Sales Tax on Services Bills by State (Legislation Tracker)

Original research · LegiScan living tracker · As of September 16, 2026 · Distinct from the Q3 Statehouse Licensing Index · Not legal advice

This is a legislation / bills tracker — curated session bills that would change sales tax on services (and, on the companion table, contractor/trade license thresholds or scope) — not a static directory of which states already tax services (Avalara and similar own that framing). After a fresh LegiScan pull and editorial screen, we publish 9 curated sales-tax bills (Introduced 8, Failed 1) and 20 curated license threshold/scope bills (Passed 9, Introduced 10, Vetoed 1) across 19 states as of September 16, 2026. Not legal advice; bill status changes — verify the LegiScan/state link before acting.

LegiScan data is licensed CC BY 4.0. Pair sales-tax rows with your state pricing plans; pair license rows with the matching industry guide. For current WC employee thresholds (not bills), see workers’ comp requirements by state.

Key findings

• Sales-tax action is sparse and mostly pending. Curated sales-tax bills sit in NE, NY, RI, TX, VA, WA. Virginia proposals explicitly name residential landscaping and cleaning when paid by a homeowner; New York would exempt basic salon/barber charges; Texas would temporarily exempt certain residential HVAC installs; Rhode Island would exempt licensed child care centers. Nebraska’s broad “impose tax on services” effort failed.
• License threshold/scope bills are concentrated, not a 50-state wave. Curated license bills sit in AL, AZ, CA, HI, IL, KS, KY, MO, NJ, OK, OR, PA, SD. Enacted examples include Oregon landscape contracting scope (SB865), Oklahoma roofing registration and Food Truck Freedom Act, Alabama statewide food-truck inspection reciprocity, Kansas child-care fee/waiver changes, and Alabama’s Esthetics Licensure Compact (listed once as reciprocity — not a salon docket dump).
• Pending can still matter for planning. Hawaii’s nail-tech license exemption, Illinois hour-threshold cuts, Missouri/New Jersey statewide food-truck credentials, and New Jersey landscape professional licensure are introduced only as of this date.
• We do not reprint the licensing index. Cosmetology-compact volume, childcare docket size, and per-1,000-bill concentration stay on the Statehouse Licensing Index. Inclusion here requires a clear tax-base, hour/fee/exemption, scope, statewide mobile-food, or new-occupational-gate signal for our tracked trades.
• WC tracker needed no table rewrite today. A same-day re-pull found no new primary WC-threshold bills beyond the published nine on workers’ comp threshold bills by state; statuses unchanged. Cross-link both living trackers.

Sales tax on services — curated tracker

Inclusion: title or official description indicates a change to sales/use tax on services that hits cleaning, landscaping, HVAC installation/repair, daycare, salon/personal care, food service, or a broad “taxable services / personal services” base that names those trades. Failed high-impact proposals may appear with status labeled Failed. Motor-fuel, cigarette, hotel-only, and pure goods exemptions are excluded.

Contractor & trade license threshold / scope — curated tracker

Inclusion: for cleaning, landscaping/tree, HVAC/mechanical/home-improvement/roofing, daycare, salon/barber/nail, or food-truck/mobile food — a bill that changes who must be licensed, a dollar/hour/capacity threshold, scope of work, statewide mobile-food credentials, fee/waiver thresholds, license exemptions, or reciprocity/compact adoption with clear trade impact. Exclusion: appropriations, honorary resolutions, and generic “touching a trade” volume already covered by the licensing index.

Not legal advice. Bill titles and LegiScan descriptions are short. Confirm enrolled/chaptered text, effective dates, and local tax guidance before changing prices or license plans. A passed bill can still wait on a later effective date. Vetoed and Failed rows are near-misses, not current law.

Hypothesis check — high-impact, not volume

We hypothesized that useful planning signals for service founders are concentrated enacted or pending threshold/scope/tax-base bills, while raw licensing dockets are better summarized as volume (the Q3 index). The curated set supports that: 29 bills across 19 states, with explicit inclusion rules — not another 719-row attention table.

Downloads

• Sales-tax-on-services curated CSV
• Contractor/license threshold curated CSV
• Combined curated CSV
• WC threshold same-day refresh check CSV (all prior primary bills unchanged)

What this means if you price or license a service business

A bill is not your invoice or your license card. Start from current practice in your state, then read any row above that matches your trade. Industry walkthroughs: cleaning, landscaping, HVAC, daycare, hair salon, food truck.

For who must carry workers’ compensation today, use WC requirements by state; for session bills that would change those rules, use the WC threshold bill tracker. For how busy statehouses are on licensing dockets in general, use the Q3 Statehouse Licensing Index.

Methods, inclusion rules, and limitations

As of September 16, 2026 (America/New_York). LegiScan Pull API getSearch / getBill, state=ALL, year=2 (current) and year=3 (recent).

Query families: sales/use tax + taxable/personal services + tracked trades; contractor/home-improvement/roofing/HVAC/landscape/daycare/salon/food-truck + license threshold, scope, exemption, reciprocity, statewide mobile-food rules; plus a WC refresh pass matching the prior threshold tracker.

Inclusion (sales tax): tax base change for services used by cleaning, landscaping, HVAC, daycare, salon, or food-truck operators, or broad personal/taxable-services proposals that name those activities. Inclusion (license): threshold, scope, exemption, fee/waiver, statewide mobile-food credential, new occupational gate, or enacted compact/reciprocity with clear trade impact.

Exclusion: licensing-volume reprints; WC medical fee schedules and appropriations; motor-fuel/tobacco/hotel-only tax bills; honorary resolutions; “touching a trade” without a threshold/scope/tax-base signal.

Funnel (this refresh): ~2,505 unique search hits → screened categories → 29 curated published rows. WC refresh reviewed prior 9 primary bills + 59 additional WC candidates; 0 new primary WC inclusions.

Limitations: LegiScan ≠ official code. Descriptions are often one line. “Passed” ≠ in force on the as-of date. D.C. is not separately scored. We will refresh on a quarterly cadence — treat the as-of date as part of the claim.

Bill data courtesy of LegiScan (CC BY 4.0). Screening and editorial notes are ours.