North Dakota doesn't ask a marketplace-only seller to register at all.

The Bottom Line for North Dakota eBay Sellers

North Dakota is one of the lighter states in this cluster for a seller who sells exclusively through eBay: no registration duty, no separate state 1099-K filing to worry about, and resale paperwork built around whatever registration number you already hold elsewhere. An LLC doesn't change any of that; it changes who's exposed once the picture gets more complicated than a single marketplace channel.

North Dakota's tax code reaches marketplace-facilitated sales through the facilitator itself, treating the platform as the retailer of record for the transactions it processes, which is why the seller side of that transaction carries no independent registration duty. Nothing about forming an LLC changes that structure. The entity is what stands between a supplier dispute or a returns claim and your personal assets, the same value it provides in every state in this cluster, worth putting in place before your volume grows rather than after.

If every one of your sales into North Dakota runs through eBay, you do not need your own North Dakota sales-tax registration — eBay is the one collecting and remitting. Your eBay sales count toward North Dakota's $100,000 threshold, so marketplace volume alone can push you over it. North Dakota uses the federal reporting threshold, so eBay issues a 1099-K once you pass $20,000 and 200 transactions.

eBay Collects North Dakota Sales Tax. What Is Still Yours?

If every one of your sales into North Dakota runs through eBay, you do not need your own North Dakota sales-tax registration — eBay is the one collecting and remitting.

North Dakota's statute makes the marketplace facilitator the retailer of record for every sale it processes on a seller's behalf, and the state's own guidance confirms that a marketplace seller who has accepted a facilitator's collection certificate in good faith can exclude those sales from its own return entirely. Reading the statute and the agency guidance together, a seller whose only channel is eBay has no independent registration to make, because there's no gross-receipts figure left for a North Dakota return once the facilitated sales are excluded. That reading isn't spelled out as a single plain-language sentence anywhere on the Tax Commissioner's site, so treat it as the strong likely answer rather than a guarantee, and revisit it the moment you add a second sales channel, since a direct sale outside the marketplace is squarely your own registration question.

Do Your eBay Sales Count Toward North Dakota's Nexus Test?

Your eBay sales count toward North Dakota's $100,000 threshold, so marketplace volume alone can push you over it.

North Dakota measures its own small-seller exception against gross sales delivered into the state, with no separate count of individual transactions, and the statute's marketplace exclusion only removes facilitated sales from what a seller actually reports and pays on. Not from whether the seller has crossed the threshold in the first place. That distinction rarely matters for an eBay-only seller, since the same statute effectively takes registration off the table for that fact pattern regardless. It starts to matter the moment you add a direct-sales channel, because North Dakota's threshold test is reading your combined activity, marketplace and non-marketplace together, even though only the non-marketplace dollars are ever yours to collect and remit on directly.

North Dakota's 1099-K Threshold

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

North Dakota is unusually direct about Form 1099-K: its own income tax withholding and information-return guideline lists payment-card and third-party network transactions reported on Form 1099-K among the payments that don't have to be filed as a state information return, unless North Dakota income tax was actually withheld from the payment. A scenario that essentially never applies to an eBay payout. North Dakota isn't simply silent on 1099-K the way some states are; it affirmatively exempts the form from its own filing regime. None of that changes what you owe on the income itself, only where a copy of the paperwork ends up, so reconciling the 1099-K's gross figure against your actual books is still the step that produces an accurate number.

Buying Inventory to Resell in North Dakota

North Dakota accepts a resale certificate issued by another state, so you can buy inventory for resale without registering here first.

North Dakota is a full member state of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. Its Office of State Tax Commissioner exemption document (SFN 62735, 'Streamlined Sales Tax Certificate of Exemption') is the standardized multi-state SST certificate: Section 5 is a grid where the purchaser enters its existing registration ID number and exemption reason separately for EACH Streamlined member state (including ND, OH, OK, RI, and dozens of others) rather than requiring a fresh ND-specific number. A reseller already registered/exempt in its home SST member state can present this uniform certificate carrying that home-state ID to buy tax-free from an ND seller without separately registering in ND.

North Dakota is a Streamlined Sales Tax member state, and its own certificate of exemption is built around that membership: rather than requiring a fresh North Dakota registration number, the form has a grid where a purchaser enters the ID number issued by whichever member state it's already registered in, North Dakota's own included. A reseller registered in another Streamlined member state can generally use that home-state number on North Dakota's certificate without registering separately here. Secondhand-dealer licensing runs the opposite way. There's no statewide North Dakota statute reaching general resale of used goods, and where a license requirement exists at all, it comes from a city ordinance like Minot's, which folds secondhand dealers into the same local licensing chapter as pawnbrokers and scrap dealers.

North Dakota leaves second-hand dealer licensing to cities and counties, so check your own. North Dakota Century Code Title 51 (Sales and Exchanges) has no chapter licensing general pawnbrokers or secondhand dealers; its only related chapter is 51-35, 'Purchases by Scrap Metal Dealers,' the scrap-metal carve-out the brief excludes from general resale. In practice, North Dakota cities license secondhand dealers locally -- e.g. Minot's municipal code (ch. 18, § 18-116) defines 'Licensee' to include 'all pawnbrokers, secondhand dealers, or scrap dealers ... required to be licensed by this chapter,' a city-level license. No statewide NDCC chapter specifically reaching general resale of ordinary used goods was located.

Setting Up to Sell on eBay from North Dakota

1. Confirm eBay is your only North Dakota sales channel

   The registration relief here rests on the facilitator being the retailer of record for every sale. A direct-sales channel outside eBay changes that analysis immediately.

2. Form the LLC even though North Dakota's paperwork is light

   Light state paperwork doesn't change the underlying case for separating personal and business liability before your volume grows.

3. Use your existing Streamlined member-state ID for wholesale purchases

   If you're already registered in another Streamlined Sales Tax state, that number generally works on North Dakota's own exemption certificate without a separate North Dakota registration.

4. Don't expect a separate North Dakota copy of your 1099-K

   North Dakota's own guideline exempts Form 1099-K from its state information-return filing requirement outright, unless North Dakota income tax was withheld from the payment.

5. Check your own city if secondhand-dealer licensing ever comes up

   North Dakota has no statewide statute reaching general resale of used goods; any licensing requirement is a local ordinance question specific to where you're based.

Who to Ask in North Dakota

The North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner handles sales and use tax, marketplace facilitator questions, and the exemption certificate paperwork discussed above. The North Dakota Secretary of State's office is the one that actually forms and maintains your LLC once you file it. If secondhand-dealer licensing ever becomes relevant to your business, that's a city question. Check with the city where you're actually based rather than assuming a statewide rule applies.

Sources

• https://www.tax.nd.gov/marketplace-facilitator
• https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t57c39-2.pdf
• https://www.ndlegis.gov/cencode/t57c39-2.pdf
• https://www.tax.nd.gov/sites/www/files/documents/guidelines/business/it-withhold/income-tax-withholding-information-returns-guideline.pdf
• https://www.tax.nd.gov/sites/default/files/documents/forms/business/sales-use/streamlined-salestax-certificate-of-exemption.pdf
• https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t51.html
• https://www.tax.nd.gov/business
• https://www.tax.nd.gov/business/sales-and-use-tax
• 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.