New Orleans, Louisiana Sales Tax Rate

Tourism, hospitality, port operations, energy, healthcare, and education (Tulane, Loyola, UNO). Major Gulf Coast port and global tourism destination.

The combined sales tax rate in New Orleans is 10.000%, composed of the Louisiana state rate of 5.000% plus a local portion of 5.000%.

The formula to calculate sales tax for any purchase:

For a $150.00 purchase in New Orleans: tax is $15.00 ($150.00 × 0.10000), total is $165.00.

Visitor spending around French Quarter and Mardi Gras flows straight through the 10.000% combined rate — on dining, retail, entertainment, and ground transportation alike. For New Orleans operators, that makes visitor volume a direct driver of sales tax remittance, and it makes getting the rate right on every channel (POS, online booking, mobile ordering) a compliance issue, not a rounding detail.

Major draws behind New Orleans's visitor volume: French Quarter, Mardi Gras, Jazz music origin, Creole/Cajun cuisine.

A room night in New Orleans usually carries more than the 10.000% combined sales tax: most Louisiana lodging markets layer a separate occupancy or lodging tax on top. The exact stack is set locally — confirm the current schedule with Orleans County before publishing rates.

Three charges typically sit on top of the 10.000%: an occupancy tax on the room, a short-term-rental tax that many cities now make the platform collect rather than the host, and any convention-centre or tourism-district assessment covering French Quarter. None of the three is set by Louisiana — which is why a rate that is correct in New Orleans can be wrong one town over. How each is levied and who remits it is worked through in the short-term rental and lodging tax guide rather than restated here.

Admissions taxability is one of the sharpest state-by-state splits: many states tax tickets at the full combined rate — which in New Orleans means 10.000% on top of face value — while others do not tax admissions at all. Before pricing tickets to French Quarter, verify Louisiana's admissions rules.

• Ticket taxability depends on Louisiana's admissions rules — never assume the general rate applies
• Bundled packages (ticket + meal + merchandise) may require allocation
• Non-profit venues may qualify for exemptions — verify with Orleans County

Business travel into New Orleans generates taxable spend well beyond the hotel bill. What visiting teams and their finance departments should expect:

• Food, beverage and AV hire billed by the venue carry the full 10.000%, so a five-figure catering line arrives with $1,000 of tax on every $10,000 of it.
• Booth and exhibit materials shipped in tax-free from another state do not escape — they land as Louisiana use tax at the same rate, self-assessed by whoever brought them in.
• Per diems and receipts diverge here: a meal per diem is not a taxable supply, but an actual restaurant receipt from New Orleans already includes the tax, and expensing both ways in one trip is how the reconciliation breaks.

Retailers working the visitor trade near French Quarter and Mardi Gras should implement:

The one that actually bites is address-level rate verification. A visitor-trade business sits close to a municipal boundary far more often than a suburban one does, and New Orleans's 10.000% stops applying at a line that is not always visible from the street — the address-level rate guide covers how to resolve it. Everything else here is configuration: tourism-district surcharges set in the POS, and receipts that show the state and local components separately so a visitor claiming a refund can read what they paid.

New Orleans shoppers and businesses routinely cross into Metairie, Kenner, Baton Rouge and beyond — and in Louisiana, the combined rate can change at those lines. Of the tracked neighbors, Kenner charges 9.750%, Baton Rouge charges 10.500% and Slidell charges 10.680% versus New Orleans's 10.000%.

• Metairie (bordering): outside our tracked Louisiana city set — verify its current combined rate before invoicing deliveries there
• Kenner (15 mi): combined rate 9.750% — see the Kenner page
• Baton Rouge (80 mi): combined rate 10.500% — see the Baton Rouge page
• Slidell (30 mi): combined rate 10.680% — see the Slidell page

Deliveries are taxed by the destination rules Louisiana applies, not by where the store sits — when an order ships across one of these city lines, re-check the rate for the exact address.

Since South Dakota v. Wayfair, a seller with no premises, staff or stock anywhere near New Orleans can still be required to register in Louisiana and charge 10.000% on what it ships here — presence stopped being the trigger and volume took over. The thresholds that decide it are in the table below; what they do not tell you is that crossing them obliges you to collect at the buyer's local rate, not a state average, which is why New Orleans and its neighbours have to be priced separately. The registration mechanics and the trailing-twelve-month counting rules are in the economic nexus guide.

Audit & Compliance Warning: Because combined tax rates combine state and local tax components, calculating tax based purely on ZIP codes can lead to errors. Many ZIP codes span multiple municipal boundaries with differing rates. For precise auditing, always use address-level geo-lookup.

Three obligations follow the 10.000% rate around New Orleans: untaxed out-of-state purchases delivered here owe matching use tax — $100.00 on a $1,000 order — self-assessed to Orleans County; sellers with physical presence or economic nexus must register before collecting; and wholesale sales need a valid resale certificate on file at transaction time. Filing mechanics, exemption certificates, and audit preparation are covered in the Louisiana sales tax guide.

Prescription drugs are exempt from Louisiana state sales tax, though parish taxes can still apply. Medical equipment purchased by licensed providers in New Orleans may qualify for exemptions — verify with Orleans County.

New Orleans hosts educational institutions affecting local tax dynamics. Textbook taxability and student purchasing rules vary by state — verify with the campus bookstore and Orleans County.