opensalestax-php

PHP SDK for the OpenSalesTax engine — the open-source, self-hostable US sales tax calculation API.

Status: v0.1 alpha. API surface stable. Tested against engine v0.14 — v0.24.

Why this exists

US sales tax is a mess: ~10,000 jurisdictions, ~50,000 ZIPs, rates change quarterly, taxability rules vary per state per category. The commercial APIs (Avalara, TaxJar, Stripe Tax) charge $0.50–$10+ per transaction or 0.5% of revenue.

OpenSalesTax is the open-source self-hostable engine. This SDK is the PHP wrapper around its v1 HTTP API — composer require, point at your engine, get tax.

$client = new OpenSalesTaxClient(baseUrl: 'http://your-engine:8080');

$result = $client->calculate(
    address: new Address(zip5: '55401'),
    lineItems: [new LineItem(amount: '100.00', category: 'general')],
);

echo $result->taxTotal;  // "8.025"

That's it. ~200 LOC of stateless wrapper code — no business logic, no caching, no surprise dependencies. The complexity lives in the engine; this SDK just calls it.

Install

composer require ejosterberg/opensalestax

Requires PHP 8.2+ (uses class-level readonly syntax for DTOs) and a reachable OpenSalesTax engine (self-host via the engine's docker-compose).

Quickstart

use OpenSalesTax\Client;
use OpenSalesTax\Address;
use OpenSalesTax\LineItem;

$client = new Client(baseUrl: 'http://localhost:8080');

$result = $client->calculate(
    address: new Address(zip5: '55401'),
    lineItems: [
        new LineItem(amount: '100.00', category: 'general'),
        new LineItem(amount: '50.00', category: 'clothing'),
    ],
);

echo $result->subtotal;  // "150.00"
echo $result->taxTotal;  // "8.025"

foreach ($result->lines as $line) {
    echo "{$line->category}: \${$line->tax}\n";
    if ($line->note !== null) {
        echo "  → {$line->note}\n";   // e.g. "Clothing is non-taxable in Minnesota..."
    }
}

API surface

$client = new Client(
    baseUrl: 'http://your-engine:8080',
    apiKey: 'optional-x-api-key',  // null if engine doesn't require auth
    timeoutSeconds: 10.0,
    httpClient: null,              // optional PSR-18 override (Guzzle 7 default)
);

$client->health();                          // HealthResponse{status, version, databaseConnected}
$client->states();                          // StatesResponse{states[StateInfo], total}
$client->rates(zip5: '55401');              // RatesResponse{input, jurisdictions[], combinedRatePct, disclaimer}
$client->calculate($address, $lineItems);   // CalculateResponse{subtotal, taxTotal, lines[], disclaimer}

Each line in a CalculateResponse carries the per-jurisdiction breakdown:

foreach ($result->lines as $line) {
    foreach ($line->jurisdictions as $j) {
        echo "  {$j->type:9} {$j->name:50} {$j->ratePct}% \${$j->tax}\n";
        // state     Minnesota                                    6.875% $6.8750
        // county    Hennepin County                              0.15%  $0.1500
        // city      Minneapolis                                  0.5%   $0.5000
        // district  Hennepin County Transit Sales Tax            0.5%   $0.5000
    }
}

Sums reconcile exactly: $line->tax === sum($line->jurisdictions[*]->tax). Use the breakdown for accounting (state/county/city splits); use $line->tax for the customer-facing total.

Tax categories

Standard categories the engine recognizes: general (default), clothing, groceries, prescription_drugs, prepared_food, digital_goods. Per-state taxability rules apply (e.g. clothing is non-taxable in Minnesota; groceries in most states).

Amounts are decimal strings

Amounts are strings, not integers (cents) or floats. Strings preserve the engine's exact precision; the engine quantizes per-jurisdiction in fixed-point. Convert from cents in your own code if you need to:

$cents = 9999;
$amount = number_format($cents / 100, 2, '.', '');  // "99.99"
new LineItem(amount: $amount, category: 'general');

Errors

Flat hierarchy. All errors extend OpenSalesTax\Exceptions\OpenSalesTaxException:

• OpenSalesTaxApiException — non-2xx HTTP from the engine; carries statusCode, rawBody, errorBody.
• OpenSalesTaxNetworkException — transport failure (timeout, DNS); wraps the underlying PSR-18 exception via getPrevious().
• OpenSalesTaxValidationException — client-side input rejected before sending (bad ZIP regex, negative amount).

try {
    $result = $client->calculate(...);
} catch (OpenSalesTaxApiException $e) {
    error_log("Engine returned {$e->statusCode}: {$e->rawBody}");
} catch (OpenSalesTaxNetworkException $e) {
    error_log("Cannot reach engine: " . $e->getMessage());
}

Quality bar

• PHPStan level=max — zero suppressed errors
• PHP-CS-Fixer with PSR-12 + risky rules — zero violations
• PHPUnit — 21 unit + integration tests, 54 assertions, all passing
• GitHub Actions CI matrix on PHP 8.2 / 8.3 / 8.4
• DCO sign-off required on every commit

Engine compatibility

This SDK targets the OpenSalesTax v1 HTTP API. Tested against engine v0.14 — v0.24. The v1 API surface has been stable across that range. Pin both in production:

ejosterberg/opensalestax: ^0.1
opensalestax engine:      v0.20+ (recommended; older versions had a state-bleed bug fixed in v0.22)

What this SDK is NOT

• Not the engine. See open-sales-tax for the calculator itself.
• Not Stripe-aware. For a Stripe Tax replacement, layer opensalestax-stripe-php on top.
• Not a tax-filing service — calculation only. The merchant remits.
• Not a caching layer. Caching is the consumer's job because cache-invalidation policy is platform-specific.

Disclaimer

Tax calculations are provided as-is for convenience. The merchant is solely responsible for tax-collection accuracy and remittance to the appropriate jurisdictions. Verify against your state Department of Revenue before remitting.

Contributing

DCO sign-off (git commit -s) required on every commit. See CONTRIBUTING.md. Apache 2.0 + SPDX header on every source file.

License

Apache 2.0.