Setting Up Tax Rates

Once you have your global tax behaviour configured and your tax classes created, the next step is to tell FluentCart what tax rate to charge in each region you sell into. The Tax Regions screen is the entry point: it lists every country, lets you toggle which ones are actively collecting tax, and opens a per-region detail page where you set the actual rates, custom labels, and overrides.

This guide walks through the list, the region detail page, multi-class rates, multi-tax compound rules for federal-plus-state regions, and the new product/shipping overrides with city + postcode granularity.

Accessing Tax Regions

1. From your WordPress dashboard, go to FluentCart → Settings.
2. In the left-hand menu, click Tax Settings → Rates.

This opens the Tax Regions screen.

The Tax Regions List

The Tax Regions screen is a single sortable table of every country FluentCart knows about (pre-seeded — you don't need to add countries first).

Reading the List

The table has three columns:

• Region — the country name with its flag. The European Union is listed as a single region at the top — that's where you manage all EU VAT collection from a single record.
• Collecting — a status indicator. Reads Collecting tax when the region is actively configured, or a dash when it isn't yet set up.
• Enabled — a toggle that turns tax collection on or off for that region.

Enabling or Disabling a Region

You can enable a region from two places:

• The Enabled toggle on this list — fastest if you're flipping several regions in a row.
• The toggle next to the breadcrumb on the region detail page — useful when you're already inside a region's settings and want to flip it without going back.

Both write to the same setting. Switching a region off doesn't delete its configured rates — they're preserved for when you turn it back on.

Searching for a Region

Use the Search regions... box at the top right to jump to a country by name. Helpful when the list is long.

Setting Rates for a Region

Click any row to open the region detail page, where you configure rates for that country.

The breadcrumb at the top reads Tax Regions > [Region name] so you always know which region you're editing. The page itself is two cards stacked above the Tax Overrides block.

VAT/GST/Tax Number

The top card holds a single field where you record your store's own registration number for this region (for example your Canadian GST/HST number, a UK VAT number, or any equivalent identifier the region requires). Enter the number and click Save in the card's top-right to persist it. The number is used on receipts and PDF invoices that ship to customers in the region.

Leave the field blank if you aren't registered in this region yet.

Base Taxes

The second card is where you set the actual rates. Read the warning at the top of the card before you rely on any pre-filled rate.

Verify rates before going live

Rates are pre-filled for convenience and may not reflect current laws. Always verify them against the relevant country's tax law before going live. Use the + button next to the class tabs to add tax classes for products taxed at different rates (food, books, digital goods, etc.). FluentCart's defaults are a starting point, not a legal guarantee.

Below the banner you'll find the class tabs, a Search country or region… field to jump to a specific sub-region, and the per-region rate table itself. The columns map to a row's Region, its Rate (%), the customer-facing Tax Label, and (on sub-region rows) a Compound dropdown that controls how that rate relates to the parent region's tax (covered in Compound (Multi-Tax Scenarios) below).

When you're done editing a class tab, click Save Rates at the bottom-right of the card. Reset to default sits next to it and reverts the active class's rows to FluentCart's shipped defaults.

Tax Class Tabs

Each region carries a separate rate table per tax class. You'll see tabs at the top of the rate area: Standard, Reduced, Zero, plus a + button to add more.

• Click a class tab to view and edit that class's rates.
• Click + to add another class to this region — a small dropdown appears with Zero (if not already added) and Custom Class… (lets you name a new class on the spot).
• An × appears on optional class tabs (Reduced, Zero, custom) so you can remove them from this region; the Standard class is always present.

Per-Country Rate and Label

Inside each class tab, the rate table has three columns per row:

• Country — the country the row applies to. For the EU region this is one row per member state; for a single-country region it's one row.
• Tax Label — the customer-facing name of the tax for this country and class (e.g. VAT, MwSt, GST, Sales Tax). The label is what appears on receipts and on the checkout breakdown — set it to whatever your customers expect to see.
• Rate (%) — the percentage rate. Enter 20 for 20%.

Each class can carry its own label per country — so the EU's Standard class can read VAT everywhere while a reduced-rate book row in Germany could read MwSt (ermäßigt). Useful when your jurisdiction names the rate differently per class.

Reset to Default

Click Reset to default to discard the rates in the current class tab and restore the plugin's shipped defaults for that class. Useful after experimentation, but it does overwrite — there's no undo.

Saving Rates

Click Save Rates at the bottom of the rate table to persist your changes for the active class. Switch tabs and click Save again on each class you've edited.

Compound (Multi-Tax Scenarios)

Some countries charge more than one tax on the same order line. The United States is the clearest example: a federal rate on the parent row plus a state rate on each sub-row. FluentCart surfaces this in the Base taxes table as a parent Region row (e.g. United States (US)) and child rows for each state.

The parent row holds your federal (or national) Rate and Tax Label. Each state row has its own rate and label, plus a Compound dropdown that tells FluentCart how that state tax relates to the federal rate. The dropdown label updates dynamically to include whatever federal rate you've entered (e.g. added to 10% federal tax).

The Compound column appears only when the region has sub-divisions. Single-country regions without states do not show it.

The three Compound options

Open any state row's Compound dropdown to pick one of three modes:

• Added to [federal rate]: the state tax is calculated on the line subtotal and charged alongside the federal tax. Both lines appear at checkout.
• Instead of [federal rate]: the state tax replaces the federal tax for orders shipped to that state. Only the state rate applies.
• Compounded on top of [federal rate]: the state tax is calculated on the subtotal plus the federal tax already applied. This is the tax-on-tax model.

Each state can use a different mode. Alabama might replace the federal rate while Arizona compounds on top of it, all within the same class tab.

A practical example

The fastest way to see what each option does is to walk the same $100 order through all three modes. Assume the parent row is 10% federal tax and a state row is 5% state tax.

Added to 10% federal tax

Step	Calculation	Amount
1. Federal tax	$100 × 10%	$10.00
2. State tax (added)	$100 × 5%	$5.00
Total tax	$10.00 + $5.00	$15.00
Order total	$100 + $15.00	$115.00

Both taxes are calculated independently against the original $100 subtotal.

Instead of 10% federal tax

Step	Calculation	Amount
1. Federal tax	(skipped for this state)	—
2. State tax (instead)	$100 × 5%	$5.00
Total tax		$5.00
Order total	$100 + $5.00	$105.00

The federal rate is not applied when the customer's state is set to instead of.

Compounded on top of 10% federal tax

Step	Calculation	Amount	Running total
1. Federal tax	$100 × 10%	$10.00	$110.00
2. State tax (compounded)	$110.00 × 5%	$5.50	$115.50
Total tax	$10.00 + $5.50	$15.50
Order total	$100 + $15.50	$115.50

The state tax is charged against the running total after federal tax, not against the original subtotal.

Why the difference matters

On a $100 order the gap between added to and compounded on top of is only $0.50. On a $1,000 order it grows to $5.00, and on a $10,000 order to $50.00. Picking the wrong Compound mode scales with order size.

When to use each option

• Choose added to when federal and state taxes are both due and each is calculated on the pre-tax amount.
• Choose instead of when a state has no federal tax obligation or its rate fully replaces the federal rate for in-state sales.
• Choose compounded on top of when local law requires the state tax to apply after the federal tax is already in the total (Quebec PST on GST and similar stacked regimes follow this pattern even outside the US).

If you're not sure which mode your jurisdiction requires, confirm with a tax advisor before going live.

Tax Overrides

Overrides let you charge a different rate when a more specific condition is met — for example, a different VAT rate on shipping to Vienna, or a reduced rate for the books category in France. They live in a dedicated section below the rate table on every region detail page.

What Overrides Do

When an override matches an order line, its rate replaces the default class rate for that region. Overrides are scoped — they can target a product category, a shipping line, or both — and FluentCart picks the most specific match (see Specificity Matching below).

Adding an Override

Click Add Tax Override to open the modal. Fill in:

• Override type — radio:
  • Products — applies to product lines in a specific category.
  • Shipping — applies to the shipping line on orders that match.
• Category (only when Products is selected) — the product category this override targets.
• Tax label — the label shown on the matched line at checkout and on receipts.
• Location — the country this override applies in.
• City (optional) — narrows the override to a specific city. Leave empty to match every city in the country.
• Postcode (optional) — narrows further by postcode. You can enter a single value (9302) or a range (9302:9399) to match any postcode in that band. Here you have to use : to define the range.
• Tax rate (%) — the rate to apply on a match.

Click Add override to save. The override appears in the table.

Specificity Matching

When multiple overrides could apply to the same order line, FluentCart picks the most specific match. Specificity, from most specific to least:

1. Postcode
2. City
3. State
4. Country
5. Class default rate (no override)

So a row scoped to a specific postcode wins over one scoped to a city, which wins over country-only, and so on. Use this layering to model real-world tax law without duplicating rules.

Editing or Deleting an Override

Each row in the Tax Overrides table has action icons:

• Edit (pencil) — re-opens the override form with current values.
• Delete (trash) — removes the override (confirmation required).