Should you switch Shopify's managed US sales tax to Self-directed?

What does Managed do for you, and what does it cost?

Under Self-directed, you register with each state where you're liable, set up tax collection and file returns yourself. Under Managed, Shopify calculates, collects and remits sales tax on your eligible online orders through the Shop marketplace, in every state with statewide sales tax plus the District of Columbia, as well as Alaska local sales tax. Customers are informed at checkout and in the order confirmation that their order is processed through the Shop marketplace.

As of October 30, 2026, Managed is in early access: it's on by default only for certain US stores that opened after October 27, 2026, on the Basic, Grow, Advanced or Plus plan, and currently not on the Agentic plan or Shopify for enterprise. For a store opened earlier or outside the early-access group, tax settings don't change.

Until your store reaches $100,000 USD in total sales, Shopify's management of your sales tax is fully discounted. After that, the fees are the same as for Shopify Tax.

When does switching to Self-directed make sense?

Shopify's examples of reasons to switch are using another payment provider, collecting tax on third-party app orders, and choosing where your store collects tax. The hard rule is the first: PayPal, manual and custom payment methods can't be used while Shopify manages your US sales tax.

Managed doesn't cover tax on Point of Sale orders (quick sales included), orders created by third-party apps such as return and exchange apps, or B2B orders, including those placed on your online store: registering, collecting and filing that tax is yours. For POS sales, the POS tax rates page says you need to set your US sales tax to Self-directed, then set up tax collection in the states where you're registered.

Two general pages, covering every unsupported order, read two ways. The managed sales tax page says you can set your sales tax to Self-directed to collect tax on orders Managed doesn't support. The US tax setup page says a Managed store only needs to set up tax collection for orders that aren't supported.

None of the pages we read on October 30, 2026 says whether you can keep Managed and collect tax on B2B or app orders yourself, so if they're your only reason to switch, ask Shopify Support first.

If you stay Managed, what do you have to keep in place?

To have Managed, your store needs to meet these requirements:

• Shopify Payments only, with no PayPal, manual or custom payment methods.
• Every product published on Shop and meeting Shop's product requirements. Unpublishing a product from Shop also unpublishes it from your online store.
• Charge tax set to Yes on every product (the help page calls it Charge tax on this product); on a product without variants, it's in the Price card.
• Duties not activated for your United States market.

The requirement lists differ: the managed sales tax page names a product image, title, description and category, while Shop's page names an image, price and product category. Check your products against both.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Products
2. Add product

Zoom

Refunds can cost you. Sales tax goes back to your Shopify Payments payouts only for the specific items you refund. A general refund for a custom amount, or a refund made outside Shopify, sends no tax back:

Refund item by item, inside Shopify.

What changes on the day you switch to Self-directed?

Under United States, change Managed to Self-directed in the drop-down menu, save, optionally give a reason, and confirm.

Sales tax Shopify collected before the switch is still remitted. From then on, registering, collecting and filing sales tax in each state where you're liable is yours, and Shopify says to set up collection in those states immediately to avoid gaps.

Tax liability insights, available once your US sales tax is Self-directed, help you find those states; see also where you actually owe US sales tax.