Once you've set up your Tax Rates, Papaya can charge the right tax automatically on everything you sell — with a sensible default for each outlet and the flexibility to override it on a specific item or a specific sales channel.
💡 This article is about tax on the menu / selling side. To create the tax rates themselves (Standard, Zero-rated, Exempt) and learn how Thai defaults are seeded, see Tax Rates first. The same rates you create there are reused here.
How Papaya decides which tax to charge
For every item sold, Papaya picks the most specific setting that applies, in this order:
Per-channel tax on the item — a rate set for that exact sales channel
The item's tax rate — applies across all channels
The outlet's default tax rate — applies to everything with no override
If none is set, the country's default (e.g. 7% VAT in Thailand)
This means you only set what's different — everything else falls back to the outlet default.
1. Set your outlet's default tax rate
This is the rate applied to all items unless something more specific overrides it.
Go to Settings → Outlets and open the outlet.
Under Default tax rate, pick a rate (e.g. VAT 7%), or choose No tax rate to fall back to the country default.
Save.
2. Set a different tax rate for one item
Use this for items taxed differently from the rest of your menu — for example, exempt unprocessed agricultural goods.
Go to Menu → Base menu and open the item.
In the Tax rate section, leave it on Use outlet default, or pick a specific rate for the item.
3. Charge different tax per channel
Some items are taxed differently depending on how they're sold. The per-channel matrix lets you set a rate for each channel (dine-in, takeaway, delivery, partner channels, and so on).
On the same base menu item, click Add tax rate per channel.
Choose the channel and the tax rate to apply for it.
Channels you don't list keep using the item's rate (or the outlet default).
Where item tax lives
Tax is configured on the base menu item, so it's consistent everywhere that item is sold. On an outlet's menu, the item's tax is shown read-only with the hint "Inherited from the base menu item. Edit it on the base menu." — edit it on the base menu to change it.
Standard, zero-rated & exempt
The treatment comes from the tax rate's Type:
Type | Charges tax? | Counted in tax totals? |
Standard | Yes, at the rate | Yes |
Zero-rated | No (0%) | Yes — recorded as taxable |
Exempt | No | No |
Zero-rated and exempt items are never charged tax, no matter what rate is stored — so a non-taxable item can't accidentally charge tax.
How tax appears on receipts
The receipt shows a single Tax total:
For an order taxed at one rate, it shows the rate — e.g. Tax 7%.
For an order that mixes rates or treatments (per-item, per-channel, zero-rated, exempt), it shows just Tax, since no single rate applies to the whole order.
The full per-rate / zero-rated / exempt breakdown is still recorded for your reports.
FAQ
I changed a tax rate — does it change past orders?
No. The rate is snapshotted onto each line when the order is created, so completed orders keep the tax they were sold with.
Items synced from a POS (Revel, Micros, Deliverect)?
They use the outlet's default tax rate, since there's no Papaya menu item to read an override from.
Can I set tax per outlet for the same item?
Tax is set on the base menu item and is the same across outlets — outlet menus show it read-only. The outlet default rate is the per-outlet lever.