New York charges your LLC a fee on gross income that eBay's tax collection never touches.

The Bottom Line for New York eBay Sellers

New York asks two entirely separate questions of an eBay seller, and answering only the sales-tax one leaves real money on the table. The first is whether you must register as a sales tax vendor, which depends on physical presence or a rolling-quarter threshold test. The second, which has nothing to do with eBay's collection and nothing to do with the first question, is whether your LLC owes New York's own annual filing fee on its gross New York source income. Forming the LLC doesn't make either duty go away. It's what stands between the business and your personal assets while you sort out which of these actually applies to you.

New York's Department of Taxation and Finance treats a marketplace seller's registration duty as conditional rather than automatic, and gets specific about the condition: a New York physical presence, including a home-based business run from a New York address, requires registering as a sales tax vendor even though eBay is already collecting the tax. You'd still be filing periodic returns reporting those sales as nontaxable. Without any New York physical presence, registration only kicks in once you clear both limbs of a gross-receipts-and-transaction-count test measured over the four sales tax quarters immediately before the one you're in, a rolling window rather than a calendar year. Layered on top of all of that, entirely separately, is an LLC filing fee that has nothing to do with sales tax at all: it's assessed under New York's personal income tax article on the gross income your LLC earns from New York sources, and it applies to a disregarded single-member LLC from the first dollar of that income, with no minimum threshold before the duty exists.

Whether you need your own New York registration depends on the rest of your business: It depends on whether you have a New York physical presence. IF YOU DO, including a home-based business run from a New York address, you must apply for a Certificate of Authority and file periodic sales tax returns even though eBay collects the tax for you, reporting the facilitated sales as gross sales and as nontaxable sales. IF YOU DO NOT have any storefront, inventory, employees or other physical presence in New York, you are only required to register once you meet BOTH limbs of the economic-nexus test in Tax Law § 1101(b)(8)(iv): more than $500,000 of gross receipts from sales of tangible personal property delivered into New York AND more than 100 such sales, measured over the immediately preceding four sales tax quarters. Both must be met, the Department states that 'a business that meets the gross receipts threshold, but has not made more than 100 transactions in that period, is not required to register for sales tax.' Below both, or below either one, an out-of-state marketplace-only seller does not have to register.. Your eBay sales count toward New York's $500,000 and 100 transactions threshold, so marketplace volume alone can push you over it. New York uses the federal reporting threshold, so eBay issues a 1099-K once you pass $20,000 and 200 transactions.

eBay Collects New York Sales Tax. What Is Still Yours?

Whether you need your own New York registration depends on the rest of your business: It depends on whether you have a New York physical presence. IF YOU DO, including a home-based business run from a New York address, you must apply for a Certificate of Authority and file periodic sales tax returns even though eBay collects the tax for you, reporting the facilitated sales as gross sales and as nontaxable sales. IF YOU DO NOT have any storefront, inventory, employees or other physical presence in New York, you are only required to register once you meet BOTH limbs of the economic-nexus test in Tax Law § 1101(b)(8)(iv): more than $500,000 of gross receipts from sales of tangible personal property delivered into New York AND more than 100 such sales, measured over the immediately preceding four sales tax quarters. Both must be met, the Department states that 'a business that meets the gross receipts threshold, but has not made more than 100 transactions in that period, is not required to register for sales tax.' Below both, or below either one, an out-of-state marketplace-only seller does not have to register..

The registration question splits cleanly on physical presence. If you run your eBay business from a New York address, even a home-based operation with no separate storefront, the Department's own guidance says yes, you still need to apply for a Certificate of Authority and file periodic sales tax returns, reporting your eBay sales as nontaxable since the tax was already collected for you. Without any New York physical presence, storefront, inventory, or employees, the analysis shifts entirely to a rolling four-sales-tax-quarter lookback measuring both your gross receipts from goods delivered into New York and your separate count of sales into the state, and New York's own guidance is explicit that both conditions have to be met in the same window. Falling short on either one means you're not required to register. Notice what that rolling window means in practice: it isn't a calendar-year question you check once a year, it's a moving test that can flip your answer mid-year as older quarters roll off and newer ones roll on.

Do Your eBay Sales Count Toward New York's Nexus Test?

Your eBay sales count toward New York's $500,000 and 100 transactions threshold, so marketplace volume alone can push you over it.

New York's own FAQ answers directly whether your eBay sales feed into that rolling-quarter threshold test: yes, sales made through an online marketplace are included when you calculate whether you've cleared both limbs. That matters even for a seller who never has to collect a dime of New York tax personally, because crossing the threshold is what triggers the registration and filing duty discussed above, independent of who's actually remitting on any given sale. A seller running a second channel alongside eBay (a personal site, wholesale accounts, local sales), needs to watch the combined total across all channels against that same rolling window, not just whichever channel feels like 'the real business.'

New York's 1099-K Threshold

New York uses the federal reporting threshold, so eBay issues a 1099-K once you pass $20,000 and 200 transactions.

New York's Form 1099-K rule is the simplest piece of this page: the state's own guidance says its reporting requirement follows the federal one, with card providers and other reporting entities required to send New York a copy within thirty days of the federal filing. There's no independent New York dollar or transaction figure layered on top. Whatever triggers the federal form is what triggers New York's copy. What that copy doesn't do is tell you anything about the LLC filing fee below; the two are unrelated New York obligations that happen to both key off your gross income, computed under entirely different statutes for entirely different purposes.

Buying Inventory to Resell in New York

New York will not accept an out-of-state resale certificate, buying inventory tax-free here means holding a New York permit of your own.

NY Tax Bulletin TB-ST-240 states plainly: 'Exemption certificates of other states or countries are not valid to claim exemption from New York State and local sales and use tax.' A seller must instead issue NY's own Form ST-120. Nuance: for a non-NY purchaser who is 'not registered nor required to be registered' as an NY vendor, ST-120 Part 2 lets them qualify WITHOUT obtaining a NY Certificate of Authority, by entering their home-state sales-tax/VAT registration number on NY's own form, but only if the resold goods are drop-shipped to the purchaser's customer (or a NY fulfillment provider) or are resold from a business located outside NY. So no NY permit is required in the qualifying cases, but a home-state resale certificate alone is never accepted; NY's own certificate paperwork is always required.

New York flatly doesn't accept another state's or country's exemption certificate to claim a sales tax exemption, its own bulletin states that in so many words. Its resale document is Form ST-120, and the useful nuance is in the form's second part: a non-New York purchaser who isn't registered and isn't required to register as a New York vendor can still qualify using ST-120 by entering their own home-jurisdiction registration number, without going through full New York vendor registration, as long as the goods are drop-shipped to their own customer or a New York fulfillment provider, or resold from a business located outside New York. It's New York's own paperwork either way; a supplier who just hands you your home-state certificate and calls it done is working from the wrong form.

New York leaves second-hand dealer licensing to cities and counties, so check your own. New York's statewide General Business Law Article 5 licenses collateral loan brokers/pawnbrokers. Its § 47 ('Second-hand business') governs a licensed collateral loan broker's dealings in second-hand articles bought outright (not just pledges), but by its own terms directs that such a broker 'shall comply with local laws or regulations governing dealers in second-hand articles' -- i.e. GBL Article 5 itself does not create a statewide secondhand-dealer license for the general public; secondhand-dealer licensing in NY is imposed at the city/county level (e.g., NYC Admin. Code Title 20, county local laws) under home-rule/General Municipal Law authority, not a single state statute reaching general resale of used goods by an ordinary online reseller.

The New York Tax eBay Does Not Handle

New York levies LLC/LLP annual filing fee (Form IT-204-LL), which can still reach you even though eBay handles the sales tax: If your eBay business runs through a New York LLC and has any income, gain, loss, or deduction from New York State sources, which for a seller who lives, works, or otherwise operates out of New York will normally be the case. New York charges an annual filing fee that is measured on GROSS INCOME, not profit, and a single-member LLC that is a disregarded entity for federal tax purposes is squarely inside it. A New York LLC with NO New York source income, gain, loss or deduction is not required to file. The Department's own IT-204-LL-I instructions say you must file Form IT-204-LL if you are a 'limited liability company (LLC) that is a disregarded entity for federal income tax purposes that has income, gain, loss, or deduction from New York State sources'. There is no minimum: the duty starts at the FIRST DOLLAR of New York source gross income, and the only LLCs told not to file are those with no New York source income, gain, loss or deduction at all. The fee is calculated on 'the New York source gross income for the tax year immediately preceding the tax year for which the fee is due' (the PRIOR year) and New York source gross income is defined 'without any allowance or deduction for cost of goods sold'. For a reseller buying stock to resell, that is the point that bites: the measure is what came in, not what was left after inventory. For a disregarded-entity LLC the fee is $25: 'If your LLC is treated as a disregarded entity for federal income tax purposes and has any income, gain, loss, or deduction from New York sources, the filing fee is $25.' For an LLC filing as a partnership the fee runs on the published tier table by prior-year New York source gross income: $25 up to $100,000; $50 over $100,000 to $250,000; $175 over $250,000 to $500,000; $500 over $500,000 to $1,000,000; $1,500 over $1,000,000 to $5,000,000; $3,000 over $5,000,000 to $25,000,000; $4,500 above $25,000,000. It is due by the 15th day of the third month after your tax year ends. eBay collecting sales tax for you does nothing about this. It is a separate, entity-level fee under the personal income tax article, not a sales tax.

Setting Up to Sell on eBay from New York

1. Determine your New York physical presence status first

   A home-based New York business and an out-of-state seller with no New York footprint get entirely different answers to the registration question under the same rule.

2. If you've no physical presence, track your rolling four-quarter totals

   Both the gross-receipts figure and the separate sales-count figure have to be cleared in the same rolling window. Falling short on either one means registration isn't required yet.

3. Check whether your LLC owes New York's annual filing fee

   This runs on New York source gross income, not profit, from the first dollar for a disregarded single-member LLC, and it's entirely separate from anything sales-tax related. An LLC with no New York source income doesn't have to file it.

4. Use New York's own ST-120, not your home-state certificate

   New York rejects other states' resale certificates outright. If you don't want to fully register as a New York vendor, ST-120's second part may still qualify you using your home-jurisdiction registration number.

5. Revisit both questions if your footprint or channels change

   Adding a New York physical presence, a second sales channel, or New York source income each independently reopens one of these separate New York obligations.

Who to Ask in New York

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance handles sales tax registration, the ST-120 resale certificate, and the LLC annual filing fee discussed above. All three live at tax.ny.gov, though they're addressed by separate guidance pages since they come from different parts of New York's tax law. The New York Department of State's Division of Corporations forms and maintains your LLC as a separate filing from anything Taxation and Finance tracks. Secondhand-dealer licensing in New York runs through city and county government rather than a single statewide statute, so check with the municipality where you're actually based.

Sources

• https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/publications/sales/marketplace.htm
• https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/publications/sales/nexus.htm
• https://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/multi/reporting_requiremts.htm
• https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/tg_bulletins/st/exemption_certificates_for_sales_tax.htm
• https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/current_forms/st/st120_fill_in.pdf
• https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/47
• https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/A5
• https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/current_forms/it/it204lli.pdf
• https://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/default.htm
• https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1099k

Federal 1099-K threshold: IRC § 6050W(e), as amended by § 70432(a) of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21, July 4, 2025). A third-party settlement organization such as eBay must file Form 1099-K only if BOTH tests are met for the calendar year: gross payments exceed $20,000 AND the number of transactions exceeds 200. These are the figures for tax year 2026. There is no forward phase-in: § 70432(a) takes effect "as if included in section 9674 of the American Rescue Plan Act," so the same $20,000 / 200 figures apply retroactively to calendar years after 2021 (tax years 2022 through 2026 alike). The $600 threshold enacted by ARPA § 9674 (P.L. 117-2) was repealed before it operated, and the IRS transition-relief thresholds previously announced for 2024 and 2025 are superseded. A platform may issue a 1099-K below these figures, and a state may set a lower TPSO threshold, in which case a seller can receive a 1099-K without meeting the federal test.. Verified 2026-08-08.