{"id":19272,"date":"2025-08-10T19:26:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T19:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=19272"},"modified":"2025-08-10T19:26:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T19:26:03","slug":"these-states-have-2025-sales-tax-holidays-who-stands-to-benefit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=19272","title":{"rendered":"These states have 2025 sales tax holidays. Who stands to benefit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sales tax free week at the Connecticut Post Mall, in Milford, Conn. Aug. 19, 2024.<\/p>\n

Connecticut Post\/hearst Newspapers | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Every year, a handful of states offer shoppers a temporary tax break to encourage spending.\u00a0This year, some of those “sales tax holidays” are happening as President Donald Trump’s tariffs threaten to hike prices.<\/p>\n

These holidays waive state sales tax (and sometimes local levies) on certain purchases for a set period. While eligible items vary by state, many include categories like back-to-school shopping or supplies for disaster preparedness.<\/p>\n

“Sales tax holidays are politically popular because everyone likes tax relief,” said Katherine Loughead, a senior policy analyst and research manager with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation, where she has researched the topic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But “it’s not as good a deal” as policymakers and consumers expect, she said.<\/p>\n

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While sales tax holiday supporters claim the policy boosts economic growth<\/a>, some research suggests<\/a> that consumers simply shift the timing of their essential purchases, Loughead said.<\/p>\n

“Wealthier taxpayers are often best positioned to benefit from a temporary exemption” because they have the flexibility to choose when to make purchases, Miles Trinidad, a state analyst for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote in a July blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, some middle- to lower-income families do plan for yearly sales tax holidays, particularly for bigger purchases like back-to-school shopping, experts say.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Shelly Werger, 49, with her family in Iowa.<\/p>\n

Courtesy: Shelly Werger<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Shelly Werger, a mother of seven in Guttenberg,\u00a0Iowa, says she tracked the timing of her state’s Aug. 1-2 sales tax holiday. “Everything is just getting so expensive right now that I am doing everything I can to save money here and there,” she said.<\/p>\n

However, in Iowa, the exemption only covers clothing and footwear under $100<\/a> and not school supplies, computers or sports equipment \u2014 “we get a little bit of savings but not a lot,” Werger said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a>Which states have sales tax holidays for 2025<\/h2>\n
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“A lot of states are offering sales tax holidays again this year,” Loughead said. “Some of them have gotten more generous, while others have been trimmed back.”<\/p>\n

For 2025, 19 states have held or will hold sales tax holidays<\/a>, which matches the number from 2024, according to the Tax Foundation, as of July 22.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here’s a breakdown of the dates for 2025, eligible items and price limits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a>A money-saving tool for shoppers<\/h2>\n
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Any money-saving opportunity, particularly ahead of the peak back-to-school shopping season, can be a benefit for families squeezed by higher costs.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0survey\u00a0conducted last year by ParentsTogether<\/a>, a national parenting organization, found that 75% of parents said back-to-school shopping causes significant stress, and 47% reported cutting back on food to afford school supplies.<\/p>\n

More recently, a report from Intuit Credit Karma<\/a>\u00a0found that 39% of parents said they were unable to afford back-to-school shopping this year, up from 34% in 2024<\/a>.\u00a0Many of them started shopping earlier than usual to prepare for tariff-related price hikes and to take advantage of sales tax holidays along with other summer sales, the report found.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Families are kicking off their back-to-school shopping earlier this year and are keeping an eye out for key ways to save, including retailer sales and deals as well as events like tax-free holidays,” said Katherine Cullen, the National Retail Federation’s vice president of industry and consumer insights.<\/p>\n

While skipping the state tax could save up to 7% in some places, “the even bigger impact is when you combine that discount with other savings strategies,” advised Ted Rossman, Bankrate’s senior industry analyst.<\/p>\n

For example, “you can combine that with a store promotion \u2014 maybe they give 30% off. You could use a rewards credit card for 5% cash back. And let’s say you use an online shopping portal… for another 10% cash back,” Rossman said. “Something that would have cost you $100 (inclusive of sales tax) now might cost about half that.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sales tax free week at the Connecticut Post Mall, in Milford, Conn. Aug. 19, 2024. Connecticut Post\/hearst Newspapers | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images Every year, a handful of states offer shoppers a temporary tax break to encourage spending.\u00a0This year, some of those “sales tax holidays” are happening as President Donald Trump’s tariffs threaten to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[291,1172,274,5788,1027,97],"class_list":{"0":"post-19272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-finance-news","8":"tag-benefit","9":"tag-holidays","10":"tag-sales","11":"tag-stands","12":"tag-states","13":"tag-tax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}