Managing tax rates

Tax rates are managed under Business settings → Taxes. The list is pre-populated with the standard rates for your country; you can add, edit, deactivate, or delete rates from there.

Adding a tax rate

Click Add tax rate, then enter the name, percentage, and an optional internal ID. The ID is for your own bookkeeping — customers don't see it.

You can also mark the new rate as the default for products. This affects products created afterwards; existing products keep their current rate.

Active and inactive rates

By default the Taxes page shows only active rates. Toggle Show inactive to see the rest.

Deactivating a rate hides it from selectors for new products and documents. Documents and products that already use the rate keep it.

Editing and deleting

Click Edit to change any field on a tax rate, unless the rate is in use on an invoice, estimate, or product — in-use rates are locked to preserve the historical record. Built-in rates can also be edited, but the percentage stays fixed at the official value.

The actions menu next to each rate has a Delete option. Deletion is allowed for any rate that isn't in use, except for the tax-exempt rate (which Sliptree relies on as a fallback when taxes are switched off). See Why a tax rate can't be deleted for the full lock rules.

Mixing tax rates on a single document

Each line item on an invoice or estimate carries its own tax rate, so a single document can mix as many rates as the sale needs. A common case for businesses based in Estonia: you run a guesthouse with kayaking trips on the side, and your customer books both for the same weekend. Accommodation is taxed at 13% in Estonia, but the kayaking activity is taxed at the standard 24% rate. You issue one invoice, pick 13% on the accommodation line and 24% on the activity line, and the totals at the bottom break the tax down per rate.

The same applies to mixing 0% rates (intra-EU reverse charge, exports, exemptions) with normal-rated lines on the same document.

When an official rate changes

For example, Estonia raised VAT from 20% to 22% on 1 January 2024.

Don't edit the existing rate. Once a rate has been used, editing the percentage would rewrite historical totals. Add a new rate instead, and optionally deactivate the old one. Past documents keep the rate they were issued with; new documents pick the current rate. To shift your products onto the new rate, see Updating the tax rate on your products.