Missouri’s annual Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday begins at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, August 7, and runs through midnight on Sunday, August 9. During this time, certain purchases such as school supplies, computers, clothing, and other qualifying items as defined by statute are exempt from all state and local sales tax. 

During this period, state and local sales tax will not be charged on the following items:

• Clothing that does not have a taxable value exceeding $100 per item. Eligible clothing items include any article of apparel intended to be worn on or about the body, including footwear. Cloth and other materials used to make school uniforms or other school clothing are also included. Not included are watches, watchbands, jewelry, handbags, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, scarves, ties, headbands, or belt buckles; and

• School supplies, not exceeding $50 per purchase, that are used in a standard classroom for educational purposes. School supplies include, but are not limited to, textbooks, notebooks, paper, writing instruments, crayons, art supplies, rulers, book bags, backpacks, chalk, maps, globes, handheld calculators. Not included are watches, radios, CD players, headphones, sporting equipment, portable or desktop telephones, copiers or other office equipment, furniture, or fixtures; and

• Computer software and graphing calculators with a taxable value not exceeding $350 and $150 respectively per item. 

Retail sales of personal computers and computer peripheral devices that do not exceed $1,500 per item. A personal computer can be a laptop, desktop, or tower computer system which consists of a central processing unit, random access memory, a storage drive, a display monitor, and a keyboard. Peripheral devices include items such as a disk drive, memory module, compact disk drive, daughterboard, digitizer, microphone, modem, motherboard, mouse, multimedia speaker, printer, scanner, single-user hardware, single-user operating system, soundcard, or video card. 

Anyone who makes a qualified purchase may participate in the holiday. You do not have to be a Missouri resident or student to participate and save. 

For more information visit dor.mo.gov/taxation/business/tax-types/sales-use/holidays/back-to-school/.