Streamlined Sales Tax (SST)

Which states are in, and which are not

The Governing Board’s state information page lists 23 full member states: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Tennessee is the only associate member.

The membership levels mean different things. A full member is a state “found to be in compliance” with the agreement, with the laws to comply already in effect. An associate member “has achieved substantial compliance with the terms of the Agreement, but not necessarily with each provision.” The Board also defines a contingent member, a compliant state whose changes take effect within twelve months, though none is listed today.

Every other sales tax state is a non-member, and the list is long: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia among them. The Board is plain about what that means for registration: sellers “do not have an option to register in these states through the SSTRS at this time.” A seller with nexus in California and Ohio registers with Ohio through the SSTRS if it wants, and with California directly either way.

Membership doesn’t make the states tax the same things. Stripe’s US tax guide puts it this way: “individual states can still decide which products and services are taxable in their state.” A SaaS subscription can be taxable in one member state and exempt in the next.

One registration through the SSTRS

The SSTRS is a registration front end, not a tax account. The Board says what it gives you: “A permit or license to collect and remit sales and use tax in the states you select.” You fill in one application, choose the states, and the system sends your details to each one. Each state then opens its own sales tax account, and the Board says most send registration and reporting information within 15 business days. You get a Streamlined Sales Tax ID (SSTID), a nine-character number starting with S, though most states issue their own account number for filing.

Five details decide how it works in practice. It’s free: “There is no fee to register through the SSTRS,” though a state may charge a fee if you are legally required to register there. It’s optional: only sellers that want the agreement’s benefits, such as a CSP, have to use it, and any seller can register directly with each state instead.

You pick the start date once. The registration date can be up to the first day of a calendar month no more than 60 days ahead, and the Board’s FAQ says “you cannot change the Registration Date.” If you won’t be ready, end that state’s registration and register again later. Foreign sellers can use it: a seller with no FEIN, no ITIN and no US address registers by choosing “Other” for the ID type. And it doesn’t clear the past. Except where a state offers amnesty (the Board names only Tennessee at present), registering “does not eliminate any prior tax liability if you were legally required to be registered.”

The Board reports 36,132 active registrations as of 30 September 2026, and says 28.6% of them contract with a CSP.

The trap: registering everywhere

The SSTRS makes it as easy to register in 24 states as in one, and that is the mistake to avoid. The Board says “If you register through the Streamlined Registration system you will be registered in each Streamlined State you select and will be required to collect and remit sales tax in each of those states.” Its filing guidance adds: “States will expect you to file returns each reporting period even if you have no tax to report.”

Registering in a state where you have no nexus and no sales still creates a filing calendar there. Every one of those states then expects a nil return each period until you end the registration, and ending it doesn’t erase the periods in between: the Board’s example is a seller registered on 2 February and ended on 10 March, which still owes a February and a March return.

The Board’s own checklist starts with the right question: “Do you have a requirement to register to collect and remit sales tax in a state?” Answer that first, state by state, using each state’s economic nexus rules, and register only where you need to. Stripe Tax’s threshold monitoring can show you where your sales are approaching a state’s threshold, which is a better starting point than the SSTRS’s “all states” box.

Certified service providers, and when they are free

A certified service provider is, in the Board’s words, “an agent certified under the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement to perform all the seller’s sales and use tax functions, other than the seller’s obligation to remit tax on its own purchases.” The Board’s current list of CSPs offering free services is Avalara, TaxCloud, Sovos, AccurateTax and Avior.

A CSP’s package covers integrating its certified calculation system with yours, calculating the tax at the time of sale, preparing and filing the returns, remitting the tax, and handling notices and audits. Each member state “has certified the accuracy of the software and will provide liability relief for incorrect tax calculation based on that certification.” The CSP files a Simplified Electronic Return (SER) for each state each month, and you make one payment to the CSP, which pays each state.

The states pay the CSP for a seller that qualifies as a “CSP-compensated seller” in that state. To qualify, you register through the SSTRS, contract with a CSP, and, during the 12 months before registering in that state, meet five conditions: no fixed place of business there for more than 30 days, less than $50,000 of property there, less than $50,000 of payroll there, less than 25% of your total property or payroll there, and no history of collecting there as a condition of being a supplier to the state. The Board adds the line most remote sellers need: “A remote seller that is only required to report and remit sales tax in a state because it meets the economic nexus threshold of that state qualifies for free CSP services in that state.”

The free part has edges. A CSP may charge in states where you aren’t CSP-compensated, in states you didn’t register in through the SSTRS, in non-member states, for services beyond the contract, and for processing non-taxable transactions above 30% of the total in a state.

Stripe Tax, a CSP, and the QuickBooks liability

Stripe’s registration guide says you “need to identify each state, province, and country where you have tax obligations and register with each of them,” then add each registration to Stripe Tax. An SSTRS application covering six member states is six registrations in Stripe, each with its own start date. Match each Stripe start date to the registration date you chose in the SSTRS, since that is the date the state expects you to start collecting. Stripe’s simplified registration feature is no shortcut here: Stripe says it “isn’t applicable for registrations in the United States.”

A CSP and Stripe Tax overlap. The free CSP package is built around the CSP’s own certified calculation system, and the liability relief the states give is tied to that certified calculation. If you calculate with Stripe Tax and want a CSP only for filing, ask the CSP how it handles that before you contract, because it changes both what the states are paying for and what relief you get.

On the QuickBooks side, the agreement changes the payment pattern more than the bookkeeping. Without a CSP, each state’s return is filed and paid separately, on that state’s calendar. The agreement sets a floor here: due dates can’t be earlier than the 20th of the month after the period. With a CSP, the member-state tax goes out as one monthly payment to the CSP. Either way, the sales tax you collected through Stripe sits in a liability account until it is paid, and each payment, to a state or to the CSP, reduces that liability. Keep a per-state split from Stripe’s tax reports so you can match the CSP’s remittances to what each state should receive.