Receipt requirements · GA
Georgia receipt requirements
What a business issuing its own receipts in Georgia needs to show: the rate, whether tax has to be stated separately, which categories are exempt, and whether a written rent receipt is required.
Rates verified: 2026-08-05. Rates change — check your state Department of Revenue before relying on a figure for filing.
Sales tax at a glance
- State rate
- 4%
- Combined with local
- 5% – 9% combined
- Sourcing
- Destination-based — tax follows the buyer's address
Does tax have to be separately stated?
Georgia expects the tax shown separately from the sales price. The state and local components may be combined into one line, but the total must be identifiable as tax.
Whatever the rule, print it as its own line. Separately stating tax is what lets a reviewer isolate the pre-tax cost, and it is the mechanism most state statutes use to let a seller exclude the tax from gross receipts. The display conventions are covered here.
Exempt and specially rated categories
- Groceries exempt from the 4% state rate but still locally taxed
- Prescription drugs exempt
- Prescribed medical devices exempt
- Manufacturing machinery exempt
A basket that mixes an exempt item with a taxable one needs a per-line tax flag and separate taxable and non-taxable subtotals, or the tax line cannot be checked against the lines it came from.
Rent receipts in Georgia
No statute requires a written rent receipt; a tenant may still request one and most landlords issue one.
The two fields landlords most often omit are the period the payment covers and the unit number. The full field list is here, and the statutory format is in the rent receipt spec.
Worth knowing in Georgia
Georgia is the clearest case of a split-base grocery rule: food for home consumption escapes the 4% state rate but remains subject to every local rate. A Georgia grocery receipt therefore shows tax on food at 1–5% rather than nothing.