how much you sell. We map your footprint against every state's nexus rules to see where you already stand.
Watch every threshold
We track your sales against the physical and economic nexus rules in all 51 jurisdictions and flag a state the moment you are about to cross it.
The state sales-tax permit
We file the state's sales-tax registration and get your permit, so you can start collecting the tax from customers rather than absorbing it later.
Filing deadlines tracked
Each new permit brings its own return schedule. We add it to your compliance calendar so a registration never becomes a missed filing.
No lurking liability
Registered where you owe and only where you owe, your sales-tax position is clean the next time a buyer or investor looks under the hood.
Register the states you crossed, or keep every threshold watched.
Register now, or never miss a threshold again.
The permits you need now
- Nexus review across every state
- Sales-tax permit filed where you have crossed
- Specialist review before submission
- Return schedule added to your calendar
Registered as you grow
- Everything in the registration
- Sales monitored against every state's threshold
- Auto-registration when you cross a new state
- Foreign-qualification review as nexus grows
State registration fees vary by jurisdiction and are passed through at cost. See what registration costs →
Registered and collecting. Here's the clean position on the record.
Collecting the tax from the people who owe it.
With permits in each state where you have nexus, you charge sales tax to customers instead of absorbing it later, and your returns are on the calendar. The states you are approaching stay monitored, so the next crossing is caught before it becomes a bill. It is the difference between a growing footprint and a growing liability.
Northbay Goods, LLC
Sales-tax permits registered in each state where economic or physical nexus was crossed.
Ivy's e-commerce brand had quiet exposure.
She had been selling nationwide for two years and had crossed nexus in six states without registering. A buyer's diligence would have priced that as a liability. We registered every state, set up the returns, and put monitoring on the rest. By the time the offer came, her sales-tax position was clean.
What sales-tax nexus often comes with.
Foreign Qualification
Presence that triggers sales tax often means you must register to operate there too.
Learn more →Business Licenses
New states can mean new local and industry licenses alongside the tax permit.
Learn more →Compliance Calendar
Every permit adds a return schedule. Keep them all in one place.
Learn more →Annual Reports
Operating in more states adds report obligations too. Bundle them together.
Learn more →Tax position clean. Here's the whole road it sits on.
A business is never static. Your record shouldn't be either.
Sales, states, licenses, names: your obligations grow as the business does. Every change lives on one platform, so keeping the government's copy of your business accurate is one system, not a scramble across agencies.
Form it, grow it, and register where your sales reach, all inside File.Business. One platform keeping every government record accurate for the whole life of the company.
The questions sellers ask about where they owe.
What is sales-tax nexus?
Nexus is the connection to a state that requires you to register for, collect, and remit its sales tax. It comes in two forms: physical nexus, from an office, warehouse, inventory, or employee in the state, and economic nexus, from selling enough into the state. Since the Supreme Court's Wayfair decision, economic nexus applies even with no physical presence, which is why sellers cross it without realizing.
What are the thresholds?
They vary by state. A common threshold is around 100,000 dollars in sales or 200 transactions in a year, while several large states set theirs closer to 500,000 dollars, and some count only sales rather than transactions. Physical presence, an employee or a warehouse, registers you immediately regardless of volume. We track your sales against each state's specific rule so you know exactly where you stand.
What happens if I do not register?
The obligation does not go away; it accrues. A state can assess the tax you should have collected back to the date you crossed nexus, plus penalties and interest, and because you never charged customers, it comes out of the business. It also surfaces as a liability in a sale or funding round. Registering on time keeps the tax on the customer, where it belongs, rather than on you later.
Do I have to register in every state?
No, only where you have nexus. Registering everywhere creates filing obligations you do not owe, and registering nowhere leaves exposure. The right answer is to register in each state where you have crossed a physical or economic threshold, and monitor the ones you are approaching. We map your footprint so you register where you owe and only where you owe.
Does a marketplace like Amazon handle it for me?
Partly. Marketplace facilitator laws require platforms like Amazon to collect and remit tax on sales made through them, which covers those sales. But your direct sales, through your own site or other channels, are still yours to handle, and they count toward nexus. We look at your full sales picture, not just the marketplace portion, so nothing is missed.
What comes after registering?
Each permit brings a return you have to file on the state's schedule, monthly, quarterly, or annually depending on volume. We add every return to your compliance calendar so a registration does not turn into a missed filing, and a nexus crossing often signals you should also review foreign qualification and local licenses in that state.
Can File.Business handle it all?
Yes: we review your sales against every state's nexus rules, register you for a permit where you have crossed, add the return schedule to your calendar, and monitor the states you are approaching so the next crossing is caught automatically. The result is a sales-tax position that is correct where you owe and clean everywhere a buyer or auditor might look.