Mississippi’s Sales Tax Holiday is this weekend (Friday, July 29 to Saturday, July 30) and it’s a great opportunity for families to stock up on school supplies just before Lafayette County and Oxford Schools go back into session on Aug. 1.

Pam Swain, Senior Vice President of the Oxford-Lafayette County Chamber of Commerce, encourages the public to shop from their local retailers.

“We encourage people to get out, buy their back to school clothes and do their supplies shopping,” said Swain.  “And definitely encourage people to shop at home and shop in Oxford for those items because our local retailers will be open and ready to serve them. They’ll get the opportunity to get all the items that they need, for the most part without any sales tax, so it’s a great opportunity for people show up in Oxford and get ready for school to start on Monday.”

The sales tax for Mississippi is 7%. The items purchased must be less than $100 to qualify. Any item $100 and more will have the 7% sales tax applied to the purchase.

It must be noted that tax-free sales do not apply to online purchases. Items must be bought in-store to be eligible for the tax free weekend.

“Anywhere that that back to school things can be bought— shoes, clothes, supplies— all of those items can be found all over town at retailers, and they’re all participating,” Swain said.

List of tax-free eligible school supplies:

Backpacks

Binder pockets

Binders

Blackboard chalk

Book bags

Calculators

Cellophane tape

Clays and glazes

Compasses

Composition books

Crayons

Dictionaries and thesauruses

Dividers

Erasers

Folders: expandable, pocket, plastic and manila

Glue, paste and paste sticks

Highlighters

Index card boxes

Index cards

Legal pads

Lunch boxes

Markers

Notebooks

Paintbrushes for artwork

Paints (acrylic, tempera and oil)

Paper (loose-leaf ruled notebook paper, copy paper, graph paper, tracing paper, manila paper, colored paper, poster board and construction paper)

Pencil boxes and other school supply boxes

Pencil sharpeners

Pencils

Pens

Protractors

Reference books

Reference maps and globes

Rulers

Scissors

Sheet music

Sketch and drawing pads

Textbooks

Watercolors

Workbooks

Writing tablets

For more information on Mississippi’s sales tax holiday and a list of eligible and non-eligible items, click the link to the Mississippi Department of Revenue’s list below.

Read the 2022 Sales Tax Holiday List