Testing Stripe Tax

Stripe Tax has separate settings for test mode and live mode so you can preview changes to your tax settings before publishing them.

When you Set Up Stripe Tax, make sure you enable testing by configuring separate tax settings in test mode.

Stripe Tax only calculates tax in jurisdictions where you’ve added a registration. You must add at least one test mode registration to test your Stripe Tax integration.

Some product tax codes are exempt from sales tax in certain jurisdictions, which can make them challenging to test. For example, some classes of digital goods are exempt from sales tax in the state of California. When you’re testing your Stripe Tax integration, we recommend adding test mode registrations in states that have fewer product-specific exemptions, such as Idaho or New Jersey.

Test mode registrations don’t affect live mode tax calculations, so you can change them at any time after you’ve verified that your integration is working correctly.

After you’ve configured your Stripe Tax settings in test mode and added test mode registrations, you’re ready to test.

No-code

Low-code

To test in the Dashboard, create an Invoice or Payment Link, and make sure the Use automatic tax calculation toggle is on.

Stripe Dashboard with the automatic tax toggle set to true

After you complete a payment with automatic tax calculation enabled, you can review information about the tax calculation in the Dashboard.

1. Navigate to the Transactions page in the Dashboard.
2. Click a payment you created with Stripe Tax enabled.
3. Scroll down to the Automatic tax calculation section.

The Automatic tax calculation section of the payment details screen. Tax wasn’t applied to this transaction because there’s no registration for the tax location.

The Taxability field shows whether tax was collected for a given transaction or explains why no tax was applied. For more information about why Stripe Tax applies zero tax to some transactions, see Zero tax amounts.