Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Sales Tax Rate

One of the most famous beach vacation destinations on the East Coast. The economy is overwhelmingly driven by tourism — the Myrtle Beach area attracts approximately 20 million visitors annually. The city has a 60-mile stretch of wide sandy beaches, over 80 golf courses, the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk & Promenade, the SkyWheel, Broadway at the Beach (massive shopping/entertainment complex), and numerous amusement parks, water parks, and live entertainment venues. The economy relies heavily on tourism/hospitality (hotels, restaurants, attractions), construction (ongoing development), and retail. The city has a seasonal economic pattern with summer peaks. The Myrtle Beach area has seen significant population growth as a retirement and remote work destination.

The combined sales tax rate in Myrtle Beach is 9.000%, composed of the South Carolina state rate of 6.000% plus a local portion of 3.000%.

The formula to calculate sales tax for any purchase:

For a $150.00 purchase in Myrtle Beach: tax is $13.50 ($150.00 × 0.09000), total is $163.50.

Visitor spending around Myrtle Beach Boardwalk & SkyWheel and Broadway at the Beach flows straight through the 9.000% combined rate — on dining, retail, entertainment, and ground transportation alike. For Myrtle Beach 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 Myrtle Beach's visitor volume: Myrtle Beach Boardwalk & SkyWheel, Broadway at the Beach, Myrtle Beach State Park, Ripley's Aquarium.

A room night in Myrtle Beach usually carries more than the 9.000% combined sales tax: most South Carolina lodging markets layer a separate occupancy or lodging tax on top. The exact stack is set locally — confirm the current schedule with Horry County before publishing rates.

Three charges typically sit on top of the 9.000%: 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 Myrtle Beach Boardwalk & SkyWheel. None of the three is set by South Carolina — which is why a rate that is correct in Myrtle Beach 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 Myrtle Beach means 9.000% on top of face value — while others do not tax admissions at all. Before pricing tickets to Myrtle Beach Boardwalk & SkyWheel, verify South Carolina's admissions rules.

• Ticket taxability depends on South Carolina'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 Horry County

Business travel into Myrtle Beach 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 9.000%, so a five-figure catering line arrives with $900 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 South Carolina 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 Myrtle Beach already includes the tax, and expensing both ways in one trip is how the reconciliation breaks.

Retailers working the visitor trade near Myrtle Beach Boardwalk & SkyWheel and Broadway at the Beach 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 Myrtle Beach's 9.000% 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.

Myrtle Beach shoppers and businesses routinely cross into Charleston, Georgetown, Conway and beyond — and in South Carolina, the combined rate can change at those lines. The tracked neighbors — Charleston — currently share Myrtle Beach's 9.000% combined rate, so the delivery address matters less for rate than for sourcing documentation here.

• Charleston (95 mi SW): combined rate 9.000% — see the Charleston page
• Georgetown (25 mi SW): outside our tracked South Carolina city set — verify its current combined rate before invoicing deliveries there
• Conway (15 mi W): outside our tracked South Carolina city set — verify its current combined rate before invoicing deliveries there
• North Myrtle Beach (15 mi N): outside our tracked South Carolina city set — verify its current combined rate before invoicing deliveries there
• Wilmington NC (80 mi NE): outside our tracked South Carolina city set — verify its current combined rate before invoicing deliveries there

Deliveries are taxed by the destination rules South Carolina 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 Myrtle Beach can still be required to register in South Carolina and charge 9.000% 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 Myrtle Beach 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 9.000% rate around Myrtle Beach: untaxed out-of-state purchases delivered here owe matching use tax — $90.00 on a $1,000 order — self-assessed to Horry 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 South Carolina sales tax guide.

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

Government entities in Myrtle Beach (federal, state, local) are generally exempt from sales tax on purchases for governmental functions. Vendors should obtain valid exemption documentation.