Guides / Florida sales tax
Florida sales tax registration.
Florida taxes sales of tangible personal property and a specific list of services, at 6 percent plus a county surtax. The rules that catch businesses out are rarely about the rate. They are about who has to register, which county’s surtax applies to a given sale, and a filing calendar where the return is due on the first and late after the twentieth.
Registration
Who has to register
Physical presence in Florida
A business with a location, employees, inventory, or other physical presence in Florida that sells taxable goods or services registers before making its first taxable sale, using the Florida Business Tax Application. The same application covers reemployment tax and several other registrations, so it is usually filed once for everything.
Remote sellers cross an economic threshold
Out-of-state sellers with more than $100,000 in taxable remote sales into Florida during the previous calendar year must register and collect, without any physical presence. The threshold is measured on prior-year sales, so it is checked annually rather than watched in real time.
Marketplaces collect for their sellers
Where sales run through a marketplace that meets the threshold, the marketplace collects and remits the tax on those sales. A seller with both marketplace and direct sales still registers for the direct ones, and the marketplace sales are reported differently.
The surtax follows the county of delivery
Each county sets a discretionary sales surtax on top of the state rate. Broward County adds 1 percent, so most taxable sales delivered in Plantation, Fort Lauderdale, and the rest of the county run at 7 percent. For deliveries elsewhere in Florida the destination county’s rate applies, and for tangible personal property the surtax applies only to the first $5,000 of a single sale.
Use tax fills the gap
A Florida business that buys taxable items without paying sales tax, from an out-of-state vendor or by improperly using a resale certificate, owes use tax on them. Use tax on purchases and on items taken from inventory for business use is a routine audit finding.
Filing and compliance
Living with the registration
The deadline is earlier than it looks
Returns and payments are due on the first day of the month following the reporting period and are late after the twentieth. Electronic payments have their own initiation deadlines that fall earlier still, so treating the twentieth as the deadline is how businesses become accidentally late.
Filing frequency depends on tax collected
The Department of Revenue assigns monthly, quarterly, semiannual, or annual filing based on the amount of tax collected, and reviews it periodically. A growing business will be moved to more frequent filing, and the change arrives by notice rather than by request.
There is a small allowance for filing on time
Businesses that file and pay electronically and on time may keep a collection allowance of 2.5 percent of the first $1,200 of tax due, capped at $30 per return. It is modest, but it is forfeited entirely by a single late filing.
Late penalties are steep
The penalty for a late return is 10 percent of the amount due per month, up to 50 percent, with a minimum penalty that applies even where no tax is owed. A zero-tax period still needs a return.
Resale and exemption certificates have to be current
Sales made without tax require documentation on file at the time of sale. Annual resale certificates and exemption certificates must be valid and verifiable, and an auditor disallowing exempt sales for missing paperwork assesses the tax against the seller, not the buyer.
Commercial rent has changed
Florida long imposed sales tax on commercial real property leases at a state rate separate from the general rate, and that rate was reduced repeatedly before being eliminated. If you are working from older guidance or a lease drafted years ago, confirm the current treatment with the Department of Revenue rather than relying on what the lease assumes.
This page is general information about how the rules work, not tax or legal advice for a specific situation. Facts change outcomes. Talk with the firm before acting on anything here.
Questions
Common questions
Do I need to register if I only sell services?
It depends on the service. Florida taxes specified services, including commercial cleaning, nonresidential pest control, detective and protection services, and certain others, rather than services generally. Most professional services are not taxable. The list is specific and worth checking against what you actually sell.
What rate do I charge for a delivery to another county?
The state rate plus the destination county’s discretionary surtax. Rates vary across Florida, so a business shipping statewide needs rate lookup by destination rather than a single configured rate.
I sell online from outside Florida. Am I caught?
If your taxable remote sales into Florida exceeded $100,000 in the previous calendar year, yes. If your sales go through a marketplace that collects, those sales are handled by the marketplace, but direct sales still count toward your own position.
What if I have been selling without registering?
Register and bring the periods current. Florida assesses tax, penalty, and interest on unregistered periods, and the tax is owed by the seller whether or not it was collected from customers. Voluntary disclosure is available in appropriate cases and generally produces a materially better result than being found.
Do I still file when I had no sales?
Yes. A zero return is required for every assigned period, and failing to file it triggers the minimum penalty even though no tax was due.
Set it up once, properly.
We handle registration, set the filing frequency, configure the rates including the county surtax, and make sure the exemption documentation is in place before the first audit asks for it.