How to register for SST, step by step

You register by filling out one free application in the states’ shared registration system: pick the member states you want sales tax accounts in, say how you plan to file, and set the date each state should expect you to start collecting. Each state then issues your account. Plan on about half an hour, plus a couple of weeks of waiting.

One thing to settle before anything else. If you intend to use a certified provider, stop and call them first, because they do this for you. More on that in step one, and it’s the single most common thing people get out of order.

Have this ready before you open the form

Nothing is saved while you work. Close the tab and you start over, so collect all of it first.

• Your entity type and your FEIN
• Legal business name, any DBA, business phone, and state of incorporation
• Your business address and the mailing address you want states to send notices to
• A contact name, phone, and an email address you will still control in two years, because every state confirmation goes there
• Your list of states, with a note of anywhere you are already registered
• A start date for each state, which is the one thing on this list you can’t change later

If your business has no US address and no FEIN, the form has a path for that and assigns you a number when you submit.

The steps

1. If you want a provider, call the provider instead of filling this in. Using one is optional, and you can absolutely do this yourself. But the registration system is blunt about the order: “Do Not complete this registration if you plan to use a Certified Service Provider (CSP). The CSP can register your business with us.” Registering yourself first isn’t a disaster, it just means you file your own returns until their service starts. Worth doing the reading before you pick: what a certified provider actually does and what they cost.

2. Pick your states on purpose. You can take all 24 member states or just some, and add more later. Twenty-three are full members and Tennessee is an associate member, which matters here because a few things work differently there. Every box you tick creates a real filing obligation in that state from your start date, whether or not you sell anything there. Tick where you already have to collect, or where you have decided to collect on purpose. Don’t tick all of them because it’s one click.

3. Say how you plan to file. The form asks which of four arrangements you are using. In practice almost everyone is one of two: a provider handles your sales tax for you, or you handle it yourself. The other two cover using certified calculation software while still filing your own returns, and a large in-house system that meets a high bar set by the states. Pick the one that describes your actual setup. If a provider is doing it, they set this.

4. Set the start date for each state, and get it right. This is the decision with no undo. It’s the date that state will expect you to have started collecting, it can be different in each state, and you can set it up to about 60 days ahead. Once you submit, the only fix is to end that state’s registration and start again, which is a bad trade. If you’re already registered in a state, use today’s date.

5. Submit, then wait. You get a nine character ID starting with S, and a confirmation email. Each state then sends its own registration and reporting information, usually inside about 15 business days. A few states ask follow up questions, most commonly about corporate officers, and most issue their own account number that you actually file under.

6. Start collecting on your date, and file on each state’s schedule. No returns go through the registration system. It registers you and stops there. With a provider, they file in each member state on your behalf. Without one, you file with each state directly, on the frequency in the letter it sends you.

What catches people out

Four things, in rough order of how much they cost when they go wrong.

The start date is permanent. See step four. It’s the only field on the form that can’t be corrected.

Empty periods still need a return. The states’ position is that returns “must be filed even if you have no sales in that state.” Some states will let you file only as needed instead, and nobody publishes a list of which ones. Assume every period needs a return until that state’s letter says otherwise, and put the filing dates in a calendar the day the letters arrive.

Registering doesn’t settle what you already owed. It’s forward looking. If you’ve been selling into a state for two years without collecting, registering doesn’t make that go away. Tennessee is currently the only member state offering amnesty for the prior period, on conditions. Read what amnesty covers before you register anywhere you have history, and talk to your accountant, because this is the part where the order of operations genuinely matters.

Three changes mean re-registering, not editing. You can log back in any time to change your DBA, addresses, or contacts, and to add or end individual states. But a new FEIN, moving from a social security number to a FEIN, or changing your entity type all mean ending the registration and doing it again. Worth knowing before you incorporate.

Does registration come free with a provider?

Often, but don’t assume it. The states fund six specific services when they pay a certified provider on your behalf: setting up and integrating the software, calculating the tax, preparing and filing returns, remitting the money, answering notices and audits, and protecting your data. Registration is not on that list. A provider that includes it is making its own commercial decision, which is fine, it’s just not something the program guarantees.

The providers’ own listings on the states’ site say different things about this, and the differences are real. Two spell it out: Avalara lists free registrations in participating states, and TaxCloud lists sales tax registration for remote sellers as part of its free SST services. Avior lists state registration without calling it free. AccurateTax, Exactor, and Sovos don’t mention registration either way, which isn’t the same as excluding it. So ask. Checked August 28, 2026, and these change without notice.

So ask three questions of whoever you are considering: is registration included, what does it cost in the states that are not in the program, and who answers when a state comes back with a question. How to choose among the six works through the rest.

What this page cannot tell you

Whether you are actually required to register in a given state. That depends on your sales, your inventory, and your people in that state, and it’s a question for your accountant and for the state, not for a guide. The states’ own advice, repeated on nearly every page they publish, is to contact them directly.

Two smaller gaps worth naming. The 15 day timing figure appears three slightly different ways across the states’ own pages, so treat it as approximate rather than a commitment, and don’t build a launch date on it. And no public source lists which states allow casual filing, which is why the advice above is to assume the stricter answer.

If you haven’t decided whether to do this at all, back up to what the program is and whether it suits your business. If you’ve registered and want to know what you’re on the hook for now, that is your ongoing obligations.