thread Re: I need to collect sales tax and it does not work in "Payment Links", but it works fine in Payments Troubleshooting

Sales Tax Working on POS, but Not on Payment Links

tacomametalarts — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:37:18 GMT

I need to collect sales tax and it does not work in "Payment Links", but it works fine on my Square POS for in store purchases. How do I fix this?

Re: I need to collect sales tax and it does not work in "Payment Links", but it works fine

Laurie_ — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:36:29 GMT

Hi @tacomametalarts, welcome to the Community!

Great job setting up your sales tax! 👏

If everything is working correctly on Square POS, it’s likely that a setting just needs to be enabled for your Payment Links.

Here’s how to check:

1. Log in to your Square Dashboard.

2. Go to Payments & Invoices > Payment Links > Settings > General.

3. Look for the option to enable sales tax for Payment Links and make sure it’s turned on.

Once that’s enabled, your tax settings should carry over properly. Let me know if you're still seeing any issues after updating that setting.

Re: I need to collect sales tax and it does not work in "Payment Links", but it works fine

tacomametalarts — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 20:31:45 GMT

Thank you for your help.

I've turned on the 'Enable Sales Tax' button following your instructions, but it still does not add sales tax to my event online.

Re: I need to collect sales tax and it does not work in "Payment Links", but it works fine

tacomametalarts — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 17:42:29 GMT

Following up- -that solution worked! My online store is now collecting the sales tax; I just could not see it working on my end.

Thanks for the help!

Re: I need to collect sales tax and it does not work in "Payment Links", but it works fine

Laurie_ — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 23:54:19 GMT

Great outcome, @tacomametalarts, I'm glad I could help! 🙂

Re: Sales Tax Working on POS, but Not on Payment Links

tacomametalarts — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 20:39:29 GMT

Hi again! Not sure if I should start a new thread:

Now my online payment links are collecting sales tax, but it is charging the tax rate where the customer is, not where the event will be held. I am supposed to charge my local rate of 10.3% on all events. How can I fix this?

Re: I need to collect sales tax and it does not work in "Payment Links", but it works fine

verlamaes — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:13:41 GMT

Hi! I have this same issue but there is no option like the one pictured. There looks to be no way to apply taxes to customers via pay links.

I am under the payment link general settings.

Re: I need to collect sales tax and it does not work in "Payment Links", but it works fine

verlamaes — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 20:12:01 GMT

@Laurie_ Is there any reason this option wouldn’t be showing up for me?

Re: Sales Tax Working on POS, but Not on Payment Links

risingsunv — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 18:54:57 GMT

Did you ever figure this out? We are having the same issue.

Re: I need to collect sales tax and it does not work in "Payment Links", but it works fine

waterloopotters — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 02:22:39 GMT

hi, did you figure this out? I was on the phone with Square help today, and they could not solve the missing 'enable sales tax' toggle. I'm wondering if it's because our group's workshop is in a city park, which has no formal mailing address?

thanks, from Stewart at Waterloo Potters' Workshop

Re: Sales Tax Working on POS, but Not on Payment Links

BrammerArts — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:33:33 GMT

I ran into this same issue and spent quite a while testing the current Square settings, so I wanted to share what I found in case it saves someone else the same frustration.

It looks like some of the earlier answers in this thread refer to an older version of the Payment Links interface. I also no longer have the “Enable sales tax” toggle shown in the earlier screenshot.

In the current Dashboard, the tax settings I'm referring to can be found under:

Settings → Account & Settings → Payments → Sales taxes

From there, there are separate settings for Online delivery and pickup tax overrides and Shipping & non-physical domestic tax overrides.

This distinction turned out to be important. What I found in testing is that tax calculation behaves differently in Payment Links depending on whether the customer selects Pickup or Shipping.

I have an existing 10.25% default sales tax rate set up in Square. I was trying to get my Payment Links to use that same rate.

Pickup

On the sales tax settings page, under Online delivery and pickup tax overrides, Square gives me the option to:

Apply default rates for pickup sales tax

When I selected that, my Payment Link correctly used my existing 10.25% sales tax rate.

I tested a $995 item:

$995 × 10.25% = $101.99 tax

That is exactly what appeared at checkout.

So, at least in my testing, a Payment Link set for Pickup can use the same default sales tax rate that I already have set up in Square.

Shipping

Shipping behaves differently.

For Shipping, Square instead uses the Shipping & non-physical domestic tax overrides.

My choices there are:

Apply automatically generated tax rates
Manually apply taxes based on destination
Do not collect taxes

There is no equivalent “Apply default sales tax” option for Shipping.

When I enabled Shipping and selected Apply automatically generated tax rates, I tested the exact same $995 item.

Square calculated:

$104.48 tax

That works out to 10.5%, rather than my existing default 10.25% rate.

I also tried manually setting the Shipping tax rate

Since Square wasn't giving me an option to simply apply my default rate to Shipping, I tried Manually apply taxes based on destination.

The manual-tax setup first has you select a country. Once I selected the United States, I was able to create a state tax rate for Illinois, with additional options for ZIP-code/local tax rates.

I set:

Illinois sales tax: 10.25%

I also turned OFF Charge local tax rates, so Square would not automatically calculate additional local rates based on ZIP code.

I then tested the shipped Payment Link again.

It still calculated $104.48 in tax, or 10.5%.

In other words, my manually entered Illinois rate of 10.25% had no effect on what the Payment Link charged.

I then found this statement in Square's current Payment Link documentation:

“Payment links do not support manually applied online taxes set on pickup and shipping orders.”

That appears to explain why the payment links do not use the manually set rate based on destination, when you select “Shipping” as the way to get the order. These manual country/state/ZIP overrides appear to be intended for Square Online and Online Ordering, which I do not use and therefore did not test.

I also tested the exact same item through Square POS

To make sure the problem wasn't with the tax assigned to the item itself, I rang up the exact same $995 item through the Square POS app on my phone.

Square POS immediately calculated:

$101.99 tax, or 10.25%.

So, using the exact same item and Square account, these were my results:

Square POS: 10.25% ✓
Payment Link + Pickup: 10.25% ✓
Payment Link + Shipping + automatic tax: 10.5%
Payment Link + Shipping + manual Illinois rate of 10.25%: still 10.5%

That was what finally made it clear to me that the item's tax setting wasn't the problem. The fulfillment method used by the Payment Link was changing how Square calculated the tax.

My workaround

For my particular use case, I've decided to disable Shipping on these Payment Links and offer Pickup only.

Because Pickup has the Apply default sales tax option, the Payment Link correctly charges my existing 10.25% default rate.

I'm selling relatively low-volume, higher-priced artwork through payment links displayed alongside the physical artwork. I'll let customers know that shipping is also available for an additional fee and ask anyone who needs shipping to contact me. I can then collect their shipping address and arrange the shipping payment separately.

Obviously, this isn't a practical workaround for a high-volume ecommerce seller who needs customers to complete shipping entirely through checkout. But for my particular situation, it works for now.

What I learned

The biggest thing I learned is that Square POS, Payment Link Pickup, and Payment Link Shipping can behave differently even when you're selling the exact same item with the exact same tax assigned to it.

If a Payment Link isn't charging the tax rate you expect, I would check:

Settings → Account & Settings → Payments → Sales taxes

Then look separately at:

Online delivery and pickup tax overrides

and

Shipping & non-physical domestic tax overrides

In my case, Pickup could use my default sales tax rate, while Shipping could not.

I'd also strongly recommend running an actual customer-facing test checkout after changing any of these settings. That's ultimately how I figured out what was happening, because the Dashboard settings alone made it look like some of these options should affect Payment Links when, in practice, they didn't.

I hope this saves someone else some time because this was incredibly time-consuming and frustrating to untangle.

TL;DR: In my testing, Square POS and Payment Link + Pickup both correctly used my existing default 10.25% sales tax rate. Payment Link + Shipping did not. Shipping with automatic taxes calculated 10.5%, and creating a manual Illinois shipping rate of 10.25% did not change it. Square's documentation says Payment Links do not support manually applied online taxes for pickup and shipping orders. My workaround is to use Payment Links for Pickup only and handle shipping separately. I did not test Square Online or Online Ordering.

Re: Sales Tax Working on POS, but Not on Payment Links

waterloopotters — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 14:12:47 GMT

A huge thanks to Brammer Arts!

I was on Square help for ages, with different agents. I finally lucked into one agent who recognized that tax in Canada is a little different and opened up a whole section of the sales tax area specific to Canada. Problem solved in a moment. Very happy to have this working now!