North Carolina gives remote sellers more time to register for sales tax

• Effective July 2, 2026, remote sellers are required to register for North Carolina sales tax on the first day of the first calendar month occurring at least 60 days after their sales exceed the state's $100,000 economic nexus threshold.
• Prior to the enactment of Session Law 2026-31, remote retailers needed to register for sales tax immediately after establishing economic nexus with North Carolina.
• At least six states and Washington, D.C., still require retailers to register immediately after establishing economic nexus.

North Carolina began enforcing economic nexus on November 1, 2018, not long after the U.S. Supreme Court repealed the physical presence requirement for sales tax with its decision on South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. (Physical presence in a state still establishes nexus.) Since then, the state has revised or clarified obligations for remote sellers several times.

The state initially taxed remote sales under North Carolina Department of Revenue Directive SD-18-6, which the Legislature codified with the enactment of Senate Bill 56 (SL 2019-6) in March 2019. The law suggested — but didn’t explicitly state — that a remote retailer had an obligation to register with the department and collect sales tax immediately after hitting the state’s economic nexus sales or transaction threshold ($100,000 in gross sales or 200 separate transactions in the current or previous calendar year).

In 2021, the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) program required member states for the first time to disclose when a remote seller needed to register and begin collecting and remitting the applicable tax. North Carolina answered: “The state requires a remote seller to register, collect, and remit the tax on the next transaction after meeting or exceeding the threshold.” (Emphasis mine. See Disclosed Practice 8.1.j in the 2021 North Carolina Taxability Matrix: Tax Administration Practices.)

Immediate registration has been the policy in North Carolina ever since. That changed with the enactment of SB 595 (SL 2026-31).

Effective July 2, 2026, a remote seller is engaged in business in North Carolina and required to register, collect, and remit applicable sales and use tax on “the first day of the first calendar month occurring at least 60 days” after exceeding the $100,000 gross sales threshold. (North Carolina eliminated the 200-transaction threshold in 2024.)

Disclosed Practice 8.1.j in the 2026 North Carolina Taxability Matrix: Tax Administration Practices describes the new policy, as does this Department of Revenue notice.

SST encourages member states to allow sellers ample time to register after establishing economic nexus. “Once a seller has exceeded the exemption threshold,” reads the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement as amended through May 13, 2026, “the seller must be allowed until the beginning of the first calendar quarter commencing within 60 days following the date such threshold is exceeded in order to prepare before the collection obligation becomes effective.”

It’s good that North Carolina now allows remote retailers 60+ days to register with the Department of Revenue and collect and remit sales tax. That gives businesses a reasonable amount of time to get their proverbial ducks in a row.

However, there are still states that require remote sellers to register immediately after establishing economic nexus, and to collect the applicable tax on the next transaction. These include Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Avalara AvaTax helps businesses monitor economic nexus, so you can grow with confidence.

“AvaTax gives us the tools to monitor our activity,” says Joanne Nicholson, Executive Vice President and CFO of Biomedical Research Alliance of New York (BRANY). “Without AvaTax, assessing whether we have triggered economic nexus in the remaining states would be a tedious, manual process, requiring significant staff hours.” See what else she has to say in this customer story.