USE OF ABBREVIATIONS
When using the Alabama Department of Revenue Sales Tax Rate Lookup application there are situations related to entering street addresses that allow for certain abbreviations. The following list contains acceptable abbreviations:
WORD
ACCEPTABLE ABBREVIATION
When entering an address that references a county road or county route the address MUST be entered as county road or county rd.
The word "county" cannot be abbreviated.
The application does not recognize the term "route" or the abbreviation "rt".
NOTE: When entering abbreviations using mobile devices, the device spell checker may interfere with using abbreviations such as replacing "hwy" with "why".
NOTE: There may be issues when using addresses from Map applications like Google Maps. Instead, try to use the appropriate street mailing address.
ZIP CODE
When entering an address, the most successful way to obtain results is to also enter a Zip Code.
However, if you receive the message:
"Errors Occurred - An accurate sales tax rate could not be determined...", try your search again without entering a Zip Code.
If you still receive the same error message, then contact the representative for the appropriate local tax jurisdiction to confirm the applicable sale tax rates.
OTHER TIPS
The Sales Tax Rate Lookup application
does not require the capitalization of any street names or cities.
When entering an address that references an Alabama State highway, the most successful way to designate this is to enter the word highway or the abbreviation hwy.
The word "Alabama" or abbreviation "AL" should not be used to designate Alabama State highways — this will result in a "no sales tax rates found" error message.
The word "state" should not be used when referencing a State highway — this will also result in the previously mentioned error message.
When entering an address that references a United States (US) highway, the most successful way to designate this is to enter the word highway or the abbreviation hwy.
The abbreviation "us" as in "us highway" may provide correct results, but can result in a "no sales tax rates found" error message.