Receipt requirements · MO
Missouri receipt requirements
What a business issuing its own receipts in Missouri 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
- 4.225%
- Combined with local
- 4.725% – 12.238% combined
- Sourcing
- Origin-based — tax follows the seller's location
Does tax have to be separately stated?
Missouri expects the tax stated separately from the sale price. Because state, county, city and special-district taxes stack, the combined rate is what appears, not the state rate alone.
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 taxed at a reduced state rate
- Prescription drugs exempt
- Manufacturing inputs exempt
- Common carrier and farm machinery exemptions
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 Missouri
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 Missouri
Missouri has the lowest state rate of any state that has a sales tax, and some of the highest combined rates in the country once special taxing districts are layered on — a single Missouri address can carry a rate above 12%. The state rate on the receipt is almost never the rate the customer pays.