If you want to pay the sticker price and nothing more, five states deliver it: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon. Among the cities with the lowest sales tax in the US, Anchorage, Wilmington, Portland (Oregon), Manchester, and Billings all sit at a combined 0%. Once you leave those five states, the floor rises quickly: Honolulu at about 4.5%, then Wyoming, Maine, and most of Wisconsin near 5.5%. The national population-weighted average is 7.53%.1Tax Foundation. State and Local Sales Tax Rates, 2026
The Zero-Tax Cities
Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska
Alaska has no state sales tax, but its constitution lets cities and boroughs levy their own, and more than a hundred do.2Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development. Alaska Sales Tax Information Local rates run as high as 7.85% in Homer and 7% in Kodiak. Anchorage and Fairbanks are the notable exceptions. Both hold a 0% general sales tax. Anchorage does collect targeted taxes on hotel rooms, rental cars, tobacco, and marijuana, but nothing hits ordinary retail purchases.3Municipality of Anchorage. Program Taxes and Surcharge In Alaska, the city matters enormously: shopping in Anchorage is tax-free; shopping 350 miles south in Kodiak adds 7%.
Wilmington, Delaware
Delaware prohibits sales tax statewide, so Wilmington and every other city in the state carry a flat 0% with no local add-ons.4Wilmington, DE. Excellent Tax Climate and Business Support That clean zero pulls shoppers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where combined rates frequently top 6%. Delaware funds services through a gross receipts tax on businesses instead, running from about 0.1% to 2% depending on activity.5Delaware Division of Revenue. Gross Receipts Tax FAQs That cost falls on the business, though some of it inevitably shows up in retail prices.
Portland, Oregon
Oregon has no general sales or use tax at the state level, and no local government in the state imposes one.6Oregon Department of Revenue. Sales Tax in Oregon Oregon voters have repeatedly defeated ballot measures to introduce a sales tax over the past several decades. The state leans on its income tax instead, one of the highest in the country. At the register, the price tag is the price you pay.
Manchester, New Hampshire
New Hampshire imposes no general sales tax on goods purchased in the state.7New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration. Does New Hampshire Have a Sales Tax Manchester sits close enough to the Massachusetts border that cross-border shopping is a genuine economic force. Massachusetts residents regularly drive north for big-ticket purchases to avoid their home state’s 6.25% rate. New Hampshire compensates with relatively high property taxes and meals-and-rooms taxes, but everyday retail is untouched.
Billings, Montana
Montana has no statewide sales tax and does not authorize general local sales taxes.1Tax Foundation. State and Local Sales Tax Rates, 2026 Billings carries a 0% combined rate. One wrinkle: a handful of Montana resort towns like Whitefish, Big Sky, and West Yellowstone impose a resort tax of up to 3% on restaurants, hotels, and bars.8Sales Tax Institute. Montana Sales Tax Billings is not a designated resort community, so it avoids even that narrow levy.
The Next Tier: Cities Under 6%
Honolulu, Hawaii — About 4.5%
Hawaii does not technically have a sales tax. Businesses pay a general excise tax (GET) on gross receipts, which most pass on to customers as a line item that looks and feels like a sales tax.9State of Hawaii, Department of Taxation. Tax Facts 37-1 – General Excise Tax In Honolulu, the combined GET is 4.5% (a 4% state rate plus a 0.5% county surcharge), but the maximum pass-on rate consumers actually see on receipts is 4.712%. That gap exists because the GET applies to the tax itself when passed through.10Department of Taxation. County Surcharge on General Excise and Use Tax Under 5% for a major metro is unusually low. The trade-off is that the GET hits nearly all business activity, including services and wholesale transactions a conventional sales tax would skip.
Cheyenne, Casper, and Other Wyoming Cities — About 5% to 6%
Wyoming’s combined state and local average sits at about 5.56%, making it one of the lowest-tax states that actually charges sales tax.1Tax Foundation. State and Local Sales Tax Rates, 2026 The state base is 4%, and counties may add on top. Cheyenne and Casper land in the 5% to 6% range depending on county and local options. Wyoming makes up the revenue difference through severance taxes on its oil, gas, and coal industries.
Portland, Bangor, and Other Maine Cities — 5.5%
Maine imposes a flat 5.5% statewide rate with no local add-ons, so every city charges the same combined rate. Note the distinction from Portland, Oregon, which has no sales tax at all. Portland, Maine sits at 5.5%.
Wisconsin Cities Outside Milwaukee — 5.5%
Wisconsin’s base state sales tax is 5%, and 70 of its 72 counties add a 0.5% county tax, producing a standard combined rate of 5.5% in most of the state. Madison and Green Bay fall in that range.11Wisconsin Department of Revenue. Tax Rates Milwaukee is the exception. Since January 2024, the city has stacked a 2% city tax and a 0.9% county tax on top of the 5% state rate, pushing the combined rate to 7.9%.12Wisconsin Department of Revenue. City of Milwaukee Sales and Use Taxes If low sales tax is your priority in Wisconsin, look outside Milwaukee.
How These Cities Actually Pay Their Bills
No city gets a free pass on revenue. Every zero-sales-tax jurisdiction replaces that money with something else, and understanding the substitute matters if you’re deciding where to live or shop.
Delaware charges businesses a gross receipts tax on total revenue, with rates from about 0.1% to 2% depending on the activity.5Delaware Division of Revenue. Gross Receipts Tax FAQs There are no deductions for cost of goods, labor, or any other expense. Businesses absorb that cost or fold it into prices, so consumers may still pay indirectly even though nothing appears on the receipt.
Oregon relies on one of the highest state income tax rates in the country, with a top marginal rate over 9%. New Hampshire has no income tax on wages but charges some of the highest property tax rates per capita nationally. Alaska avoids both a statewide sales tax and an income tax by taxing oil and gas production heavily, a model that only works because of the state’s outsize natural resource base. Montana similarly leans on natural resource taxes and a state income tax.
The practical question is which structure hits you hardest. A retiree making large purchases but drawing limited taxable income saves real money in Portland, Oregon. A high earner who rarely buys expensive retail goods might pay more in Oregon income tax than a different state’s sales tax would ever cost. There’s no universally cheapest option, only the cheapest for your situation.
What About Online Purchases?
Living in a zero-sales-tax city used to mean you could buy almost anything tax-free, including online purchases. The 2018 Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair changed the rules for sellers.13Supreme Court of the United States. South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. States can now require any remote seller to collect tax once it crosses an economic nexus threshold, typically $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions within the state. Nearly every state with a sales tax has enacted these thresholds.
If you live in Anchorage or Wilmington, this doesn’t affect you: your state still has no sales tax to collect. If you live in a low-tax city inside a state that does levy sales tax, online retailers are now collecting that tax whether or not they have a warehouse nearby. Marketplace platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy add another layer, since most states require the platform itself to collect and remit tax on behalf of third-party sellers.
The Cross-Border Catch: Use Tax
If you drive from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, buy a laptop tax-free, and bring it home, Massachusetts technically expects you to pay use tax on that purchase. Use tax exists in virtually every state with a sales tax and applies to items purchased elsewhere for use in your home state. The rate matches your home state’s sales tax rate.
Enforcement against individual consumers has historically been minimal. Revenue departments lack the resources to audit weekend shopping trips. Many states now include a use tax line on their income tax returns, which makes compliance easier and ignorance harder to claim. For large purchases like vehicles and boats, use tax is more aggressively enforced because those items require title registration in your home state, creating a paper trail.
So shopping in a no-tax city genuinely saves money on everyday purchases you consume on the spot. For big-ticket items you’ll register or use long-term at home, the savings may be illusory once use tax obligations enter the picture.
Why the Headline Rate Isn’t the Whole Comparison
The combined rate is a starting point. What you actually spend money on matters as much as the percentage. A 6% rate that exempts groceries and clothing may cost you less annually than a 5% rate that taxes everything.
Most states exempt unprepared groceries from sales tax. As of 2026, only about eight to ten states still tax groceries at any rate, and several apply a reduced rate. Arkansas dropped its state-level grocery tax effective January 2026. Nearly every state exempts prescription drugs, with Illinois taxing them at a reduced rate rather than exempting them outright. A handful of states exempt everyday clothing, sometimes with a per-item price cap: New York under $110, Massachusetts under $175, and Minnesota and New Jersey with no cap for most general-use clothing.
Watch for recent changes, too. Milwaukee’s combined rate jumped from 5.5% to 7.9% in 2024 after the city and county added new taxes.12Wisconsin Department of Revenue. City of Milwaukee Sales and Use Taxes Rate increases in other cities often take effect at the start of a calendar year with little fanfare. Checking your state revenue department’s website for the current rate at your specific address is the only reliable way to know what you’ll actually pay.