Pulling the report takes about two minutes. Reading it correctly — and trusting the number before you hand money to a state — takes a little more. This guide walks the exact clicks, then shows you how to reconcile the figure so you don't over- or under-remit.
This is general information, not tax advice. Rules change and vary by situation — consult a licensed CPA or tax professional before acting.
Where the sales tax report lives in Shopify
Shopify keeps tax data under Analytics > Reports. From your admin, click Analytics, then Reports, then search "sales tax" in the report list.
Two reports do most of the work, and which one you use depends on your setup, per Shopify's own tax report documentation:
- United States sales tax report — the best starting point for US stores using Shopify Tax with USD as the store currency. It breaks tax down at the state, county, and jurisdiction level, which is exactly how most states want returns filed.
- Total sales by order report — a fallback that works on any plan. It exports gross sales, net sales, taxes, returns, and shipping per order, so you can still isolate tax collected even without Shopify Tax turned on.
If your store currency isn't USD or you sell into Canada, Shopify surfaces a separate Canada sales tax report on the same screen.
The two views inside the US report
Once the United States sales tax report opens, Shopify gives you two drill-downs:
- Jurisdiction view — tax grouped by each state, county, city, or special district and its rate. This is the view you copy figures from when you file a state return.
- Detailed transactions view — line-item detail for every tax line on every order. Use this when a number looks off and you need to trace it back to specific orders.
How to pull and export the report, step by step
Here's the full sequence:
- In your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports.
- Open United States sales tax report (or Total sales by order if the first isn't available).
- Set the date range to match your filing period exactly — the specific month, quarter, or calendar year the state asked for. A mismatched range is the most common reason a filed number won't tie out.
- Switch to the Jurisdiction view to see tax owed per state and county.
- Click Export (top right), choose CSV, and wait for Shopify to generate the file — larger stores take a minute.
- Open the CSV in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets, and match each jurisdiction line to the corresponding box on your state return.
That CSV is your working paper. Keep it — if a state ever audits, the detailed transactions export is the evidence trail behind every dollar you remitted.
What the report does — and does not — tell you
Here is the trap that catches new sellers: Shopify calculates and collects sales tax, but it does not register you, file your returns, or remit the money. Those steps stay entirely on you as the seller of record. Money the report shows as "tax collected" isn't yours — you're holding it on the state's behalf until you send it in.
Shopify only runs this correctly once you've told it where you have nexus. Nexus is the connection that obligates you to collect a state's tax. It can be physical (your home state, an employee, or inventory a print-on-demand supplier stores in a state) or economic — created by sales volume alone. The economic threshold that triggers most often is $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions into a state in a year, following the 2018 South Dakota v. Wayfair decision, though several states have dropped the transaction count and some set a higher dollar bar. Always check the specific state's Department of Revenue rather than assuming one universal number. If you sell mostly into one big state, our note on the California sales tax collection limit walks through what that looks like in practice.
If the report shows zero tax where you expected some, the cause is almost always a nexus setting you never switched on — we cover that failure mode in why Shopify isn't charging sales tax.
Reconcile before you file: a worked example
The report gives you a tax number, but the profit picture underneath it matters just as much — and the two are easy to confuse. Sales tax collected is never revenue, and the payout that hits your bank is never the same as either one.
Say your store runs a quarter like this:
- Gross sales: 300 orders × $32 = $9,600
- Sales tax collected on top: $9,600 × 8% average rate = $768
- Refunds issued: 9 orders × $32 = $288
The United States sales tax report should show roughly $768 collected before refunds, minus the tax portion of those nine refunds. Your job at filing time is to prove the report ties out:
Tax collected − tax refunded = tax to remit
Now the part the report won't warn you about. When you refund that $288 of orders, the original payment processing fee — commonly around 2.9% plus 30¢ per online transaction — generally isn't returned to you. So nine refunds cost you roughly 9 × (($32 × 2.9%) + $0.30) = 9 × $1.23 = $11.07 in fees on sales you kept nothing from. A single chargeback stings more: Shopify Payments charges a $15 dispute fee in the US, refunded only if you win.
The takeaway: the tax report is clean, but your actual margin sits below it, hidden in fees and refunds the tax export never shows. To see where those costs land in a full profit and loss statement, our ecommerce P&L guide lays out the whole structure line by line.
Why the tax report and your income taxes are two different jobs
Pulling the sales tax report handles one obligation. It does nothing for income tax, and sellers routinely conflate the two.
At year-end, your payment processor may send a 1099-K. The current federal threshold reverted under recent law: a processor issues a 1099-K only when gross payments exceed $20,000 and transactions exceed 200 — both must be met, per the IRS. But not receiving the form doesn't make income tax-free — you owe tax on profit either way. If you do get one, our guide to getting your 1099 from Shopify explains where to find it.
The cleaner your books, the faster all of this goes. When your sales, fees, refunds, and tax are already categorized, the tax report becomes a confirmation step instead of a scavenger hunt. If you're starting from scratch, setting up ecommerce bookkeeping the right way is the highest-leverage hour you'll spend.
Where PodVector fits
PodVector connects your Shopify, Meta Ads, Google Ads, Printify, Printful, and Stripe accounts and computes your true per-order profit — the number that survives after product cost, processing fees, refunds, and ad spend, not the gross line the tax report shows. It isn't a dashboard you have to read; Victor, an AI operator, analyzes your live data and proposes Shopify-side moves you approve. Victor does not touch your ad account — he reads ad data and suggests, you decide.
That means when you pull a sales tax report, you already know which orders actually made money and which were eaten alive by fees the export hides. See your real per-order profit with PodVector.
FAQs
Where exactly is the sales tax report in Shopify?
Go to Analytics > Reports in your admin and search "sales tax." Open the United States sales tax report for state, county, and jurisdiction detail, or Total sales by order if the dedicated tax report isn't available on your plan or currency, as described in Shopify's tax report help docs.
Can I export the Shopify sales tax report to a spreadsheet?
Yes. Open the report, set your date range, and click Export in the top right. Choose CSV and Shopify generates a downloadable file you can open in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. For large stores it can take a minute to build.
Does the report tell me how much tax to send to each state?
The jurisdiction view groups tax collected by state, county, and district, which maps closely to how returns are filed. But the report only shows what you collected — you still register, file, and remit yourself. Reconcile collected minus refunded tax before you send payment.
Why does my tax report show zero when I made sales?
Usually because nexus for that state was never enabled, so Shopify never calculated tax to collect. Shopify only charges tax in states you've configured. Check your tax settings against where you actually have physical or economic nexus.
Is sales tax the same as the 1099-K number?
No. Sales tax is money you collect from buyers and pass to states. A 1099-K reports your gross payment volume to the IRS for income tax purposes, and only issues above $20,000 and 200 transactions federally, per the IRS. They are entirely separate obligations.
How often should I pull the report?
Match your filing frequency. States assign you monthly, quarterly, or annual filing based on volume, so pull the report for that exact period each time. Set the date range to the precise window the state requests to avoid numbers that won't reconcile.