# TaxCloud (slim)

> TaxCloud is a US sales tax service from The Federal Tax Authority, LLC. Its v3 REST API calculates tax on carts, records orders and refunds for filing, stores exemption certificates, verifies addresses and searches product tax codes.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/taxcloud.md (~8,800 tokens) · this version ~2,130 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/taxcloud.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/taxcloud
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-08

**C · 57.4/100 · rank #475 of 722 · #6 in Tax calculation & compliance · not agent-ready · confidence medium**


Assessment: A 30-operation REST API with a public OpenAPI 3.1 contract, llms.txt, Markdown docs and a 30-day trial that needs no card. The vendor publishes no rate limit numbers, no SLA, no API changelog and no official v3 client library, and the security page names no audit or certification.

## Facts

- Kind: HTTP API · vendor: The Federal Tax Authority, LLC (TaxCloud) · category: Tax calculation & compliance · legal entity: The Federal Tax Authority, LLC (d/b/a TaxCloud) · provenance 69/100
- Endpoint: `https://api.v3.taxcloud.com` (HTTP)
- Auth: API key · pricing: Paid · x402: no · licence: Proprietary service under TaxCloud's terms of service. The agent skills repository on GitHub is Apache-2.0
- Probe metrics: not measured yet (probes haven't run)
- API: REST at https://api.v3.taxcloud.com, JSON. Sales Tax API 16 operations (health, ping, carts 3, orders 4, refunds 1, exemption certificates 4, TIC search, address verification). Management API 14 operations (access keys 4, accounts 3, product catalogue 7)
- Coverage: United States sales tax. The docs home page claims rates for over 11,000 jurisdictions. The marketing site also lists a Canada page, which we did not check against the API
- Credentials: An API key from Developer > API in the web app, sent as `X-API-KEY`. The v3 APIs also accept a JWT as `Authorization: Bearer`. A connection ID from Integrations > Custom API goes in the URL path
- Access: Self-serve. A person registers at app.taxcloud.com, completes the business profile, adds nexus states and generates a key. After the trial the API needs the Premium plan
- Plans: Premium monthly, 200 orders $79, 400 $149, 1,000 $299, 2,000 $399, 4,000 $549, 10,000 $749, 20,000 $999, 40,000 $1,299. Starter from $19 a month for 100 orders, without API access. Yearly billing is up to 16 per cent lower (https://taxcloud.com/taxcloud-pricing/)
- Metering: A sale, refund or return counts as one order, an order with an exemption certificate as two, and a calculation or address verification as a tenth. Overage is billed at the tier's price per order. Card payments carry a 7 per cent fee
- Filing: A separate filing subscription, from $39 a month for one return, or pay as you go. Surcharges apply for Colorado and Louisiana. The pricing page says services are free in the 24 Streamlined Sales Tax member states
- Testing: No sandbox. The docs recommend one test connection and one production connection on the same key and host
- Rate limits: No numbers published. The API page says "High threshold; subject to change based on usage". Every operation lists 429 in the spec
- Errors: `application/problem+json` with `type`, `title`, `status`, `detail`, `instance` and an `errors` list. 400, 401, 403, 404, 422, 429 and 500 are listed on every operation, with causes and fixes for 400, 422 and 500 in a guide
- Retries: Refunds accept an `idempotencyKey` of 1 to 200 characters. Carts upsert by `cartId`. A duplicate `orderId` on a connection is refused. The docs advise exponential backoff on 500, and TIC search may return 503 with Retry-After
- Lists: Exemption certificates, access keys and products page by `cursor` with `limit` (default 20), `sortBy` and `ascending`. Products also take `search` and `filters`. No list-orders operation exists
- Versioning: v3 is the default and v1 is called legacy. Both OpenAPI files carry version 1.0.0, and no changelog page was found
- Agent material: llms.txt, `.md` copies of every docs page, a docs-search MCP server with one read-only tool, and three agent skills on GitHub (Apache-2.0)
- Security statements: Hosting on Microsoft Azure, TLS on web access, encryption at rest and daily backups per the security and API pages. No SOC 2, ISO 27001, penetration test or bounty statement was found
- Status: status.taxcloud.com redirects to a Datadog status page created on 28 January 2026 with three components (Sales Tax API, Management API, Core API)
- Prices: Premium, 200 orders a month $79 per month (plan); Premium, 400 orders a month $149 per month (plan); Premium, 1,000 orders a month $299 per month (plan); Premium, 10,000 orders a month $749 per month (plan); Starter, 100 orders a month $19 per month (plan); Filing subscription, one return a month $39 per month (plan)

- Scores: Reliability 66, Performance pending, Schema & documentation 75, Agent ergonomics 64, Security & auth 45, Payments & pricing 34, Task success pending, Maintenance & community 57, Transparency & trust 51 · total over the 7 assessed categories
- Why: Reliability, Read with the hosted lines and scored on the v3 REST API at api.v3.taxcloud.com, the surface an agent would call. · Schema & documentation, OpenAPI 3.1 documents are public for the Sales Tax API, with 16 operations, and the Management API, with 14. The two links in the docs index… · Agent ergonomics, Get Order takes `expand`, list calls and TIC search take `limit`, and one cart call can price several carts. · Security & auth, API keys travel in the `X-API-KEY` header, never in the URL. · Payments & pricing, Read with the hosted rubric. · Maintenance & community, A closed service with no API changelog, so we read dated public artefacts. · Transparency & trust, The service is closed under terms of service last updated March 2025, and the agent skills are Apache-2.0 (15 of 30).
- Sources: 43, open questions: 12, both in the full twin
- Capabilities: tax.calculate, tax.transactions, tax.exemptions, shipping.address-validation
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/taxcloud.json
- Verify (for the vendor): the badge `https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/taxcloud.svg` or a link to https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/taxcloud from a page on taxcloud.com or one of its subdomains, or the README of github.com/FedTax/taxcloud-agent-skills, then `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` `{"slug", "url"}` or `verify_listing` at /mcp; re-checked weekly, no effect on the grade. Snippets in the full twin.

## Before you call it

1. Send `X-API-KEY` on every call and put the connection ID in the path, as in `/tax/connections/{connectionId}/carts`. A wrong ID returns 404
2. Mark nexus states active in the account first. With none active the API returns zero tax and no error
3. Use a separate test connection. There is no sandbox, and orders on a live connection go into filing
4. Pass a stable `idempotencyKey` on refunds, and never convert the same cart twice. A second conversion creates a duplicate liability
5. Void a wrong order before 12:00 AM Eastern on the 10th of the month after its `completedDate`. Later requests return 422

## Connect

```bash
npx skills add FedTax/taxcloud-agent-skills
```

```bash
curl https://api.v3.taxcloud.com/tax/connections/<connectionId>/ping \
  -H "X-API-KEY: <apiKey>" \
  -H "Accept: application/json"
```

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http taxcloud-docs https://docs.taxcloud.com/_mcp/server
```
Full config and headless snippets are in the full page. Through letme (picks today, calling later): https://letme.dev/taxcloud

## Similar tools

| Tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | Slim |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| TaxJar | C | 57.6 | tax.calculate, tax.transactions, tax.exemptions, shipping.address-validation | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/taxjar.min.md |
| Zamp | D | 49.5 | tax.calculate, tax.transactions, tax.exemptions, shipping.address-validation | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zamp.min.md |
| Avalara AvaTax | B | 68.8 | tax.calculate, tax.transactions, tax.exemptions | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/avalara.min.md |
| Anrok | C | 61.6 | tax.calculate, tax.transactions, tax.exemptions | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/anrok.min.md |
| Kintsugi | C | 60.7 | tax.calculate, tax.transactions, tax.exemptions | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kintsugi.min.md |


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