Old North News

In 2020, North Carolina collected $2.2 billion in license taxes, ranking it fifth in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections (STC).

The STC survey includes five broad tax categories and up to 25 subcategories. Data is gathered from all 50 state governments and all dependent state-level entities.

The Census Bureau cautions it sets the tax classifications among the survey categories, and they may differ from the classifications set by the state governments.

Below is a breakdown of how taxes were classified by the bureau and how much was collected.

Rank	State	Amount
1	California	$12,007,345,000
2	Texas	$3,396,564,000
3	Illinois	$2,748,276,000
4	Pennsylvania	$2,594,319,000
5	North Carolina	$2,197,546,000
6	Ohio	$2,174,077,000
7	Florida	$2,122,244,000
8	Michigan	$2,017,443,000
9	Delaware	$1,851,617,000
10	New York	$1,823,176,000
11	New Jersey	$1,691,586,000
12	Tennessee	$1,672,204,000
13	Washington	$1,615,374,000
14	Minnesota	$1,578,328,000
15	Wisconsin	$1,256,103,000
16	Oregon	$1,165,847,000
17	Massachusetts	$1,130,025,000
18	Oklahoma	$1,043,794,000
19	Iowa	$1,021,357,000
20	Virginia	$972,928,000
21	Maryland	$800,356,000
22	Indiana	$792,545,000
23	Georgia	$719,188,000
24	Colorado	$678,829,000
25	Nevada	$637,899,000
26	Missouri	$634,725,000
27	South Carolina	$633,783,000
28	Arizona	$584,022,000
29	Alabama	$573,316,000
30	Kentucky	$545,074,000
31	Mississippi	$487,110,000
32	Montana	$453,759,000
33	Kansas	$432,005,000
34	New Hampshire	$420,669,000
35	Louisiana	$417,186,000
36	Idaho	$399,784,000
37	Arkansas	$391,409,000
38	Connecticut	$370,415,000
39	Utah	$356,811,000
40	New Mexico	$332,374,000
41	South Dakota	$295,378,000
42	Maine	$284,666,000
43	Hawaii	$274,200,000
44	West Virginia	$256,240,000
45	North Dakota	$220,690,000
46	Wyoming	$204,750,000
47	District of Columbia	$202,042,000
48	Nebraska	$186,656,000
49	Alaska	$152,187,000
50	Vermont	$140,193,000
51	Rhode Island	$120,821,000

Source: U.S. Census Bureau