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Venue Admin

Your venue has one stored sales-tax rate. Online checkout, the box office, the door app and staff exchanges all price with that same rate — there is no per-event or per-channel tax rate to keep in step.

Go to AdminVenues[venue]Edit and open the Sales Tax Rate card.

What the card shows

  • The rate itself, large, as a percentage.
  • A badge saying where it came from: Address lookup (your full street address was resolved, so county and city portions are included) or State base rate (only the state-level rate — the lookup did not resolve your address).
  • Last checked — when Noctern last tried to verify it.
  • Rate last changed — when the figure above actually moved.

Where the rate comes from

Noctern looks the rate up from your venue's address. It refreshes itself in two ways:

  1. Automatically, when your address changes. Edit the state or zip code in Venue Details and the rate is re-looked-up.
  2. Automatically, once a month, by a routine sweep.

Refreshing it yourself

Refresh tax rate exists for the case in between: your jurisdiction raises its rate mid-month and you want to start charging the new one today rather than wait for the monthly sweep.

A refresh changes what buyers pay from the next sale onward. Tickets already sold keep the tax they were sold with. Refresh deliberately, not out of curiosity during a sale.

After a refresh you get one of three answers:

| Message | What happened | |---|---| | Sales-tax rate updated | The rate moved; the toast names the old and new figures | | Sales-tax rate unchanged | Checked and confirmed — still the same | | Tax rate check failed | Nothing was verified. Noctern kept the rate already on file rather than replacing it with a guess, so sales are unaffected. Try again shortly |

Warnings you might see on the card

| Warning | What to do | |---|---| | This venue has no state + zip code saved | The rate is a national average, which is almost certainly wrong. Fill in the address in Venue Details | | Using the state base rate | The address did not resolve, so any county or city portion is missing. Check the address for typos, then refresh | | This venue's address moved to another state, but the rate lookup failed | The rate shown was worked out for the old state and is very likely wrong. Press Refresh tax rate until it succeeds, before you sell anything | | The last check failed — address lookups are switched off platform-wide | Address lookups are off for the whole deployment, so the rate cannot be verified from here. Ask Noctern support |

What is and is not taxed

The rate applies to the taxable base of a sale. What is in that base depends on your other settings:

  • Tickets are taxed, unless the event is marked tax-exempt.
  • Delivery fees are not taxed unless you turn on Tax delivery fees on the Ticket delivery page.
  • The box office fee is not taxed unless you turn on Tax the fee on the same page.
  • Donations are never taxed.
Try it yourself

Open the card and read Last checked. If it is more than a month old, or the badge says State base rate, press Refresh tax rate and confirm what comes back.

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Related topics

  • Venue Profile and SettingsUpdate your venue's public profile and address, set your custom link and hero images, write the content that appears on every event page, set the exchange fee and the maximum tickets per order, and define seasons
  • The Box Office FeeCharge your own handling fee on sales at the box office — a flat amount per order or a percent, on card sales only or on every tender — and keep every cent of it
  • Ticket Delivery Methods and the Mail FeeConfigure how buyers receive tickets, set an optional mail fee, and let the box office waive it with a reason

Last verified: 2026-10-08