Short answer: Amazon collects and remits sales tax on your Amazon sales in every state that has one. That is real and it removes most of the work. It does not remove three things: state registration where your inventory sits, the returns some states still expect from you, and everything you sell outside Amazon. And FBA inventory in the United States raises a separate and larger federal question that has nothing to do with sales tax.
This sits under the US LLC guide for Amazon FBA sellers.
What marketplace facilitator laws actually did
Before 2018, an FBA seller with inventory spread across a dozen fulfilment centres faced a genuinely awful problem: nexus in every one of those states, with registration, collection and filing in each.
Marketplace facilitator laws moved that burden to the marketplace. As of 2026 all 45 states with a general sales tax, plus the District of Columbia, have them. Amazon calculates the correct rate, collects it from the buyer and remits it to the state. You do not touch the money and you are not the party remitting it.
For a seller whose entire business runs through Amazon, this genuinely resolves most of the historic problem. It is worth saying plainly, because a lot of content on this topic is still written to sell software that solves a problem that has substantially shrunk.
The three things it did not resolve
1. Registration, in some states
The facilitator laws shifted collection. They did not uniformly shift registration.
FBA inventory stored in a state creates physical nexus in that state. Physical nexus is not a volume threshold you can stay under; it exists because your goods are there. And you do not choose the states: Amazon distributes inventory across its network according to its own logistics, which means your nexus footprint is decided by someone else’s algorithm.
What each state does with that varies. Some explicitly relieve a marketplace-only seller from registering. Others require registration once nexus exists, and then expect periodic returns that report zero taxable sales, because the tax was already remitted by Amazon. Those zero-dollar returns are not optional in the states that require them, and failing to file them accrues penalties on a liability of nothing, which is a particularly annoying way to owe money.
There is no national rule here. The work is: get your inventory placement report, list the states, and check each one.
2. Everything you sell off Amazon
Marketplace facilitator laws cover sales made through the marketplace. Your own Shopify store, your own checkout, wholesale orders, sales through your own site: none of that is covered.
For those channels you are the seller of record. You determine where you have nexus, whether through physical presence or by crossing a state’s economic nexus threshold, and you register, collect and remit yourself.
A seller running both Amazon and a direct channel has two different sales tax positions inside one business, and the direct channel is the one that behaves like the pre-2018 world.
3. The federal question, which is bigger
This is the one that costs real money, and it is not a sales tax question at all.
Owning inventory stored in the United States, combined with operational presence, is one of the fact patterns that can make you engaged in a trade or business in the United States. If it does, the resulting income is effectively connected income, taxable at federal graduated rates, reported on a personal Form 1040-NR.
For a founder selling services remotely, the ETBUS answer is usually comfortable. For an FBA seller with stock in US warehouses, it is not automatic and it is not safe to assume the services answer transfers. The ETBUS test sets out the factors, and the tax guide covers what follows if the answer is yes.
We flag this specifically because the sequence we see is consistent: a seller researches sales tax, finds out Amazon handles it, concludes US tax is dealt with, and never asks the federal question at all.
What has not changed at all
Form 5472. Your foreign-owned single-member LLC files it annually with a pro-forma 1120, regardless of activity, sales tax position or profitability. $25,000 penalty. The guide is here.
State income tax is a separate axis. Sales tax nexus and income tax nexus are different tests in most states, and having one does not automatically mean the other.
Your home country. The profits of a disregarded LLC land on you where you are tax resident. No part of the US sales tax regime changes that.
A working checklist
- Pull your inventory placement report. That is your physical nexus map, and it is not stable: it changes as Amazon redistributes stock.
- Check registration for each state on the list. Marketplace-only relief exists in some, not in all.
- Separate your channels. Amazon sales and direct sales are different regimes. Do not manage them as one number.
- File the zero-dollar returns where a state requires them. They are cheap to file and expensive to skip.
- Ask the ETBUS question separately, with someone who understands it, before it is a back-year problem rather than a current-year decision.
- File the 5472 regardless of everything above.
Where this needs a person
Sales tax for a marketplace-only seller in 2026 is mostly a registration and record-keeping exercise, and it is legitimately less frightening than the internet suggests.
The federal position of an FBA seller with US inventory is not, and it is the question we spend actual time on with product sellers. If your business holds stock in the United States and nobody has yet worked through what that means for your federal tax position, that is what our assessment is for.
Frequently asked questions
Does Amazon collect sales tax for me?
On sales made through the Amazon marketplace, yes. All 45 states with a general sales tax, plus the District of Columbia, have marketplace facilitator laws, and Amazon calculates, collects and remits under them. What those laws do not do is transfer every obligation: registration requirements, information returns and anything you sell off Amazon remain yours to handle.
Do I still have to register for a sales tax permit?
It depends on the state, and the answer genuinely varies. Some states explicitly relieve marketplace-only sellers of registration. Others require registration once you have physical nexus, which FBA inventory creates, and then expect periodic returns reporting zero taxable sales because the marketplace already remitted. There is no single national answer, which is why this needs checking state by state against where your inventory actually sits.
Does FBA inventory create nexus even if I never set foot in the US?
Yes. Physical nexus follows the goods, not the person. If Amazon stores your inventory in a fulfilment centre in a state, that inventory can establish nexus in that state regardless of your own location, your sales volume there, or your nationality. You do not control which centres Amazon uses, which is one of the structurally awkward things about the programme.
Is sales tax the same as US income tax?
No, and conflating them is the most common error we see. Sales tax is a state-level transaction tax collected from the buyer. US federal income tax on your profits is a separate question decided by whether you are engaged in a trade or business in the United States. They are governed by different rules, different authorities and different filings, and it is entirely possible to owe one and not the other.
Does holding FBA inventory in the US affect my federal tax position?
It can, and this is the part FBA sellers most often miss. Own inventory stored in the United States combined with operational presence is one of the fact patterns that can create ETBUS and therefore effectively connected income, which is taxable federally and reported on a personal Form 1040-NR. This is a real question for FBA sellers rather than a theoretical one, and it deserves specific advice rather than the remote-services answer.
What about my Shopify or direct sales?
Entirely yours. Marketplace facilitator laws apply to sales made through the marketplace. Anything you sell on your own store, through your own checkout, is outside them: you determine where you have nexus, register, collect and remit yourself. A seller running both channels has two completely different sales tax situations under one business.