Economic Nexus Thresholds by State: A Foreign Seller's Framework (2026)

TL;DR

Most states set economic nexus at $100,000 of sales into that one state per year — measured per state, not on your total revenue. California and Texas sit at $500,000; New York at $500,000 and more than 100 sales. The 200-transaction test that many articles still cite is being repealed state by state. And none of these dollar figures matter if you store inventory in a state — physical presence creates nexus on its own. Treat numbers as a framework, not a compliance table: verify the current rule for any state before you act.

Where “economic nexus” comes from

Before 2018 a state generally could not make you collect its sales tax unless you had a physical presence there. That changed with South Dakota v. Wayfair (2018), in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the old physical-presence rule and held that a state may require collection based on economic activity alone.

The South Dakota law the Court upheld set the template most states copied: collect if you deliver more than $100,000 of goods into the state or complete 200 or more separate transactions there. That single sentence is the origin of nearly every threshold below. For the broader picture of what this means for a non-resident with a US LLC, see our pillar guide on US sales tax for foreign sellers.

The standard: $100,000 a year in most states

The $100,000 annual figure is by far the most common threshold, adopted by roughly forty states according to the Streamlined Sales Tax remote seller guidance. If you are trying to hold one number in your head, it is this one.

Two things about it trip people up:

• It is per state. $100,000 means $100,000 delivered into that state, not $100,000 in total sales. A seller doing $2 million worldwide can be under the threshold in every single state.
• “Sales” often means gross sales. Many states count all sales into the state — including exempt and wholesale sales — so the figure you measure can exceed your taxable base.

The higher-threshold outliers: California, Texas, New York

Three large states break from the $100,000 standard, and they happen to be three of the biggest markets in the country. As of 2026 (verify the current rule before relying on it):

• California — $500,000. Register and collect once combined sales of tangible personal property delivered into California exceed $500,000 during the preceding or current calendar year, per the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.
• Texas — $500,000. A remote seller is inside the safe harbor until total Texas revenue exceeds $500,000 in the preceding twelve calendar months, per the Texas Comptroller.
• New York — $500,000 and more than 100 sales. New York requires both conditions — more than $500,000 in gross receipts and more than 100 sales into the state — measured over the preceding four sales tax quarters, per the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Because it is an “AND” test, a low-price, high-volume seller can clear 100 sales easily yet stay below nexus until receipts also pass $500,000.

The vanishing 200-transaction test

The 200-transaction prong is quietly disappearing. When Wayfair came down, most states copied South Dakota’s “sales OR 200 transactions” structure. In practice that trapped small, low-priced sellers: 200 orders at $15 is $3,000 of sales, nowhere near $100,000, yet it triggered full registration and filing.

States have been repealing it. Per Avalara’s running list, a growing group — including California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming — has dropped the transaction count and now looks only at the dollar figure, with Illinois’s removal effective January 1, 2026. The trend continued through 2026, with Kentucky dropping its transaction count effective August 1, 2026.

The trend is one direction — toward dollars only — but it is not universal yet. Some states still keep a transaction count as an “either/or” alternative, so check the specific state rather than assuming it is gone everywhere.

The tiered table (the only table worth trusting)

A precise fifty-row threshold table looks authoritative and is wrong within months — legislatures change these figures every session. A tiered view is more honest and durable:

*Alaska has no statewide tax but permits local sales tax — see below. Every figure is “as of 2026, verify the current state rule.”

The NOMAD states: five places with no statewide sales tax

Five states levy no statewide sales tax at all — remembered by the acronym NOMAD: New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Alaska, Delaware (Avalara overview).

For a foreign seller, four of them — New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Delaware — are simply off the board: no statewide registration, no threshold to measure against. Alaska is the exception. It has no statewide tax, but local jurisdictions can impose their own sales tax through a shared remote-seller system. So Alaska is “no statewide tax,” not “no tax.”

Physical nexus overrides all of this

Every threshold above is about economic nexus. Physical nexus is a separate, older basis — and it never went away. If you have a physical presence in a state, you can have an obligation there regardless of the dollar figures.

For foreign sellers the usual trigger is inventory. Amazon stores and moves FBA stock across fulfillment centers without asking you, and inventory sitting in a state is a physical presence in that state. A seller with $40,000 of sales into a state — far below $100,000 — still has nexus there if goods are stored in a warehouse in that state. That is why an FBA footprint is analyzed differently from a pure Shopify one; we cover the mechanics in Amazon FBA and sales tax nexus. On your own storefront, where you are the merchant of record, the same physical-presence rule applies to any inventory you hold — see Shopify sales tax for foreign sellers.

Registration is prospective, so timing matters

Registering fixes the future, not the past. When you cross a threshold, your obligation to collect begins going forward — states give you a short window (New York, for example, sets 30 days to register). Registering later does not erase liability for tax you should have collected in the gap between crossing the threshold and registering.

The practical consequence: track sales by state from month one. Nexus is a running measurement you cannot reconstruct cleanly after the fact.

An honest limitation

Multi-state sales tax registration and filing is a specialist discipline — its own software, its own state-by-state registrations, its own recurring returns. It is not an add-on to a federal tax engagement, and any firm that prices it as one has not priced it properly.

What a federal-focused practice can do is tell you which questions are actually yours: whether you have crossed a threshold anywhere, whether inventory has created physical nexus, and whether the sales tax question is even your most urgent one (for most foreign-owned LLCs, the federal Form 5472 question comes first). Where genuine multi-state registration is needed, our sales tax registration and returns service handles the nexus review and the state registrations, priced per state so you pay only where you actually have an obligation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I sell into 30 states but only about $20,000 into each. Do I have nexus anywhere? A: On economic nexus, probably not — each state is measured on its own, and $20,000 is well under the $100,000 standard. Confirm no single state is near its threshold, and check separately whether you store inventory anywhere, because that creates nexus regardless of the dollar amount.

Q: Does my total US revenue count toward each state’s threshold? A: No. Thresholds are measured on sales delivered into that one state, not your nationwide or worldwide total. This is the single most common misunderstanding, and it usually cuts in the seller’s favor.

Q: A state’s threshold is “$100,000 or 200 transactions” — which applies to me? A: Where both still exist, you cross when you hit either one, whichever comes first — which is why the count mattered for low-price sellers. Many states have now repealed it, so verify whether it still applies in that specific state.

Q: Do the $500,000 states measure the same way? A: The dollar figure is the same but the clock differs — California uses the preceding or current calendar year, Texas the preceding twelve months, New York the preceding four sales tax quarters. Measurement period varies a lot, so read each state’s own rule.

Q: I formed a Wyoming LLC — does that change my thresholds? A: No. Where you formed the LLC has no effect on sales tax nexus, which follows your customers and your inventory, not your certificate of formation.

Next Steps

Most foreign sellers who worry about sales tax nexus turn out to be under every threshold with no inventory in the US — meaning the honest answer is “nothing to register yet, just keep measuring.” A far smaller group has genuinely crossed somewhere, or has FBA inventory scattered across states, and needs a real registration plan. The only way to know which you are is to look at your sales by state and your inventory placement — both quick to check now, expensive to reconstruct later.

Sources

• South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., No. 17-494 (U.S. Supreme Court, 2018) — slip opinion (accessed 2026-09)
• Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board — Remote Seller State Guidance (accessed 2026-09)
• California Department of Tax and Fee Administration — Wayfair / use tax collection requirements (accessed 2026-09)
• Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts — Remote Sellers (accessed 2026-09)
• New York State Department of Taxation and Finance — Registration requirement for businesses with no physical presence (accessed 2026-09)
• Avalara — States eliminating economic nexus transaction thresholds (accessed 2026-09)
• Avalara — Kentucky removes transaction threshold effective August 1, 2026 (accessed 2026-09)
• Avalara — States with no sales tax (NOMAD) (accessed 2026-09)

This article is general information, not tax advice. State sales tax rules vary and change frequently — confirm the current rule for any state before acting.