What is the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) program?
The Streamlined Sales Tax program is a 24-state cooperative that lets remote sellers handle all compliance in member states — registration, calculation, filing, and remittance — at no cost through a Certified Service Provider. States fund the cost directly from collected revenue. The one trade-off is mandatory monthly filing in all enrolled states, regardless of sales volume. TaxCloud is a CSP; Avalara and TaxJar are not.
The Streamlined Sales Tax program is a multi-state cooperative that simplifies sales tax compliance for remote sellers, and if you sell into any of its 24 member states, you may be able to have all of your compliance in those states handled for free.
What the program actually does
Before the SST program, every state ran its own tax system independently, its own definitions, its own rates, its own filing rules, its own registration process. For a seller operating in 20 states, that meant 20 entirely different compliance relationships.
The SST program was created by states to fix this. Member states agreed to a set of common standards: uniform definitions, simplified rate structures, and a shared registration system. In exchange, they agreed to pay the cost of compliance for remote sellers who enroll through a certified provider.
The result: if you’re a remote seller in SST states, the states absorb your compliance cost entirely. You register once, your provider handles calculation, filing, and remittance in all your SST states, and you pay nothing.
The 24 SST member states
| State | State | State | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arkansas | Indiana | Nebraska | South Dakota |
| Georgia | Iowa | Nevada | Tennessee |
| — | Kansas | New Jersey | Utah |
| — | Kentucky | North Carolina | Vermont |
| — | Michigan | North Dakota | Washington |
| — | Minnesota | Ohio | West Virginia |
| — | — | Oklahoma | Wisconsin |
| — | — | Rhode Island | Wyoming |
These 24 states represent a significant share of the mid-market ecommerce seller’s nexus footprint. States like Washington, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Tennessee are among the most common economic nexus crossings for brands selling nationally.
How it works for remote sellers
A “remote seller” for SST purposes means you don’t have physical nexus in the state, no employees, no warehouse, no office, no trade show activity. You’re selling into the state purely by economic activity (crossing the sales threshold).
When you enroll in the SST program through a Certified Service Provider:
- Registration is handled through a single unified form that covers all 24 SST states where you have nexus, instead of applying to each state separately
- Rate calculation is handled by your CSP at the point of sale
- Return preparation is handled by your CSP each month
- Filing and remittance is handled by your CSP directly with each state
- Your cost: nothing
The state compensates the CSP directly out of tax revenue collected. The seller is not billed for any of it.
Why states fund this
States created the SST program because the cost of pursuing billions of dollars in uncollected ecommerce sales tax from sellers who weren’t complying was unsustainable. Rather than chase every seller individually, they agreed to make compliance free and easy in exchange for enrollment.
The model works: states get reliable revenue collection from sellers who would otherwise be non-compliant, and sellers get free compliance infrastructure in exchange for enrolling and filing monthly.
The one trade-off: monthly filing
SST states require monthly filing for all enrolled sellers, regardless of sales volume. If you’d otherwise qualify for quarterly or annual filing in some of those states (which is common for smaller transaction volumes), SST enrollment means you file monthly in all of them.
For most mid-market sellers, this is a non-issue: the operational overhead of monthly filing lands on the CSP, not on you. But it’s worth knowing before you enroll.
What SST doesn’t cover
The SST program applies only to remote sales into SST member states. It does not cover:
- The 26 non-SST states: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Colorado, and others. These states require separate compliance through standard filings, and your provider charges for them normally.
- States where you have physical nexus: if you have an employee, warehouse, or other physical presence in an SST member state, the CSP compensation model doesn’t apply to your filings in that state in the same way.
- Retroactive compliance: SST enrollment covers going-forward compliance. If you have uncollected tax liability from prior periods, that requires a separate resolution (a VDA or direct registration).
How to enroll
You enroll through a Certified Service Provider. The CSP submits your registration to the SST Governing Board, which covers all member states where you have nexus in a single application. Your CSP then handles all ongoing compliance in those states.
Not every sales tax software company is a CSP. Avalara and TaxJar are not CSPs, they provide SST-related features but charge you for them. TaxCloud is a Certified Service Provider, which is why SST-state compliance through TaxCloud is free for remote sellers.
Related: What is a Certified Service Provider (CSP) and why does it matter? | Why won’t Avalara and TaxJar tell me about SST benefits?
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