Receipt requirements · WV
West Virginia receipt requirements
What a business issuing its own receipts in West Virginia 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
- 6%
- Combined with local
- 6% – 7% combined
- Sourcing
- Destination-based — tax follows the buyer's address
Does tax have to be separately stated?
West Virginia expects the tax stated separately from the sale price on the receipt, including the municipal 1% where it applies.
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 for home consumption exempt
- Prescription drugs exempt
- Mobility-enhancing equipment exempt
- Most professional and personal services 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 West Virginia
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 West Virginia
West Virginia's municipal sales tax is capped at 1% and only a subset of cities have adopted it, so the receipt rate is either 6% or 7% and never anything in between. Municipal taxes here are destination-based, so a delivery into a participating city picks up the extra point.