Should you enroll
Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) amnesty: what it covers and what it does not
Simplify Sales Tax. Last updated 2026-09-01. Sources last verified 2026-08-20.
Streamlined Sales Tax amnesty is a member state’s agreement not to assess uncollected sales or use tax, interest, or penalty on sales you made into that state before you registered there. Tennessee is the only state offering it at this time. It carries three conditions, one of which runs for 36 months across every full member state you sell into, and it excludes five categories of liability outright.
Order matters more here than anywhere else on this site. Amnesty attaches to the act of registering, so settle the amnesty question with your accountant before you register rather than after. On this page that is the actual advice, not a disclaimer.
What does SST amnesty cover?
Three heads of liability, one window: uncollected or unpaid tax, interest, and penalty, on sales into that state during the period you were unregistered there. Nothing earlier, nothing later, and only in a state that offers it.
Whether you had nexus there is beside the point. The Governing Board’s amnesty terms say so, and the clause closing the sentence is part of it: “The amnesty will be granted regardless of ‘nexus’ of the seller if all other requirements are met.” Whether the requirements are met is the state’s determination, made on facts you hand it.
The five exclusions: where amnesty stops
The Board lists five situations it excludes. Two of the five get restated wrong in published summaries, so those two sit here in the Board’s own words.
Table: the five situations Streamlined Sales Tax amnesty does not cover, and what triggers each one. Checked August 21, 2026.
| What amnesty does not reach | What triggers the exclusion |
|---|---|
| Tax you already paid, remitted, or collected | You collected it. Amnesty is for tax you never collected |
| Taxes other than sales and use tax | The tax type itself |
| Tax you owe as a purchaser | Use tax on what your own business bought in that state |
| A registration you held in that state | Being registered there in the twelve months before the state joined the Agreement |
| An audit already noticed and still live | A notice of audit, until it is fully resolved, appeals included |
- Tax you already paid, remitted, or collected. Amnesty is for tax you never collected, so tax you collected and held stays owed.
- Taxes other than sales and use tax. Any other tax you owe on those sales sits outside the relief.
- Tax you owe as a purchaser. Use tax on what your own business bought there stays with you.
- A registration you held in that state in the twelve months before it joined the Agreement. Excluded “If the seller was registered in the state during the 12 months prior to the effective date of the state’s participation in the SSUTA.” A different twelve months from the registration window further down, running in the opposite direction.
- An audit already noticed and still live. Excluded “If the seller has received notice of an audit by the member state and the audit is not yet fully resolved, including any related administrative and judicial processes.” An assessment sitting in appeal is still live on that test.
Exclusions 4 and 5 turn on facts already on the record: your registration history in that state, and whether a notice has been issued. Exclusions 1 and 3 mark the boundary the rest sits inside, because amnesty covers tax you never collected.
One further condition lives in the Agreement rather than on the Board’s summary page. The relief holds absent the seller’s fraud or intentional misrepresentation of a material fact, and only while you keep the registration and keep collecting and remitting for at least 36 months. The Agreement text, as amended through May 20, 2025 carries both.
What you have to do to get it, and for how long
Three conditions. Register through the states’ shared registration system. Collect and remit the applicable sales or use taxes on sales into all full member states where you make sales. Then stay registered and keep collecting and remitting for at least 36 months.
The second condition gets understated, because it reaches past the state offering amnesty and runs to sales into all 23 full member states. Clearing prior exposure in one state can mean a registration, a collection obligation, and a filing calendar in every full member state you sell into, for three years. Two published exceptions narrow it: wholesale-only sales in a state that exempts wholesalers from registering, and sales made only through a marketplace facilitator in a state that exempts you from registering yourself.
The 36 months are a continuing condition, not a waiting period. End the registration early and the amnesty goes with it. Price it as three years of collection, filing, and remittance across the full member states you sell into. Nothing in the published terms rewards deciding quickly. What those years involve, and what a provider change does to them, is your ongoing obligations after registering for SST.
Get the order right, because registering can spend the relief
Registration looks forward. Outside a state offering amnesty, registering leaves prior liability where it was, which the states put plainly on their own registration FAQ. Your registration date starts collection and draws no line under what came before it. So, in order:
- Map where you have history, state by state. Before you open a registration form, and before a provider opens one for you.
- Settle the amnesty question with your accountant. A registration submitted while you are still deciding is a registration made without the relief.
- Then set your dates and register. How to register through the SSTRS has the mechanics.
- Then hold the 36 months. The tradeoffs and risks of registering sets out what the registration itself commits you to.
Why only Tennessee, and why that can change
The Agreement ties amnesty to each state’s own participation date: it precludes assessment for the unregistered period provided registration occurs within twelve months of the date that state’s participation took effect. The offer was never open ended, and for the 23 full member states those windows ran from their own join dates.
Tennessee is where two published facts sit oddly together. It has been an associate member since October 1, 2005, and the Board publishes it as offering amnesty under the Agreement today. A twelve month window measured from 2005 and a program described as live now point in different directions. Ask the Tennessee Department of Revenue before you rely on either reading.
Treat that as a status rather than a fixture. The Board maintains it state by state, which is why its sentence is time bound and why this page carries the same qualifier. Last checked August 20, 2026.
Tennessee’s amnesty and Tennessee’s free CSP services are two separate questions
Tennessee is the subject of both, and neither answers the other. The amnesty offer is published, with terms, and those terms are above. Whether free Certified Service Provider (CSP) services reach Tennessee is unresolved: it is the program’s only associate member, and no public source we could find settles whether the states’ funding of providers applies there on the terms that hold in the 23 full member states. See Tennessee’s associate member status and what the SST program is and where it stops.
What this page cannot tell you
The Governing Board publishes the terms of amnesty. What it publishes nothing about is how a state administers them, and that gap is where your real questions live. Three things go wrong here, all of them operational.
- You can spend the relief by registering. A registration submitted before you have decided is one made without amnesty, and the only remedy the states offer is ending it and starting again.
- The commitment is wider than the state you want relief in. It reaches all 23 full member states you sell into, and the 36 months run from your registration date.
- Qualifying is the state’s determination, on facts you supply. Nothing here tells you whether you qualify in Tennessee, how its Department of Revenue reads those five exclusions in practice, or whether amnesty beats the routes you would weigh with your own advisers.
Nothing on this page is legal or tax advice.