Can sales tax go to Shopify Balance while payouts go to my main account?

Accounting & Taxes
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Topic summary

Topic: Routing sales tax to Shopify Balance while keeping payouts to a main bank account.

  • Clarification: Shopify’s sales tax account works by automatically transferring sales tax from the main Shopify Balance account to the dedicated sales tax account.
  • Key constraint: For this transfer to occur, funds must first be deposited into the Shopify Balance account. If payouts bypass Shopify Balance and go directly to an external bank, sales tax cannot be moved into the sales tax account.

Outcome: To use the Shopify sales tax account, payouts need to be directed to Shopify Balance. Splitting so that only sales tax goes to Shopify Balance while payouts go to an external bank is not supported.

Status: Resolved, with an invitation for further questions.

Summarized with AI on December 31. AI used: gpt-5.
2

Hi, @Renmishele .

Thank you for reaching out!

In this help doc, you will see that "sales tax is automatically transferred from your main Balance account to your sales tax account"
Meaning the funds needs to land first in the Balance Account before being transferred to the Sales tax account. If the funds do not arrive in the Balance Account, then it cannot be transferred do the sales tax account. So you need to have your payouts going to the Balance Account to use the Sales tax account.

Please let me know if you have any further questions!

Talk soon,