How to prepare for Florida’s 2025 Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday

At a glance

• Holiday Dates: August 1-31, 2025
• Eligible Items: Clothing, school supplies, laptops, books, learning aids
• Online Sales Apply? Yes
• Retailers Required to Participate? Yes, if you sell qualifying items

What Is Florida’s sales tax holiday?

Since the enactment of House Bill 7031, ^[1] Florida’s 2025 Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday runs from Aug 1 through Aug 31. During this period, sales tax is not due on qualifying items within the listed price thresholds. The holiday is now annual every August.

What’s exempt from sales tax?

• Clothing, footwear, wallets, and bags (e.g. handbags, backpacks, fanny packs, diaper bags) at $100 or less per item
• Certain school supplies at $50 or less per item (e.g. pens, pencils, notebooks, folders, rulers, lunch boxes, binders, etc.)
• Learning aids & jigsaw puzzles at $30 or less (e.g. flashcards, interactive books/toys that teach reading/math, puzzle books, memory/matching games, stacking/nesting blocks)
• Personal computers & certain accessories at $1,500 or less, for noncommercial home/personal use (e.g. laptops/desktops/tablets, monitors without TV tuner, keyboards, mice, printers, routers, non-recreational software)

Key exclusions to watch

• Items above the price caps
• Books not otherwise exempt
• Cell phones, video game consoles, digital media receivers, TVs or devices not primarily designed to process data
• Purchases for commercial (business) use
• Rentals, repairs/alterations, and sales within theme parks/entertainment complexes, public lodging establishments, or airports.

Online & remote sales rules

Eligible items purchased online or from marketplace/remote sellers qualify if the order is accepted during the holiday for immediate shipment (delivery can occur after Aug 31). Allocate shipping and handling proportionally between taxable and exempt items when both are on the same order.

What this means for sellers

Florida’s holiday is generous — it covers almost all clothing and footwear under $100, including adult apparel, plus computers and accessories up to $1,500. For sellers, that means:

• If you sell direct: Audit your catalog for Florida-eligible items and confirm price caps. Configure your cart to remove tax on qualifying Florida orders during the entire Aug 1-31 window, including online orders accepted during the holiday.
• If you sell via marketplaces: Most marketplace facilitators handle the exemption, but you’re still responsible for accuracy in any direct-to-consumer channel.
• For sellers handling sales tax manually: Holidays bring edge cases (bundles, shipping allocation, exchanges, layaway, rain checks). Tracking and applying all those details by hand is time-consuming and prone to error, which is why automation saves time and reduces refund risk.

How sellers should prepare

• Check your product catalog: Flag items that meet the defined categories and caps; separate learning aids from general “books”.
• Update ecommerce/POS settings: Ensure Florida-destination orders apply the holiday rules from Aug 1-31.
• Test transactions: Run sample carts (eligible only, mixed carts, shipped after Aug 31).
• Train support/ops: Equip teams to handle questions on caps, exclusions, online orders, shipping allocation, exchanges, layaway, coupons, and bundled sets.