Back to School Mississippi Sales Tax Holiday Guide for 2023

Update: The 2023 Mississippi sales tax holiday has ended.

If you missed the Mississippi back-to-school sales tax holiday this year, you'll need to wait until 2024 for the next one. Here's a breakdown of tax savings shoppers enjoyed this year. 

Mississippi’s state sales tax rate of 7% was eliminated on certain items during the sales tax holiday. Those tax savings could have meant a lot for many families, especially considering Mississippi is one of only 13 states that still tax groceries. Unfortunately, groceries weren’t included in the sales tax holiday, but plenty of other items were. 

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When is the Mississippi Sales Tax Holiday? 

The Mississippi sales tax holiday in 2023 only ran for two days. Shoppers could purchase eligible items tax-free from 12:01 AM on July 28 through midnight on July 29. 

According to the Mississippi Department of Revenue, the sales tax holiday included both in-store and online purchases. Purchases made online must have been shipped to a Mississippi address.

Tax-Free Weekend in Mississippi: What Purchases Qualify? 

Back-to-school items, including school supplies and clothing, qualified for Mississippi’s tax-free weekend. Only individual items under $100 qualified as tax-exempt. However, shoppers could purchase as many eligible items as they wanted, even if the total exceeded $100. 

Eligible clothing items were not limited to school-age children. For example, baby and adult clothing qualified for the sales tax holiday. While not an exhaustive list, Alabama residents could purchase the following items tax-free during the 2023 sales tax holiday.

• Hats, socks, and undergarments
• Workout clothing and swimsuits
• Shoes and slippers
• Backpacks and lunch boxes
• Jeans and pants
• Shirts and bowties
• Crayons, pencils, pens, and highlighters
• Notebooks, binders, drawing pads, and index cards
• Writing tablets and textbooks

Sales Tax on Electronics in Mississippi 

While some states have included electronics such as computers and tablets in their sales tax holidays this year, Mississippi did not. So, Mississippi shoppers still needed to pay sales tax on these purchases, even if the items were purchased during the sales tax holiday. 

Back to School Sales and Coupons 

The rules for back-to-school sales and coupons were a little tricky for Mississippi’s sales tax holiday. Some deals and coupons could reduce the total price of an item to under $100, which could have qualified the purchase for the sales tax holiday. But Mississippi had strict rules for whether the price reduction counted.

• Manufacturer’s coupons that reduced an item’s price to under $100 did not qualify the item for the sales tax holiday.
• Retail coupons that reduced an item’s price to under $100 qualified the item for the sales tax holiday.
• Items put on layaway during the sales tax holiday were not tax-exempt, regardless of price.

Buy-one-get-one (BOGO) sales might have qualified an item for the Mississippi sales tax holiday. For example, a buy-one-get-one-free sale on a pair of $120 sneakers wouldn't have qualified for the sales tax holiday since one pair would have been free and the other wouldn't have been less than $100. 

But a buy-one-get-one 50% off sale on the same pair of shoes would have qualified one of the pairs. That’s because one pair would have been $120, and the other pair would have been $60.