Get your tax IDs in Arkansas

An EIN, if you need one, takes minutes online. Arkansas then adds a sales tax permit if you sell taxable goods, withholding if you have employees, and an unemployment account once you owe the tax.

What’s different in Arkansas

• The sales tax permit has a fee, $50¹. The state rate is 6.5%. Qualifying groceries are 0%² at the state level starting January 1, 2026.
• Individual and corporate returns are both due in April. A federal extension is honored, and the Arkansas due date is one month after the federal extended due date, usually November 15¹¹. The payment does not move.
• The pass-through entity tax follows the top individual rate. The 2026 voucher prints 3.7%¹⁵. The election page’s own example is for 2022. Details are below.
• Unemployment tax applies to the first $7,000¹⁷ each employee earns. A new employer pays 2%, which the wage page breaks down as 1.8 percent plus a 0.2 percent administrative assessment¹⁸.

Do this

1. Get an EIN from the IRS if you need one. It is free and, if approved, issued immediately²⁴ online. The LLC franchise tax contact form links to the same IRS application. The IRS requires one if you have employees and for partnerships, corporations, nonprofits and most LLCs. Get the EIN if you will hire, open a bank account or be taxed as a corporation. Don’t pay a website to apply for you.
2. Register for sales tax with the Department of Finance and Administration if you sell taxable goods or services. The permit fee is $50, paid electronically when you submit. Allow up to 2 weeks. The location address cannot be a post office box. Bring a signed lease if you lease the place, and a signed bill of sale if you bought equipment or inventory from a previous business¹. Other tax the business already owes has to be cleared before a new permit is issued. A remote seller registers after $100,000 of Arkansas sales, or 200⁴ taxable transactions, in the current or previous year. The remote seller page covers marketplace facilitators in the same sentence. It does not say a seller can skip tax on sales the marketplace already collects.* Check that page for the channel you use.
3. Look up the local rate for the place of the sale. State tax is 6.5%. State tax on qualifying groceries is 0%² effective January 1, 2026. Prepared food remains taxable at the general state sales tax rate⁵. City and county rates are on the city and county rate page, which publishes a table for each quarter. Local city and county sales taxes on groceries remain in place⁶. Use the lookup for the address before you charge a rate from memory.
4. File sales tax on the 2026 calendar. The calendar lists day 20 for many monthly reports and day 22⁸ in June; other months move too. Read the due-date page for the month you are filing. A business with average net sales of $200,000 or more a month also prepays 80% of the monthly state tax, twice a month, by electronic transfer. Missing a required electronic payment or a required prepayment costs 5%⁹ of the tax. The page does not state the penalty for an ordinary late monthly return.* Check it when you file.
5. Register for withholding when you pay wages in Arkansas. File Form AR1R, Combined Business Tax Registration. A new account files monthly until the department changes it. Monthly returns are due the 15th day after the month. A zero voucher is required for a month with no tax withheld. After you have a history, the department can move you to annual filing if deposits are under 1,000 dollars in a reported period. That annual report is due January 31. The 2026 instructions say the withholding rate is 3.7%. A miss costs 5 percent of the tax for each month, up to 35 percent, plus interest at 10 percent a year¹³.
6. Open an unemployment account when you are liable. The general test is one or more workers for some portion of 10 or more days in a calendar year. Two other tests: 1,000 dollars of cash wages in a calendar quarter for domestic service, and 20,000 dollars of cash wages in a calendar quarter of agricultural labor, or at least 10 workers for some part of a day in each of 20 different weeks. Certain IRS-approved nonprofit employers, and state and local government entities, are called out separately from the employers who pay both federal and state unemployment taxes¹⁹. Register online in Tax21. The wage base is $7,000. A new employer pays 2%, which is 1.8 percent plus a 0.2 percent administrative assessment. State law sets both parts for 2026: a new employer’s contribution rate of 1.8%, and an administrative assessment of 0.2%²² that every employer pays on wages (Act 740 of 2025, Ark. Code §§ 11-10-704 and 11-10-706). Do not add the assessment on top of the 2% new-employer rate. The employer page lists the same 0.2% as a “Stabilization Rate”, the name the law used before a 2023 act renamed it the administrative assessment²³. It is not a second charge. Experienced rates on that page run 0.2 percent to 5.1 percent, plus three deficit levels of 6.1 percent, 8.1 percent and 10.1 percent¹⁷. The taxable-wage page states the range as 0.2 percent to 10.1 percent¹⁸. Those are the same ceiling stated two ways. The employer pages do not print the quarterly due date.* Check it in Tax21.
7. Report every new hire. Report new employees to the Arkansas Division of Reemployment¹⁷ within 20²⁰ calendar days of the hire, through Tax21. The employer resources page says employees. It does not say independent contractors are included.* The hiring guide covers the federal side.

Rates and income tax

State sales tax is 6.5%, in effect since July 1, 2013. State tax on qualifying groceries is 0%², in effect since January 1, 2026. Local city and county sales taxes on groceries remain in place⁶. The local rate table is updated each quarter. The permit registration does not assign you one combined rate.

Individual income tax, for owners who report the business on their own return: 0 percent on net taxable income through 5,599 dollars, then a series of brackets, and 3.7 percent from 26,400 dollars¹⁴. The 2026 withholding formula has the steps in between, including a band of small adjustments at the top of the 3.7%¹³ bracket. File by April 15. If April 15 is a weekend or holiday, the return is due the next business day. A federal extension is honored, and the Arkansas due date is one month after the federal extended due date, usually November 15. Interest and any failure-to-pay penalty still run from the original due date. If you do not request a federal extension, file Form AR1055-IT before the original filing deadline⁷ (normally April 15¹¹). This extends filing time, not payment time.

A C corporation pays a graduated tax: 1 percent on the first 3,000 dollars, 2 percent on the next 3,000, 3 percent on the next 5,000, and 4.3 percent above 11,000 dollars. The top rate is 4.3%, for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2024. Act 2 of the 2026 First Extraordinary Session lowers it to 4.1%²¹ for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2027. File by April 15 for a calendar-year filer. If a federal extension was requested, the corporation gets one extra month to file after the federal extended due date, and the payment stays due on the original date. Interest at 10 percent a year, and a failure-to-pay penalty of 5 percent a month, runs on tax unpaid after the original due date. A nonresident corporation or partnership with no physical presence has a filing requirement at 250,000 dollars of gross receipts for a nonresident corporation or partnership with no physical presence, starting January 1, 2026. A physical presence in Arkansas can still create a filing requirement below that threshold¹⁰.

A pass-through entity can elect to pay Arkansas income tax itself. Eligible entities are a partnership, S corporation or LLC, not a C corporation, a trust, a sole proprietorship, or an LLC taxed as a C corporation. Members holding 50 percent or more may elect it¹⁶. The election page says the rate is the highest individual income tax rate, and half of that rate on capital gains. The 2026 estimated-tax voucher says to multiply income by 3.7% and capital gains by 1.85%¹⁵, which matches the 2026 top individual rate above. The election page’s own example is 4.9 percent on income and 2.45 percent on capital gains, stated for tax years beginning in 2022, not this year’s rate. Use the voucher and the return instructions for the year you file, and ask a CPA before you elect. This page does not pick the election for you. If you elect, the return is due April 15 for a calendar-year filer¹².

An S corporation files Form AR1100S, if the IRS treats the corporation as an S corporation and the election is still in effect. That return is due the 15th day of the fourth month after the year ends. An S corporation that elects the pass-through entity tax does not also file Form AR1100S¹⁶. The instructions that say this are the 2025 S corporation booklet, which is the one the department has posted.* If a 2026 booklet is up when you file, use that one.

Nonresident owners: 3.7 percent of the nonresident member's share of Arkansas-source income, or 4.3 percent if that member is a C corporation¹³.

What you get back

An EIN from the IRS, an Arkansas sales tax permit if you registered, a withholding account if you have employees, and a Division of Reemployment account once you are liable. Write down the sales tax calendar for your filing months. June’s deadline is not the usual day 20⁸.