Merchant Compliance

Nexus Management

Track a self-managed merchant’s physical locations and economic nexus states so Ziptax knows where they collect.

Available onProEnterprise

Available as a Private Preview feature. Contact support@zip.tax to gain access.

Nexus management lets your platform record each self-managed merchant’s nexus footprint on Ziptax: the physical locations the merchant operates from, and the states where their sales activity has crossed an economic nexus threshold. Nexus tracking is enabled per account as part of the Private Preview.

This applies to self-managed merchants only. A TaxCloud-connected merchant’s nexus lives in their own TaxCloud account, where TaxCloud manages it as part of end-to-end compliance.

Why nexus matters

A merchant must collect sales tax in every state where it has nexus, a connection to the state significant enough to create a tax obligation. The footprint you record does two jobs:

  1. It defines where the merchant collects. Ziptax uses it as the record of the merchant’s collection obligations.
  2. It drives correct calculation. Some states source sales tax to the ship-from location (origin-based) rather than the ship-to location (destination-based), so calculating the right rate depends on knowing where the merchant ships from.

Nexus comes in two kinds:

KindHow it arisesWhen it takes effect
Physical presenceAn office, store, warehouse, inventory, employee, or other in-state presenceImmediately, with no dollar minimum
Economic nexusSales into a state cross that state’s sales or transaction thresholdWhen the threshold is crossed

See Collection Requirements and Nexus for background on the legal concepts, and Economic Thresholds for a deep dive on how state thresholds work.

Physical locations

Record every place the merchant has a physical presence in the US:

  • Offices, stores, and warehouses
  • Inventory, including inventory held in fulfillment networks such as FBA
  • Employees and property
  • Temporary presence, such as trade shows

Each location carries:

FieldPurpose
US addressWhere the presence is. Determines the state (and locality) where physical nexus exists.
Registration statusRegistered, pending, or not registered — whether the merchant holds a sales tax registration for that state.
Fulfillment origin (optional)Flags the location as a ship-from point, used for origin- vs destination-based sourcing.

Physical locations are managed per merchant in the platform UI today. There is no minimum: if a merchant has no locations recorded, Ziptax does not track physical nexus for that merchant.

Economic thresholds

Record the states where the merchant has crossed an economic nexus threshold through sales activity. Each entry identifies the state and can include an optional state tax registration ID. US states only today.

See Economic Thresholds for how sales thresholds, transaction rules, and measurement periods work, and where to find the per-state reference data.

API access (in development)

The nexus endpoints are in active development. Names, request bodies, and responses may change before release. Contact support@zip.tax for early access.

A merchant nexus API is planned so your platform can manage a self-managed merchant’s nexus footprint programmatically, mirroring the platform UI:

Planned endpointPurpose
POST /merchant/nexus/createAdd a physical location or economic threshold entry for a merchant.
POST /merchant/nexus/listList a merchant’s nexus footprint, filterable by nexusType.
POST /merchant/nexus/updateUpdate an existing entry by locationId.
POST /merchant/nexus/deleteRemove an entry by locationId.

Entries are typed by nexusType: physical or economic. Physical entries carry a location type, a US address, and a registration status; economic entries carry a country/state and an optional registration ID. All of this is subject to change until the endpoints ship.

Self-Managed Merchants

The compliance model where your platform tracks nexus and the merchant handles their own filing.

Economic Thresholds

How state sales and transaction thresholds work, with per-state reference data.

Collection Requirements and Nexus

Background on nexus and when a seller must collect sales tax.

Merchant Management

Create, list, update, and delete the merchants whose nexus you manage.