Do I charge sales tax on my invoices?

It depends on your location and what you sell. Many freelance and creative services are exempt from sales tax, but plenty aren’t, and the rules change from country to country (and even county to county). The honest answer is that nobody on the internet can tell you for sure for your situation, so treat this as a friendly orientation and confirm the specifics with a tax professional.

The short, fair version

Whether you collect sales tax usually comes down to a few things: where you’re registered, where your client is, and how your work is classified. Some places treat design, writing, and consulting as non-taxable services. Others tax certain digital deliverables, physical goods, or bundled work differently. A few don’t have a sales tax at all.

• Your location — the jurisdiction where your business operates often sets the baseline.
• Your client’s location — selling across borders or state lines can change the answer entirely.
• What you’re selling — pure labor, a digital file, or a printed product may each be treated differently.
• Whether you’re registered — you generally only collect tax once you’re set up to remit it.

Because the combinations get complicated fast, this is exactly the kind of question worth a short conversation with an accountant who knows your area. It’s usually inexpensive and saves you from guessing wrong on every invoice for a year.

Tip: Before you set any tax rate in Fee-Lion, ask a tax pro two questions: “Do I need to charge sales tax on my services?” and “What rate applies?” Five minutes with the right answer beats months of corrections.

Set your tax default once

If you’ve confirmed you do need to charge tax, set it as a default so it flows onto every new document automatically. You can always override it per estimate or invoice.

1. Open Settings → Preferences from the left sidebar.
2. Find the Tax section.
3. Enter your default tax rate as a percentage.
4. Save. New estimates and invoices will apply that rate to taxable lines going forward.

This is the same area where you set your default payment terms and deposit percentage, so it’s a good moment to get all three dialed in at once.

Toggle tax on a single document

Real life isn’t tidy. Maybe most of your work is taxable but one client is exempt, or you do a job in a jurisdiction with a different rate. You don’t have to change your defaults for a one-off.

1. Open the estimate or invoice you’re working on.
2. Adjust the tax field on that document to the rate you need, or set it to zero to remove tax entirely.
3. Review the running total at the bottom, which recalculates as you change the rate.
4. Send it as usual. The tax line shows clearly to your client in the portal and on any downloaded PDF.

Because Fee-Lion carries an estimate through to its invoice when you convert it, the tax you set up front follows the job, so an approved estimate and its final invoice stay consistent.

What about deposits?

Deposits and tax are separate dials. Your deposit percentage is taken against the document total, and the tax line is calculated on the taxable amount. Set them independently in Settings → Preferences and they’ll behave predictably together.

One more reminder: Fee-Lion gives you the fields to charge tax cleanly, but it isn’t a tax advisor and won’t file or remit anything for you. You’re responsible for collecting the right amount and sending it to the right authority. When tax season arrives, your reports can help you total what you’ve billed.

What’s next

• Configure your tax defaults
• Set your default payment terms
• Set a default deposit percentage
• Which report to use at tax time