New Mexico sales tax, and who sets it
Tax year 2026
Set by the state
4.88%
Set locally
2.8%
statewide average
Combined
7.67%
Local share
36.48%
of what you pay
Work out the tax on a purchase in New Mexico
Add the tax on
7.675% effectiveThe general rate applies here: 7.675%, state and local combined. “Statewide average” is a comparison estimate. Named locations use the stored local rate; city and special-district coverage varies, so an address may differ. Rate source · as of 2026-07-01.
How New Mexico's sales tax is put together
- Read New Mexico's state rate on its own and you will get the wrong idea. It is about 4.88%. Local government adds about 2.8% more on average across New Mexico, which is the larger piece, and the total lands at about 7.67%. Your county has more say over your receipt than the state capital does.
- No sales tax on groceries in New Mexico. Unprepared food is exempt outright, so what you save depends on how much of your shopping is raw ingredients rather than ready meals. That boundary is where the money actually is, and it catches people out constantly at the deli counter.
- New Mexico taxes clothes like it taxes everything else. Spend a thousand dollars on apparel and the tax is $77. Some states exempt clothing outright, which sounds minor and is not — it changes what a whole category of spending costs. Prescription drugs are exempt here.
- Rate-setting in New Mexico is majority-delegated. Against a state rate of about 4.88%, the local add-on on average across New Mexico is about 2.8% and the combined figure is about 7.67%, so more than half the charge originates with a county or municipal body rather than the legislature. Delegation at this level also means the rate moves on a local electoral timetable, independent of any state tax legislation.
- Grocery purchases are exempt from sales tax in New Mexico. Because the exemption is complete rather than reduced, the practical question for a shopper is classification rather than rate: prepared and heated foods generally fall outside the exemption and are taxed at the full combined rate. States drawing that boundary differently produce noticeably different effective rates on identical shopping baskets, which is why a grocery exemption is a weaker predictor of household sales tax burden than it first appears.
- Apparel falls inside New Mexico's sales tax base at the full combined rate, contributing $77 per thousand dollars spent. The states exempting clothing form a small group, and base differences of that kind explain more of the variation in real household sales tax burden than headline rates do. New Mexico exempts prescription drugs, in line with the near-universal national treatment.
Sales tax on this purchase
A $75,000 salary
| Tax added | $7.68 |
|---|---|
| Rate appliedStatewide average | 7.68% |
Uses this location’s stored combined rate and category rule. Clothing is one item; address-level coverage varies.
Rates across this state
A $75,000 salary
| Counties in this state | 33 |
|---|---|
| Different rates among them | 22 |
| Lowest county rate | 5.25% |
| Highest county rate | 7.69% |
County floors only — city, transit and special-district taxes are excluded where applicable.
At the register
A $75,000 salary
| Tax added | $7.68 |
|---|---|
| You hand over | $107.68 |
| Rate here | 7.68% |
Uses this location’s stored combined rate and category rule. Clothing is one item; address-level coverage varies.
How much of that was tax
A $75,000 salary
| Goods before tax | $99.37 |
|---|---|
| Rate applied | 7.68% |
Uses the selected combined rate for ordinary goods. Exempt items or a mixed receipt change the split.
Every county here
A $75,000 salary
| Lowest | 5.25% |
|---|---|
| Highest | 7.69% |
| Gap between them | 2.44% |
County floors only — city, transit and special-district taxes are excluded where applicable.
What gets taxed, in each
A $75,000 salary
New Mexico
Statewide average
Texas
Harris County (Houston)
- Sales tax
- Fuel
- Tobacco
| Category | New Mexico | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| Groceries | Exempt | Exempt |
| Clothing at $100 | 7.68% | 8.25% |
| Fuel | 17¢ | 20¢ |
| Tobacco | $2.00 | $1.41 |
Grocery and general rates use the locations named here. Clothing is one item priced at $100; a more expensive garment may be taxed differently. Fuel and tobacco have separate units and scales.
Tax-free days in New Mexico
A $75,000 salary
| Back to School Sales Tax Holiday | 2026-07-31 to 2026-08-02 |
|---|
Dates come from statute, so they move with the legislature rather than with a data refresh.
The split, county by county
The state rate is the same everywhere in New Mexico. Anything beyond it was decided by a county or a city. These counties are a sample chosen to show the range, not a complete list.
| County | State | Local | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statewide average | 4.88% | 2.8% | 7.67% |
| Bernalillo County (Albuquerque) | same | 2.75% | 7.63% |
| Doña Ana County (Las Cruces) | same | 3.52% | 8.39% |
What it costs on a thousand dollars
The same purchase in four categories, priced on average across New Mexico. A flat thousand dollars is used deliberately — this is New Mexico's own rate restated in money, not a claim about what anyone spends.
| What you're buying | Tax as share of price | Tax on $1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| General goods | 7.67% | $77 |
| Groceries | 0% | $0 |
| Prescription drugs | 0% | $0 |
| Clothing | 7.67% | $77 |
Every county in New Mexico
This is the whole state, not a sample — 33 counties, from 5.25% in Lea County up to 7.69% in Los Alamos County. These are county floors. City, transit and special-district taxes can add to them, so an address may pay more.
Complete county coverage for New Mexico: 33 counties spanning 5.25% (Lea County) to 7.69% (Los Alamos County), across 22 distinct rates. Figures are county floors: the state rate plus the county's own levy, excluding municipal, transit and special-district taxes. The representative location figures earlier in the page may include additional local layers.
| County | State portion | County levy | Floor (state + county) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bernalillo County | 4.88% | 1.31% | 6.19% |
| Catron County | 4.88% | 1.19% | 6.06% |
| Chaves County | 4.88% | 1.4% | 6.27% |
| Cibola County | 4.88% | 1.69% | 6.56% |
| Colfax County | 4.88% | 1.38% | 6.25% |
| Curry County | 4.88% | 1% | 5.88% |
| De Baca County | 4.88% | 1.63% | 6.5% |
| Dona Ana County | 4.88% | 1.62% | 6.5% |
| Eddy County | 4.88% | 0.83% | 5.71% |
| Grant County | 4.88% | 1.44% | 6.31% |
| Guadalupe County | 4.88% | 1.44% | 6.31% |
| Harding County | 4.88% | 1% | 5.88% |
| Hidalgo County | 4.88% | 1.31% | 6.19% |
| Lea County | 4.88% | 0.38% | 5.25% |
| Lincoln County | 4.88% | 0.38% | 5.25% |
| Los Alamos County | 4.88% | 2.81% | 7.69% |
| Luna County | 4.88% | 1.75% | 6.63% |
| McKinley County | 4.88% | 1.63% | 6.5% |
| Mora County | 4.88% | 1.65% | 6.52% |
| Otero County | 4.88% | 1.38% | 6.25% |
| Quay County | 4.88% | 1.56% | 6.44% |
| Rio Arriba County | 4.88% | 1.75% | 6.63% |
| Roosevelt County | 4.88% | 1.5% | 6.38% |
| San Juan County | 4.88% | 1.63% | 6.5% |
| San Miguel County | 4.88% | 1.71% | 6.58% |
| Sandoval County | 4.88% | 1.25% | 6.13% |
| Santa Fe County | 4.88% | 2% | 6.88% |
| Sierra County | 4.88% | 1.81% | 6.69% |
| Socorro County | 4.88% | 1.38% | 6.25% |
| Taos County | 4.88% | 2.63% | 7.5% |
| Torrance County | 4.88% | 1.63% | 6.5% |
| Union County | 4.88% | 0.94% | 5.81% |
| Valencia County | 4.88% | 1.75% | 6.63% |
Streamlined Sales Tax member rate files plus individual state Department of Revenue rate tables — county-level rows only; city, transit and special-district levies excluded — as of 2026-01-01, last verified 2026-08-29.
What this page does not cover
- Only sampled locations appear in the first New Mexico county table and calculator list. Covering every one would mean maintaining thousands of rates that change on their own local timetables, so this site samples instead. The consequence is simple: treat the figures as the shape of the thing, and your receipt as the truth.
- This page covers New Mexico's general sales tax and nothing else. Fuel, alcohol and tobacco carry their own separate taxes, usually built into the shelf price where you never see them. Cars, hotel rooms and restaurant meals are often taxed at their own rates too. The general rate is the floor, not the ceiling.
- An exemption is a category, not a promise. New Mexico decides for itself where each category stops — hot food is usually outside the grocery exemption, and accessories are often outside the clothing one. That boundary work is where the real difference between two states with the same rate turns up.
- New Mexico's first county table and calculator location list are curated samples rather than an exhaustive address dataset, a deliberate trade against maintaining several thousand independently-revised local rates. The figures characterise the distribution of local add-ons; they do not establish a minimum or maximum for the state. Address-level accuracy requires either the state revenue authority's lookup or a recent transaction record.
- The figures here describe New Mexico's general sales tax only. Selective excise taxes on motor fuel, alcohol and tobacco operate separately and are typically embedded in the displayed price rather than added at the register. Vehicle purchases, lodging and prepared food frequently attract their own rates or additional local levies. The general rate should therefore be treated as a floor for a given transaction rather than a complete account of what it is taxed.
- Exemption treatment in New Mexico is recorded here at category level; the operative detail is where the state's statute terminates each category. Heated and prepared foods generally revert to the full rate despite a grocery exemption, and clothing exemptions are typically bounded by price threshold or by use. These definitional boundaries account for much of the divergence between states that appear equivalent on rate and exemption list alone.
Questions people ask
Why is the tax at the register higher than the state rate?
What the statute says and what the register charges are different numbers. about 4.88% is the state's share; local layers carry it to about 7.67%, varying street by street.
Is food taxed the same as everything else?
No — groceries are exempt in New Mexico, which is why a basket of raw ingredients can leave a shop untaxed while a sandwich from the same shop does not. The line is drawn at preparation, not at the food itself.
Is clothing exempt here?
Clothing is ordinary taxable goods in New Mexico. The states that exempt it are the exception rather than the rule, which catches people moving between them.
Who actually decides what I pay at the register — the state or my town?
Local government, for the larger part. about 36.48% of what you hand over is decided below state level, so the rate follows the address rather than the state line.
What composes the combined rate in this state?
The combined rate is the state levy plus every local levy sourced to the point of sale. New Mexico sets about 4.88%; the representative combined rate is about 7.67%, of which about 36.48% is decided locally. A single statewide figure is therefore an approximation.
How are groceries classified for sales tax here?
New Mexico exempts groceries from general sales tax. The exemption typically excludes prepared food, and definitional boundaries — utensils supplied, heating, or a seller's prepared-food share — determine which side a specific item falls on. Those tests vary by state and are not uniform.
How is apparel classified for sales tax in this state?
New Mexico applies the standard rate to apparel with no general exemption. Only a small minority of states exempt clothing, and among those several impose per-item caps or exclude athletic and formal wear, so cross-state assumptions about apparel are unreliable.
What share of the combined rate is locally determined here?
about 36.48% of the representative combined rate in New Mexico is levied below state level. Rates are sourced to the point of sale, so liability varies within the state and the statewide figure is a weighted representative rather than a statutory rate.