Unfortunately I never found a solution for this oversight with the API. I haven’t worked on Shopify integration for close to a year so I can’t say with 100% certainty that this is still the case but I contacted the Shopify developers and the answer was that no that information is not accessible. I don’t know your particular requirements but I toyed with the idea of adding the information as metadata on the items themselves or storing it externally in a lookup table but that doesn’t work with third party vendors or large inventories. In the end I was forced to charge full or no tax based on the taxable flag on the item. Sorry I don’t have better news.
Topic summary
Goal: Retrieve the exact tax applied to specific products (especially collection-based tax overrides) via REST or GraphQL to calculate prices (e.g., net price/export without tax).
Findings:
- No API endpoint (REST or GraphQL) exposes tax rate or collection-level tax override details per product. Only the taxable flag is accessible.
- This was confirmed by contacting Shopify developers; the information isn’t available via API.
Impact:
- Apps cannot determine the precise tax amount or rate for a product before creating an order, complicating net price calculations and mixed reduced/full tax scenarios.
Workarounds shared:
- Store intended tax data as product metafields or in an external lookup table (limited for third‑party vendors or large catalogs).
- Use product categories dedicated to reduced tax items so merchants avoid per‑product metafield management.
- Default to charging full or no tax based on the taxable flag when precise rates aren’t available.
Status:
- No official solution or timeline mentioned. Latest post asks for an update; issue remains unresolved and open.