Determine required licenses and registrations based on business activity and location.

Requirement identification

Capture key business details through a structured questionnaire.

Guided data collection

Provide details on required licenses, forms, fees, and authority information.

Comprehensive reporting

Enable transition from discovery to registration or license filing workflows.

Upgrade to filing services

Identifies required licenses and registrations

Avalara License Guidance helps businesses identify required licenses and registrations based on their location and business activity. It simplifies understanding compliance requirements before taking action.
Determining licensing obligations across jurisdictions can be complex and time-consuming. Avalara License Guidance centralizes this process by generating structured insights into required licenses, permits, and registrations.

Initiate workflows through APIs or onboarding flows.
Submit business details to generate a licensing report.

Avalara License Guidance integrates with onboarding workflows and partner systems through APIs to submit business details and retrieve licensing insights.

Avalara License Guidance

Register for sales tax across multiple states through a unified workflow.

Multi-jurisdiction sales tax registration

Prepare, submit, and track applications with tax authorities.

End-to-end registration processing

Support registrations triggered by economic or physical nexus thresholds.

Nexus-driven registration enablement

Access tax IDs, filing frequencies, return due dates, and jurisdiction account details.

Registration details and outputs

Registers businesses for sales tax obligations

Avalara Sales Tax Registrations (STR) helps businesses register with state and local authorities where they are required to collect and remit sales tax. It ensures businesses are set up correctly before initiating taxable transactions.
As businesses expand and establish nexus across jurisdictions, registration requirements increase. Avalara STR streamlines this process by managing applications, submissions, and approvals across multiple states.

Initiate registration workflows through APIs or onboarding systems. Avalara manages the filing process and returns registration details upon completion.

Avalara Sales Tax Registrations integrates with onboarding systems, ecommerce platforms, and compliance workflows through APIs to support order creation, data submission, and status tracking.

Sales Tax Registrations

Register for payroll tax, unemployment insurance, and related obligations across jurisdictions.

Payroll tax registration

Handle registrations across states and local authorities where employees are based.

Multi-jurisdiction coverage

Prepare, submit, and track applications with relevant authorities.

End-to-end registration workflow

Registers businesses for payroll tax obligations

Avalara Payroll Tax Registrations (PTR) helps businesses register with state and local authorities for payroll tax obligations. It ensures compliance before processing payroll in jurisdictions where employees are located.
Hiring employees across different states introduces additional registration requirements. Avalara PTR centralizes and manages these processes to reduce complexity and help ensure proper setup.

Initiate workflows through APIs or partner integrations.
Submit required business and employee data, then Avalara manages the registration process.

Avalara Payroll Tax Registrations integrates with payroll providers, HR systems, and partner platforms through APIs to support order creation, data submission, and status tracking.

Payroll Tax Registrations

Obtain new licenses and complete required initial filings across jurisdictions.

License acquisition and initial registrations

File and process renewals to keep licenses active and compliant.

License renewals

Prepare and submit filings based on business activity, location, and regulatory requirements.

Jurisdiction-specific filing

Obtains and renews business licenses and tax registrations (including sales and payroll)

Avalara License Filings (ALF) helps businesses obtain and renew licenses and tax registrations, including sales and payroll, required to operate across jurisdictions. Avalara manages the end-to-end filing process based on their business activities, locations, and regulatory requirements to reduce manual work and the risk of missed or late filings.

Initiate filing workflows through APIs or onboarding systems.
Avalara manages the filing lifecycle and provides completed license details and updates.

Avalara License Filings integrates with onboarding workflows and partner systems through APIs to support order creation, status tracking, and retrieval of license details.

Avalara License Filings

Tax Registrations and Business Licenses help you identify, obtain, and manage the registrations and licenses required to operate across jurisdictions. This includes understanding obligations, completing filings, and maintaining compliance over time.

Core capabilities

Apply Avalara-maintained tax rules and rates tailored to your product category and jurisdictions.

Industry-specific logic

Support tiered pricing, bundled offerings, exemptions, and multi-jurisdiction calculations without custom engines.

Complex scenarios

Stay current with evolving requirements through regularly updated content and configuration options.

Regulatory alignment

Integrate with billing, ERP, and custom apps using REST APIs built for high-volume transaction processing.

Operational scale

What this category includes

Initiate workflows through Avalara onboarding or partner integrations. Start with a guided questionnaire, then Avalara prepares and submits applications and returns registration or license details upon completion.

Getting started

Integrates with onboarding workflows, partner platforms, and compliance systems to enable end-to-end registration and licensing. APIs support order creation, questionnaire prefill, status tracking, and retrieval of registration and license details.

How it integrates

What Tax Registrations and Business Licenses solves

When to use Tax Registrations and Business Licenses

Tax Registrations and Business Licenses

View API docs

AvaTax automates real-time sales and use tax determination across jurisdictions, enabling accurate tax calculation at the point of transaction. It removes the need to manually maintain tax rates, rules, and sourcing logic while keeping systems aligned with continuously updated tax content.

Calculate sales and use tax during checkout, invoicing, or order processing using jurisdiction-aware logic that reflects current tax rules and boundaries.

Real-time tax determination

Apply consistent tax logic across ecommerce, marketplace, POS, and ERP systems so transactions return accurate totals regardless of where they originate.

Compliance-ready transactions

Validate addresses and map transactions to the correct tax jurisdictions to reduce errors caused by incomplete or inaccurate location data.

Intelligent address and jurisdiction mapping

Support scenarios such as product taxability differences, exemption logic, shipping rules, and temporary tax changes without building custom rule engines.

Complex rule handling

Explore API endpoints, SDKs, integration guides, and MCP capabilities. A 90-day free trial is available for evaluation and sandbox testing.

AvaTax integrates through APIs and SDKs, enabling implementation within commerce platforms, billing systems, ERPs, and custom applications. It supports both direct API integration and broader compliance workflows.

AvaTax

New ECM Customer

Exemption Certificate Management (ECM), also known as CertCapture, helps you collect, validate, and store exemption certificates in one place. It reduces manual work and keeps certificate data accurate and easy to retrieve for audits.

Collect and apply exemption certificates across online, in-store, and offline sales workflows.

Capture certificates across channels

Let customers upload certificates or enter details to generate and submit new ones.

Customer-friendly upload and collection

Validate certificate data at collection so required documentation is complete and audit-ready.

Reduce non-compliance risk

Apply exemptions when valid certificates exist to reduce rebills, credits, and manual fixes.

Improve billing accuracy at scale

Start with the API documentation and integration guides. Choose the path that fits your setup, new implementation or existing ECM account, then follow the integration steps to enable certificate collection and management.

Integrate ECM into checkout, invoicing, and tax calculation workflows to capture and reference exemption data throughout the transaction lifecycle. Use APIs to submit, validate, retrieve, and manage certificate status.

Exemption Certificate Management

Get Started

Getting the duties and taxes right on cross-border sales is critical for your operations and your customers. Avalara AvaTax Cross-Border makes it easy to sell products anywhere in the world by calculating customs duties and import taxes.

Use API documentation, integration checklists, and environment setup guides linked from each product below. Provisioning and access details depend on your Avalara products and onboarding path.

Avalara APIs provide REST interfaces for billing, subscription, ERP, and custom applications. They support scalable tax determination and high-volume processing so you can embed compliance into your existing workflows.

AvaTax Cross-Border

Avalara Managed Returns API enables partners and platforms to embed tax return preparation and filing into their workflows. It helps automate compliance by allowing businesses to manage returns without leaving their systems.

Enable return preparation, filing, and remittance within partner or platform environments without requiring separate interfaces.

Embedded returns workflows

Consolidate transaction data from ecommerce platforms, marketplaces, and business systems into a unified returns workflow.

Multi-channel data aggregation

Prepare returns and manage payments across jurisdictions through integrated, automated processes.

Automated filing and remittance

Enable partners to extend compliance capabilities to multiple customers while maintaining consistent workflows and visibility.

Scalable partner enablement

Access Avalara Managed Returns API documentation and integration guides in the developer portal.

Setup involves configuring data flows, authentication, and mapping transaction data into returns workflows.

Avalara Managed Returns API integrates through APIs with partner platforms, marketplaces, and ERP systems to ingest transaction data and manage return workflows.

It acts as an embedded layer on top of Avalara Returns capabilities, enabling automated compliance within existing systems.

Avalara Managed Returns API

Avalara Tax Content (ATC) provides centralized, regularly updated tax data to support accurate tax calculation across systems. It delivers jurisdiction-specific tax rates, rules, and taxability logic that integrate with ERP, point-of-sale (POS), billing, and custom applications.

Deliver consistent tax rates, rules, and jurisdiction mappings across systems using a standardized content source.

Centralized tax content platform

Calculate tax in offline or edge environments without real-time API calls. Receive updated tax content to reflect regulatory changes.

Offline and POS-ready tax support with automated updates

Extend tax content with user-defined fields to align with internal data models, reporting needs, or system requirements.

Flexible data model and customizations

Support multiple industry use cases through specialized content models, including retail, lodging, and car rental.

Industry-specific extensions

Access ATC APIs, configuration endpoints, and integration guidance in the developer portal.

Setup involves configuring business locations, selecting content templates, and integrating tax data delivery into downstream systems.

Avalara Tax Content integrates with POS systems, ERP platforms, billing systems, and custom applications by delivering tax data in standardized or system-aligned formats.

Content is delivered through APIs or file-based methods (such as SFTP) and ingested into target systems to support consistent tax calculation workflows.

Avalara Tax Content

Business activity ID in the format 'master-sub-industry-activity'

Indicates whether the business uses a DBA name

State where the business was incorporated, using a two-character code

Indicates whether the business operates in a residential or commercial area

Enter the token in the format Bearer {token}

Authorization

Avalara License Guidance Support

Used for placing Avalara License Guidance orders and passing in known information into the ALG questionnaire.

Proprietary

Avalara License Guidance Order API

Retrieves status information after the order is created

API key provided by Avalara for authentication

order_number

Creates a new order for business license compliance processing. This endpoint accepts business information, location data, and business activities to generate a license report. The API validates the API key and processes the submitted data, including location validation and business activity classification.

Data required to create an order, including business information, location, and activities

Returns the created order details, including the order number and order URL

Returns a validation error for an invalid request

Returns an authentication error for an invalid API key or token

Returns an authorization error when automation is not enabled for the entity

license-guidance-order

Request contains invalid or missing parameters.

Authentication failed due to an invalid API token.

Error code (0 = no error, 1 = invalid, 2 = warning)

Status message for the validation result.

API token provided by Business Licenses, LLC. Use format: 'Bearer {token}'

API for retrieving license counts by jurisdiction based on location and business activities. This API serves as a teaser for the full Avalara License Guidance (ALG) system.

Avalara License Guidance Teaser API

Returns the total number of licenses by jurisdiction for the requested locations and business activities. Use this endpoint to retrieve data for a teaser page.

Secure ID provided by Business Licenses, LLC.

Two character state abbreviation of the location.

locations[0][state]

Two character country code of the location.

locations[0][country]

locations[0][address]

locations[0][city]

locations[0][zip]

locations[0][plus4]

locations[0][county]

Business activity ID provided by Business Licenses, LLC.

business_activities[0][business_activity_id]

Keyword ID provided by Business Licenses, LLC.

keywords[0][keyword_id]

Industry activity ID provided by Business Licenses, LLC.

activities[0][activity_id]

answers[0][question]

Answer corresponding to the specified question.

answers[0][answer]

Returns license counts by jurisdiction and location details.

Retrieves Business Licenses business activities that correspond to the activities used on your website.

Business activity from the partner business activity list.

business_activities[0]

Returns validated business activities and related identifiers.

Validates a location and returns geocoded information if the location is valid. This endpoint can be used before calling the teaser endpoint.

location[address]

location[city]

location[state]

location[zip]

location[plus4]

location[county]

location[country]

Returns validation results and geocoded location information.

license-guidance-teaser

Enter provided API token in format (Bearer apiKey)

The Registrations and Licenses API will allow for the provisioning of a customer account, create orders, and return account and order information for an account within the Avalara system.<h3>Related APIs</h3><h4>Industry Keyword API</h4>Used to request a complete list of keywords to describe Business Activities in Avalara's License and Registration offerings.<h4>Filing Assist Locations Quantity API</h4>Used to determine if local registrations are required for an address, and the order quantity to be used when placing "Payroll Tax Registration Only" orders.<h4>Filing Assist Registration Details API</h4>Get detailed information for the registrations that have been completed by Avalara (e.g. Tax ID, Filing Frequency, etc.)<h4>Question Keys API</h4>Returns the Question Keys that can be used to provide answers to questions in Avalara's online questionnaire which will pre-populate the online questionnaire and reduce the amount of data that your customer will need to provide.

Registrations and Licenses

Create a new customer account that can be referenced in other functions by using the account ID provided in your system or the Avalara customer account ID (BLAccountID) returned in the response.

avalara-version

Identifies the software you are using to call this API.

X-Avalara-Client

Use the X-Correlation-ID header to support request correlation.

X-Correlation-ID

Retrieve orders for a customer account. At least one of the following fields is required: account_id or bl_account_id.

The customer account ID. Required if bl_account_id is not provided.

account_id

The Avalara customer account ID. Required if account_id is not provided.

bl_account_id

Returns a list of orders for the specified customer account.

Create orders using the customer account ID and order ID. A single SKU and quantity must be provided to the API. The response returns a list of generated Avalara orders with URLs for each order.Question Pre-populationFor License Suite Order SKU: Provide questions and answers using the following format:<ul><li><code>answers[0][question]=Question Name</code></li><li><code>answers[0][answer]=Answer Value</code></li></ul>Supported question types for License Suite Order include the following:<ul><li>Incorporated Type: Limited Liability Company (LLC), S-Corporation, Corporation, Non-profit Corporation, General Partnership, and Sole Proprietorship</li><li>Incorporated State: Two-character state codes such as WA and CA.</li><li>DBA, which stands for Doing Business As: Yes or No.</li><li>Employees: Yes, No</li><li>Residential or Commercial: Residential, Commercial</li></ul>For all other SKUs, use the Question Keys API endpoint to retrieve available question keys for the specified SKU and location.Details arrays (general, entities, officers, location details): For comprehensive pre-population of the online questionnaire, you can use the <code>details</code> object with <code>general</code>, <code>entities</code>, and <code>officers</code> arrays, as well as <code>details</code> within each location. Use the Question Keys API endpoint to retrieve the exact question names for the specified SKU and location. The endpoint returns available question keys that can be used to provide answers in the details arrays.Common question categories include the following:<ul><li>General questions: Business_Start_Date, Business_Description, Federal_Tax_ID, State_Tax_ID</li><li>Entity questions: Entity_Name, Entity_Type, Entity_Address, Entity_City, Entity_State, Entity_Zip</li><li>Officer questions: Officer_First_Name, Officer_Last_Name, Officer_Title, Officer_SSN, Officer_Address</li><li>Location questions: Location_Description, Location_Phone, Location_Email, Location_Contact_Name</li></ul>

Attach a file to an existing order using the Order ID. The Order ID, file, and file type are required. This endpoint is used to attach the renewal invoice file for an Avalara License Filing Renewal order.

Create a new sales representative that can be referenced in other functions using the SalesRepID returned in the response.