California Digital Products Sales Tax Guide — 2026

“Digital products” covers eBooks, audiobooks, video downloads, online courses, streaming subscriptions, digital artwork, stock photos, music, and similar non-physical delivered goods. Whether California taxes them depends on how the state classifies the product — “specified digital products”, “electronic transfer of canned software”, or a service. Rules vary more than for physical goods.

If taxable in California, the product is subject to 7.25% state rate plus any applicable local rate based on the buyer's address.

Most states sort digital goods using the Streamlined Sales Tax definition of “specified digital products”, which splits them into three subcategories a state can tax or exempt independently:

• Digital audio-visual works — downloaded or streamed movies, shows, and recorded events. Streaming video subscriptions fall here.
• Digital audio works — downloaded or streamed music, podcasts, audiobooks, and ringtones. Streaming music subscriptions fall here.
• Digital books — eBooks. Newspapers, periodicals, blogs, and databases are excluded from the “book” definition and follow their own rules.

Because a state may tax one subcategory and exempt another, “are digital products taxable” rarely has a single yes/no answer. Where California taxes a subcategory, the charge is subject to the 7.25% state rate plus any local rate at the buyer’s address. Software subscriptions (SaaS and electronically delivered “canned” software) sit outside this framework and follow California’s separate software-taxability rule — see the SaaS guide for that determination.

Framework source: Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board — “Specified Digital Products” definition (SSUTA §332). date_retrieved: 2026-06-04. State-by-state taxability still varies; verify each subcategory with the California Department of Revenue before invoicing.

• Specified digital products. Many states (adopting Streamlined Sales Tax definitions) tax SDPs — digital audio/video/books.
• Online courses and education. Most states treat live-instruction courses as non-taxable services but treat pre-recorded course access as taxable digital products. Watch for this split if you sell both.
• Subscriptions. Bundled subscription boxes with mixed digital + physical content are often taxed as a single taxable bundle — you can't allocate across taxable and non-taxable components unless the invoice separately states them.
• B2B vs B2C. Some states exempt B2B digital products when bought for resale or when the buyer has a direct-pay permit. Keep certificates on file.

• Treating all digital products the same across states — eBook tax treatment differs from SaaS, which differs from streaming.
• Bundling digital + physical goods without a line-item breakdown. Most states tax the full bundle at the physical rate if not itemized.
• Applying origin-based sourcing (your state's rate) when most states source digital products to the buyer's billing or shipping address.

California sales tax nexus and economic nexus threshold: CDTFA guidance says remote retailers must register and collect California use tax when total combined sales of tangible personal property for delivery into California exceed $500,000 during the preceding or current calendar year. California uses a sales-only threshold — no transaction-count test. AB 147 replaced the earlier $100,000/200-transaction Wayfair threshold with the current $500,000 standard, and related-person sales count toward the threshold. CDTFA marketplace guidance says sellers include both direct California sales and marketplace-facilitated sales when testing the $500,000 threshold, but sellers whose California sales are entirely facilitated by registered marketplace facilitators may not need separate registration for those marketplace transactions. Direct-to-consumer sales outside a marketplace remain the seller's own collection responsibility once California nexus is met.

Read the full California overview for thresholds, filing frequency, marketplace facilitator rules, and registration links. Use the nexus calculator to check whether you have crossed the threshold. For background on the post-Wayfair economic nexus framework, see the pillar guide.

• California · SaaS
  Software-as-a-service sales tax rules
• California · Thresholds
  Economic and transaction nexus thresholds
• California · E-commerce
  General e-commerce sales tax rules