Reverse Sales Tax Calculator - Price Before Tax (2026)

What do you want to do?

Price before tax

State

Local rate (county + city)

Auto-filled with your state's average local rate; enter your city's exact rate for a precise total. Everything runs in your browser and nothing you type is uploaded.

Total price with tax $0.00

Price $0.00
State tax $0.00
Local tax $0.00

Price before tax$0.00

State tax (0%)$0.00

Local tax (0%)$0.00

Total sales tax$0.00

Combined rate0%

Total price$0.00

How reverse sales tax works

A receipt total already includes tax, so you cannot get the tax back by multiplying the total by the rate; the tax was charged on the smaller pre-tax price. Divide instead: pre-tax price = total ÷ (1 + rate). For a $216.40 total at a combined 8.2% rate, $216.40 ÷ 1.082 = $200.00, so the tax was $16.40. Multiplying the total would have claimed $17.74, overstating the tax by $1.34.

Rate	Pre-tax price of a $100 total	Tax inside it
5%	$95.24	$4.76
6%	$94.34	$5.66
7%	$93.46	$6.54
8%	$92.59	$7.41
9%	$91.74	$8.26
10%	$90.91	$9.09

The calculator above is preset to reverse mode: pick your state (and your city's exact local rate if you know it), enter the receipt total, and it splits the pre-tax price from the tax for you. Bookkeepers use this to separate deductible tax from expense amounts; shoppers use it to check a receipt.

How do I calculate sales tax backwards from a total?

Divide the total by 1 plus the tax rate written as a decimal. For a $216.40 receipt at 8.2%, divide by 1.082: the pre-tax price is $200.00 and the tax is $16.40. The calculator above does this for any total, state, and local rate.

Why can't I just multiply the total by the tax rate?

Because tax was charged on the pre-tax price, not on the total. Multiplying $216.40 by 8.2% gives $17.74, which overstates the real $16.40 tax by $1.34. Dividing by 1.082 recovers the true split.

What is the reverse sales tax formula?

Pre-tax price = total divided by (1 + rate as a decimal), and tax = total minus pre-tax price. At 7%, a $107.00 total is $100.00 plus $7.00 tax.