REST API

By Lat / Lng

Door-level sales tax rate for a geographic coordinate

Available onAll plans

Look up the single sales tax rate that applies at a specific latitude/longitude. The API skips the geocoding step and returns the rate for that exact point. Ideal when you already have verified coordinates from your own address verification pipeline, a map click, a GPS reading, or a storefront’s known location.

Lat/lng lookups return the same door-level, adjusted rate as By Address, just without the geocoding. If you only have a street address, use By Address instead.

Endpoint

1GET https://api.zip-tax.com/request/v60

Send the coordinates in the lat and lng query parameters as decimal degrees.

Use at least 5 decimal places of precision (e.g. 33.65253, not 33.65). Rooftop-level accuracy requires sub-meter precision; truncating coordinates may land you in a different tax jurisdiction.

Quick example

$curl -H "X-API-KEY: YOUR_API_KEY" \
>  "https://api.zip-tax.com/request/v60?lat=33.65253&lng=-117.74794"

Parameters

Required

ParameterTypeDescription
latnumberLatitude in decimal degrees. Use at least 5 decimal places for rooftop accuracy.
lngnumberLongitude in decimal degrees. Use at least 5 decimal places for rooftop accuracy. Negative for locations west of the prime meridian.

Both lat and lng must be supplied together. You must also authenticate with your API key via the X-API-KEY header (recommended) or the key query parameter.

Optional

ParameterTypeDefaultDescription
formatstringjsonResponse format. Set to xml if you need XML; remember to also set Content-Type accordingly.
countryCodestringUSAISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code. USA (default), CAN, or a US territory (PRI Puerto Rico, ASM American Samoa, GUM Guam, MNP Northern Mariana Islands, VIR U.S. Virgin Islands). US territories are looked up through the US path and need no extra entitlement. Canadian rates require a Pro or Enterprise plan.
taxabilityCodestringnoneTaxability Information Code (TIC) to get product-specific rules in the response. See the TIC catalog. Requires Pro or Enterprise plan.
historicalstringnoneMonth to fetch historical rates for, in YYYYMM format (e.g. 202401 for January 2024). Cannot be the current month or in the future. Requires Pro or Enterprise plan.

Plan-gated parameters return a specific response code if your account doesn’t have the entitlement: countryCode=CAN returns code 112 (rate_loc_can entitlement), taxabilityCode returns code 113 (product_rates entitlement). See the Response Codes reference for the full list.

Example response

The response shape is identical to the By Address response: baseRates, taxSummaries, sourcingRules, addressDetail (with the reverse-geocoded address), etc. A truncated example:

1{
2  "metadata": {
3    "version": "v60",
4    "response": { "code": 100, "name": "RESPONSE_CODE_SUCCESS" }
5  },
6  "taxSummaries": [
7    {
8      "rate": 0.0775,
9      "taxType": "SALES_TAX",
10      "summaryName": "Total Base Sales Tax"
11    }
12  ],
13  "addressDetail": {
14    "normalizedAddress": "200 Spectrum Center Dr, Irvine, CA 92618-5003, United States",
15    "geoLat": 33.65253,
16    "geoLng": -117.74794
17  }
18}

Tips & common pitfalls

Coordinates truncated to 2 decimal places can drift by more than a kilometer, enough to cross a city or special-district boundary and return the wrong rate. Always pass at least 5 decimal places (≈1 meter resolution).

All U.S. and Canadian longitudes are negative (west of the prime meridian). A missing minus sign will either return an error or, if the sign flip lands on a valid location, the wrong rate entirely.

Prefer lat/lng when you’ve already geocoded the address in-house, for fixed points (warehouses, store locations, kiosks), or when working from map clicks and GPS. Prefer By Address when you only have a textual address. Ziptax’s geocoder is tuned to tax jurisdictions and does the rooftop adjustment for you.

Set countryCode=CAN for coordinates inside Canada. Without the flag, a Canadian lat/lng will fail to match a U.S. jurisdiction and return an error.

Set countryCode to a US territory code for coordinates inside PRI (Puerto Rico), ASM (American Samoa), GUM (Guam), MNP (Northern Mariana Islands), or VIR (U.S. Virgin Islands). These are looked up through the US path and need no extra entitlement.

By Address

Supply a street address instead. Ziptax geocodes for you.

By Postal Code

ZIP-only lookup. Returns all rates that overlap the postal code.

API Reference

Full parameter and response schema.