DEV Community: Ishwar Sirvi

Free public REST API for US sales tax rates by ZIP code

Ishwar Sirvi — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 12:30:37 +0000

I built and open-sourced a free public REST API for US sales tax lookups by ZIP code as part of ReceiptEdit — a free browser-based receipt generator.

Why

Every receipt-recreation tool I have seen makes users manually enter the tax rate. That is the single biggest reason rebuilt receipts fail an audit — a Manhattan restaurant tax rate is 8.875 percent, a Brooklyn one is different, a Queens one is different again. Manual entry gets it wrong at scale.

The endpoint

GET https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax?zip=94103

Returns the current 2026 combined state + county + city rate:

{
  "zip": "94103",
  "state": "CA",
  "county": "San Francisco",
  "city": "San Francisco",
  "combined_rate": 0.08625,
  "state_rate": 0.06,
  "county_rate": 0.0025,
  "district_rate": 0.02375
}

No auth

No API key required. No account. No rate limit for reasonable use. Just a GET.

Iframe-embeddable widget

For sites that want to embed a live calculator instead of calling the JSON API:

<iframe src="https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california" width="400" height="300"></iframe>

Docs

Full endpoint documentation at receiptedit.com/developers. The underlying data updates when states publish new rate schedules — currently on the 2026 baseline.

What I use it for

The receipt generator uses it internally so every recreated receipt has a state-accurate tax line. If you are building anything similar — expense tools, freelancer bookkeeping, e-commerce checkout that needs a state rate lookup — feel free to use the API directly.

Hotel folio receipt template — 2026 formats with occupancy tax breakdown
Restaurant receipt template — with server tip line
Full template library

MIT-friendly. Feedback welcome.Notes from open-sourcing https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026 — the 2026 US sales tax dataset that powers https://receiptedit.com/sales-tax and the free public API at https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax.

Real MIT license or dont bother. Awesome-list maintainers reject licenses with mandatory backlink clauses (correctly). Attribution appreciated, never required.
Curated datasets get pickup that scraped data does not. Provenance matters.
Shipping the same data three ways (raw files, REST API, iframe embed) captures three audiences. Different consumers pick the format that fits their stack.
Cross-posting on 5 curated data lists produces more real traffic than 50 low-quality directories. Quality of the placement dominates.
The dataset opened up B2B conversations the marketing site never did. Developers building tax-adjacent tools email you.

All the artifacts:

Dataset: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026
API: https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax
Embed: https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california
Docs: https://receiptedit.com/developers
Product it funds: https://receiptedit.com

Free receipt maker for freelancers: 500+ brand templates, no signup, PDF export

Ishwar Sirvi — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:49:24 +0000

For freelancers who need to regenerate a lost receipt for reimbursement, FSA/HSA, or client expense reports: https://receiptedit.com does it free, no signup, in about 30 seconds.

500+ brand templates covering major retailers (https://receiptedit.com/templates), fast food, rideshare (Uber, Lyft), hotels, gas, pharmacies. Instant PDF or PNG.

Built-in 50-state sales tax calculator: https://receiptedit.com/sales-tax — auto-fills based on state + city.

The underlying tax dataset is open MIT on GitHub: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026 with a free public API at https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax. Developer docs: https://receiptedit.com/developers.

Good tool for the freelancer-tools stack.

Free public data: 2026 US lodging tax rates for all 50 states (JSON + CSV)

Ishwar Sirvi — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:45:48 +0000

For travel-tech, hotel-booking, or expense-report builders: we published the 2026 US hotel/lodging tax breakdown as a free open dataset next to our sales-tax data.

Repo: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026 (see us-lodging-taxes-2026.csv)

For each state: name of the state-level lodging tax (Transient Occupancy Tax, TOT, tourism assessment, occupancy tax…) and its percentage.

API hooks lodging_taxes directly into every state response: https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax/california — check the lodging_taxes array.

Why this matters: Total hotel cost = room rate × (1 + state_sales_tax + sum(state_lodging_taxes) + city_lodging_taxes). Without the state-level lodging piece you underquote by 3-8% depending on the state. Florida has the largest state-level lodging burden.

Embeddable calculator: https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california — the widget shows both sales tax AND lodging taxes.

Docs: https://receiptedit.com/developers
Product: https://receiptedit.com

MIT license. Free public API. Attribution appreciated.

US state sales tax data as an npm-free iframe embed (2026 dataset)

Ishwar Sirvi — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:40:33 +0000

Free open dataset + free API + free embed widget for 2026 US state sales tax rates. All from ReceiptEdit.

GitHub: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026 (MIT)
REST API: https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax
Embed: https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california
Docs: https://receiptedit.com/developers
50-state directory: https://receiptedit.com/sales-tax
Product (free receipt generator): https://receiptedit.com

Dataset has all 50 states + DC. Statewide rate, average combined rate (state+local), grocery taxation rule, lodging taxes, and top 5 cities per state. ~29 KB JSON, ~6 KB CSV.

API is CORS-enabled, no auth, cached for 24 hours. The iframe embed drops a fully-styled calculator on any page — bloggers on Medium/WordPress/Substack can paste one line and get a live calculator.

MIT license. Attribution appreciated, not required.

Announcing: 2026 US state sales tax as a free MIT-licensed dataset

Ishwar Sirvi — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:32:36 +0000

Short one: we published the full 2026 US state sales tax breakdown as an MIT-licensed dataset on GitHub.

GitHub repo: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026

Live API: https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax

Schema per state: state_sales_tax_pct, avg_combined_sales_tax_pct, grocery_taxed (true/false/reduced), lodging_taxes[], top_cities, nickname.

5 states have 0% statewide sales tax: AK, DE, MT, NH, OR. LA and TN tie at ~9.55% average combined. 26 states fully exempt groceries. FL has the highest state-level lodging-tax burden.

MIT license — attribution not required, appreciated. If you use it publicly, Data by ReceiptEdit is nice.

All links:

Dataset https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026
API https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax
Per-state pages https://receiptedit.com/sales-tax
Embed widget https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california
Docs https://receiptedit.com/developers
Product https://receiptedit.com

Why we ship our sales tax calculator as an iframe embed (and not an npm package)

Ishwar Sirvi — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:26:35 +0000

We open-sourced ReceiptEdit's 2026 US sales tax dataset and shipped it three ways: a public REST API at receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax, downloadable CSV/JSON on GitHub, and an iframe-embeddable calculator widget.

Here is why the iframe embed matters as much as the API.

Different consumer, same data

API: a developer building a tool. They handle rendering, error states, styling.
Iframe: a content marketer, blogger, or founder who wants a live calculator on their page in 10 seconds. Zero JS to install. Zero styling to fight.

Same source dataset, two audiences.

The one-liner

<iframe
  src="https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california"
  width="380" height="540"
  style="border:0;max-width:100%"
  loading="lazy">
</iframe>

Swap california for any state slug. That is the whole integration.

Why not an npm package?

Blogger on Medium/WordPress/Substack cannot npm install.
Every dependency bump is a break window I own.
CSP-strict sites reject third-party JS wholesale.

An iframe hard-isolates my styles from theirs (no cascade fights, no CSP violations, no JS runtime clashes). Same-origin cookies stay separate. My update pushes to their page automatically with zero action on their side.

The tradeoff

Iframes cannot share the parent page's design system. You get my calculator style, not your brand style. For most publishers that is a fine tradeoff for the install-simplicity.

Who uses it

Small business bloggers, freelancer expense guides, and tax-prep articles. If you write about state taxes, embed the widget so your reader gets the number without leaving your page.

Try it

Embed URL: https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california
API: https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax
Dataset: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026
All 50 state pages: https://receiptedit.com/sales-tax
Product: https://receiptedit.com

6 design choices that got developers to actually adopt our free public REST API

Ishwar Sirvi — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:20:53 +0000

Publishing an open dataset on GitHub is easy. Getting developers to use it is a different problem. Here is what I learned shipping ReceiptEdit's 2026 US sales tax dataset as a free REST API.

1. No auth. No sign-up. Ever.

Every API-key ceremony is a step where trial users bounce. The dataset is public. https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax/california — that is the entire contract.

2. Match the data shape to how it will actually be consumed

90% of consumers ask "What's the sales tax for X state?" So the top-level endpoint is /api/sales-tax/:state — one state per response. When someone needs all 50 for analysis, the CSV/JSON files sit next to the API at github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026.

3. CORS on. Cache long.

Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Cache-Control: public, max-age=86400, s-maxage=604800

4. Ship an embed alongside the API

<iframe src="https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california" width="380" height="540" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Bloggers on Medium/WordPress cannot install an npm package. They can paste an iframe.

5. License permissively

Real MIT. Attribution appreciated, never required.

Try it

API: https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax
Source: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026
Embed: https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california
Docs: https://receiptedit.com/developers
Product: https://receiptedit.com

Happy to talk API-design tradeoffs in comments.

Building an embeddable calculator widget from a REST API: how ReceiptEdit ships sales tax as an iframe

Ishwar Sirvi — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 11:51:52 +0000

Continuing the open sales-tax dataset thread — the useful trick I did not think would matter as much as it did: shipping the data as an embeddable iframe widget, not just a REST API.

The API alone is at receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax — clean JSON, no auth, CORS. But an API needs a developer to consume it. A widget just needs someone to paste an iframe:

<iframe
  src="https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california"
  width="380" height="540"
  style="border:0;max-width:100%"
  loading="lazy"
  title="California Sales Tax Calculator">
</iframe>

Swap california for any state slug in our 50-state directory and you get the exact same calculator, live, on their page.

Why an iframe wins over a JS SDK

Zero JS on their side. No npm install, no webpack, no CSP conflicts. Blogs on Medium, WordPress, Ghost all accept iframes.
Style isolation. Their CSS cannot break my calculator; my CSS cannot break their page. Same-origin cookies stay separate.
Instant updates. When 2027 rates change I re-render the embed on my server; every embedder gets the new data with zero action.
Server-side render. First byte is HTML; renders before their JS even starts. No layout shift.

The endpoint shape

GET /api/sales-tax/:state
→ { state, code, state_sales_tax_pct, avg_combined_sales_tax_pct, grocery_taxed, lodging_taxes[...] }

GET /api/embed/sales-tax/:state
→ text/html with calculator + inline styles + a small vanilla-JS calc handler

Both endpoints hit the same underlying dataset: github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026 (MIT, ~29 KB JSON for all 50 states).

What I would do differently

Add a ?theme=dark and ?anchor=<affiliate-id> query. And ship a per-city variant, not just per-state.

Try it

API: https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax
Embed: https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california
Source: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026
Product: https://receiptedit.com

Happy to answer questions on the widget architecture — it is genuinely simpler than it looks.

I open-sourced 2026 US state sales tax data — free API, MIT licensed

Ishwar Sirvi — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:51:50 +0000

Every year I end up re-Googling "what's California's sales tax this year" or "is grocery taxed in Texas" and landing on a fragmented mix of state revenue PDFs, outdated Wikipedia tables, and SaaS calculators behind signup walls.

So I compiled all 50 states for 2026 into one clean dataset and put it on GitHub under MIT license: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026

It's also live as a free REST API (no auth, CORS enabled) at: https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax

What's in it

Per state:

Statewide sales tax rate
Average combined state + local rate
Lodging taxes (TOT, occupancy, tourism assessment)
Grocery taxation rule (true, false, or "reduced")
Top 5 cities
Official nickname

Total: ~29 KB of JSON or ~6 KB of CSV for all 50 states.

Three ways to consume it

1. REST API (free, no auth)

const res = await fetch('https://receiptedit.com/api/sales-tax/california');
const data = await res.json();
console.log(`${data.state}: ${data.state_sales_tax_pct}% state`);

CORS is enabled. Cache responses for 24+ hours since the data changes once a year.

2. Direct file download

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026/main/us-sales-tax-2026.csv
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026/main/us-sales-tax-2026.json

3. Embeddable calculator widget

<iframe src="https://receiptedit.com/api/embed/sales-tax/california" width="380" height="540" style="border:0;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="California Sales Tax Calculator"></iframe>

Swap california for any state slug.

A few things that surprised me compiling this

5 states have zero statewide sales tax: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon
Louisiana and Tennessee are tied at the top: ~9.55% average combined rate
26 states fully exempt groceries from state sales tax
Florida has the highest lodging tax burden at the state level

License + use

MIT. Free for any use, commercial or personal. No attribution required.

The repo: https://github.com/receiptedit/us-sales-tax-2026

About

I maintain ReceiptEdit, a free receipt generator with 500+ brand templates and built-in US state sales tax calculators. The dataset above is what powers the calculators on the site — open-sourcing the underlying data felt obvious.

Use it however helps you ship.

DEV Community: Ishwar Sirvi

Free public REST API for US sales tax rates by ZIP code

Why

The endpoint

No auth

Iframe-embeddable widget

Docs

What I use it for

Related

Free receipt maker for freelancers: 500+ brand templates, no signup, PDF export

Free public data: 2026 US lodging tax rates for all 50 states (JSON + CSV)

US state sales tax data as an npm-free iframe embed (2026 dataset)

Announcing: 2026 US state sales tax as a free MIT-licensed dataset

Why we ship our sales tax calculator as an iframe embed (and not an npm package)

Different consumer, same data

The one-liner

Why not an npm package?

The tradeoff

Who uses it

Try it

6 design choices that got developers to actually adopt our free public REST API

1. No auth. No sign-up. Ever.

2. Match the data shape to how it will actually be consumed

3. CORS on. Cache long.

4. Ship an embed alongside the API

5. License permissively

Try it

Building an embeddable calculator widget from a REST API: how ReceiptEdit ships sales tax as an iframe

Why an iframe wins over a JS SDK

The endpoint shape

What I would do differently

Try it

I open-sourced 2026 US state sales tax data — free API, MIT licensed

What's in it

Three ways to consume it

1. REST API (free, no auth)

2. Direct file download

3. Embeddable calculator widget

A few things that surprised me compiling this

License + use

About