United States Value added tax
United States Value added tax: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 20 Jul 2026.
National value-added tax or equivalent general consumption tax.
| Current value | no single figure |
|---|---|
| In force from | 1789-03-04 |
| Official source | Absence of federal statute: no provision of the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26, U.S. Code) imposes a value-added tax or a general national sales tax; consumption taxation is reserved to the states under the federal structure. Verified against the Internal Revenue Code subtitle structure published by the U.S. Government Publishing Office. |
| Last verified | 2026-07-20 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
STRUCTURAL NULL - deliberate, not missing data. The United States has NEVER levied a federal VAT or a national retail sales tax, and no such tax exists in 2026. Federal indirect taxation is confined to narrow excise taxes (Subtitle D of the Internal Revenue Code: motor fuel, air transport, tobacco, alcohol, firearms, certain medical devices, etc.), which are commodity-specific and NOT a general consumption tax. General sales and use taxes are imposed by 45 states plus the District of Columbia, and by thousands of counties, municipalities and special districts, producing on the order of 12,000+ distinct taxing jurisdictions with different rates, different taxable bases (groceries, clothing, services and digital goods are treated inconsistently), different sourcing rules and different exemption regimes. Five states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon) levy no state-level general sales tax, though Alaska permits local ones. Any single number here - including a population-weighted 'average combined rate' of roughly 7-8% that commercial data vendors publish - would be a fabricated proxy with no legal existence, so we serve null. Consumers of this field should query state-level tax authorities directly. effective_from is set to the commencement of the federal government under the Constitution because the null condition has held continuously since then.
Get it programmatically
curl https://usaref.dev/v1/us/vat
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://usaref.dev/v1/us/vat/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://usaref.dev/provenance/us/vatOther United States series: Federal funds target range (upper bound) · VAT registration threshold · State general sales tax rate · Federal minimum wage (FLSA) · Federal public holidays 2026 · Consumer Price Index (CPI-U), 12-month change · Federal corporate income tax rate · Withholding tax rates · Federal post-judgment interest rate (28 U.S.C. § 1961) · Federal individual income tax brackets (single filer, tax year 2026) · Statutory social-insurance contributions · Federal Reserve H.10 foreign exchange reference rates
The same figure elsewhere: Canada · Costa Rica · Dominican Republic · El Salvador · Guatemala · all 10