Florida Marketplace Facilitator Law: Does Amazon FBA Remit Your Full $100,000 Sales Tax Obligation?

Florida's Marketplace Facilitator Statute: July 2021 and the $100K Threshold

Florida was notably late to adopt marketplace facilitator legislation. While most states enacted their laws in 2019 or 2020 following the South Dakota v. Wayfair decision, Florida's legislature did not pass its version until the 2021 session. The law took effect July 1, 2021, making Florida one of the final large-market states to shift collection responsibility to platforms.

Under Florida Statutes § 212.05965, a marketplace facilitator is defined as any person who contracts with a marketplace seller to facilitate the sale of the seller's products through the facilitator's marketplace, and who directly or indirectly collects payment from the purchaser and transmits that payment to the seller. The facilitator must either own or operate the marketplace, or process payments on behalf of the seller.

The $100,000 threshold applies to the marketplace facilitator itself: if a facilitator's total facilitated sales into Florida exceed $100,000 in the previous calendar year, it must register and collect. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart Marketplace, and virtually every major platform far exceed this threshold — meaning they are always obligated to collect on Florida-destined orders.

Critically, Florida's marketplace facilitator law uses the same $100,000 revenue-only test that applies to remote sellers under economic nexus. Unlike states that use a “$100,000 or 200 transactions” disjunctive threshold, Florida has no transaction-count prong — only gross revenue matters. For a full comparison of Florida's economic nexus structure, see the Florida economic nexus threshold guide.

What Amazon Actually Remits vs. What You Still Owe

When Amazon acts as a marketplace facilitator for your FBA sales, it handles the entire sales tax lifecycle for those specific transactions:

• Tax calculation — Amazon determines the correct Florida state rate (6%) plus the applicable county discretionary surtax (ranging from 0% to 2.5% depending on the delivery county)
• Collection from buyer — Amazon adds the tax to the buyer's order total and collects payment
• Remittance to Florida DOR — Amazon files and pays the collected tax directly to the Florida Department of Revenue
• Record-keeping — Amazon maintains transaction-level records for audit purposes

What Amazon does not cover:

• Sales through your own website — Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, or any self-hosted storefront
• Direct invoiced sales — B2B orders, wholesale, or any transaction processed outside Amazon's platform
• Phone or email orders — manual orders that bypass the Amazon marketplace
• Sales through non-facilitator platforms — smaller platforms that do not meet Florida's marketplace facilitator definition or threshold

The key insight: Amazon's marketplace facilitator obligation is transaction-specific, not seller-specific. It covers sales made through the Amazon platform — full stop. It does not create a blanket exemption for FBA sellers across all their sales channels.

Physical Nexus from FBA Warehouse Inventory in Florida

Here is where FBA sellers encounter a complication that marketplace facilitator coverage does not resolve. When you use Fulfillment by Amazon, you ship your inventory to Amazon's fulfillment network — and Amazon distributes that inventory across warehouses based on its own logistics algorithms. If Amazon places your inventory in a Florida fulfillment center, you now have tangible personal property stored in the state.

Under traditional nexus principles, storing inventory in a state creates physical nexus. Florida's sales tax statute defines “dealer” broadly to include any person who has property in the state for sale. FBA inventory sitting in a Florida warehouse meets this definition — your goods are physically present in Florida, available for delivery to Florida customers.

The practical question is: does physical nexus from FBA inventory matter if Amazon is already collecting tax on your Amazon sales? The answer depends on whether you have any non-facilitated sales:

• 100% Amazon seller with FBA inventory in Florida — Amazon collects on all your facilitated sales, but physical nexus may still require you to register and file zero-dollar returns. Florida has not issued a blanket exemption from registration for sellers whose only nexus trigger is FBA inventory and whose only sales channel is Amazon.
• Multi-channel seller with FBA inventory in Florida — You have physical nexus. Amazon collects on your platform sales, but you must independently collect Florida sales tax on all direct-channel sales (Shopify, wholesale, etc.) regardless of whether those direct sales exceed the $100,000 economic nexus threshold. Physical nexus has no dollar threshold — one unit of inventory in Florida is sufficient.

Marketplace Sales vs. Merchant-Fulfilled Orders from Florida Fulfillment Centers

A common source of confusion: the difference between a marketplace-facilitated sale and a merchant-fulfilled order that happens to ship from a Florida location. These are distinct concepts under Florida's law:

The Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) distinction is particularly important. Many FBA sellers use Amazon MCF to fulfill orders from their Shopify store — Amazon picks, packs, and ships the order from its warehouse. But because the sale happened on Shopify (not on Amazon.com), it is not a marketplace-facilitated transaction. Amazon is acting as a logistics provider, not a marketplace facilitator. You are responsible for collecting Florida sales tax on that order.

The determinative factor under Florida's statute is where the sale is facilitated — meaning which platform listed the product, processed the buyer's purchase decision, and collected payment. The physical fulfillment location does not change who owes the tax. For a broader look at how different states handle this distinction, see the marketplace facilitator laws by state guide.

Registration Obligation When 100% of Sales Go Through Amazon

This is the question that generates the most uncertainty among pure-play FBA sellers: if all of my sales go through Amazon and Amazon collects all the tax, do I personally need to register with the Florida Department of Revenue?

The answer is nuanced and depends on your nexus type:

• Economic nexus only (no FBA inventory in Florida) — If you have no physical presence in Florida and all your Florida sales are facilitated by Amazon, you likely have no independent registration obligation. Amazon-facilitated sales do not count toward your $100,000 economic nexus threshold, and without physical presence, you have no other nexus trigger. You are not required to register.
• Physical nexus from FBA inventory in Florida — This is where it gets complicated. You have tangible personal property in the state. Florida's statute broadly requires “dealers” with nexus to register. The Florida DOR has not published a formal ruling or Technical Assistance Advisement specifically addressing whether an FBA seller whose only nexus is inventory storage — and whose only sales are Amazon-facilitated — must independently register.

The conservative professional consensus among tax practitioners is: register. The cost of registering and filing zero-tax-due returns is minimal compared to the penalty risk of being found unregistered during an audit. If Florida ever asserts that FBA inventory storage triggers an independent filing obligation, you want to be in compliance. Additionally, some sellers discover they owe use tax on inventory transfers or sample withdrawals that would not be captured by Amazon's facilitated-sale collection.

For more on Florida's registration process and filing requirements, see the how to register for Florida sales tax guide.

Worked Example: $80K Amazon + $30K Shopify Seller

Let's walk through a concrete scenario. You sell kitchen accessories and have the following Florida sales profile over the past 12 months:

Economic nexus analysis: Your direct-channel Florida revenue is $30,000 — well below the $100,000 threshold. You do not have economic nexus in Florida based on revenue alone. The $80,000 in Amazon sales is excluded from your calculation.

Physical nexus analysis: Do you have FBA inventory stored in a Florida warehouse? Check your Amazon FBA Inventory Event Detail report or the Manage Inventory page filtered by fulfillment center. If Amazon has placed any of your inventory in a Florida FC (such as the facilities in Lakeland, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, or Miami), you have physical nexus.

If you have FBA inventory in Florida: You must register with the Florida Department of Revenue and collect Florida sales tax on your $30,000 in Shopify sales. At a 6% state rate (plus, say, a 1% county discretionary surtax in the buyer's county), you owe approximately $2,100 in Florida sales tax on your direct sales (assuming an average effective rate of 7%). Amazon continues handling the tax on your $80,000 in platform sales independently.

If you do NOT have FBA inventory in Florida: You have neither physical nexus nor economic nexus (since $30,000 < $100,000). You currently have no Florida collection obligation on your Shopify sales. However, monitor your direct-channel growth — if Shopify Florida revenue crosses $100,000 in any calendar year, economic nexus triggers and you must register and collect going forward.

For a comprehensive breakdown of how the $100K threshold works for multi-channel sellers across multiple states, see the state-by-state nexus exposure checklist.