Is SaaS Taxable in Louisiana? Yes, Since 2025, and So Are Information Services, but Not Data Processing

Key Takeaway: Louisiana taxes SaaS. Since January 1, 2025, "prewritten computer software access services" have been a taxable service, and the Louisiana Department of Revenue's guidance says the definition applies "regardless of whether the charge for the services is on a per use, per user, per license, subscription, or some other basis." Per-call API pricing does not get an agent product out of the base. The same expansion taxes information services, which is where research and lead-generation agents land. Three things the Department says are not taxed matter to an AI business: data processing, cloud storage and data transfer fees, and web hosting.

What I Read

This guide rests on the Department's document Sales and Use Tax on Digital Products and Related Services (revised November 20, 2025), and on its July 20, 2026 Louisiana Register notice of substantive changes to the proposed digital-tools exemption rule. Statute numbers below are the ones the Department cites. I have not read the codified statutes themselves this session. Our earlier Louisiana post explains why that matters: the enrolled 2024 bills and the Department's citations do not use the same section numbers.

SaaS: Taxable as a Software Access Service

The guidance defines prewritten computer software access services as "charges made to customers for the right to access and use prewritten computer software, where possession of the software is maintained by the seller or a third party." It adds that they "include what is commonly referred to as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)," and cites La. R.S. 47:301.3(9). Its examples include Office 365, Zoom, Salesforce, Slack and a job board that charges employers to post listings.

For an agent seller, two words in that definition do most of the work. "Prewritten" covers any model, agent or tool you sell to more than one customer. "Third party" means hosting on someone else's cloud does not change the answer. A hosted agent sold per seat, per task or per API call is described by the definition on its face.

Louisiana also taxes software as a digital product when it is transferred electronically, and the guidance treats access as transfer: "If the purchaser can access the product, it is considered transferred electronically." An agent you ship as a download, a CLI or a local connector is taxable as well.

Custom software is no exception. The guidance says the old custom-software exemption has been suspended since April 1, 2016, and that Act 10 of the 2024 Third Extraordinary Session "permanently eliminates" it, "resulting in all software being taxed the same." An agent built to one buyer's specification is taxable in Louisiana. Most states would treat it as an untaxed service.

Information Services: Where Research Agents Land

The second new taxable service is information services, which the Department cites to La. R.S. 47:301.3(10). They are "electronic data retrieval or research" and "collecting, compiling, analyzing or furnishing of information." The guidance's examples include Google Analytics, Mixpanel and Amplitude (internet user statistics), sales-lead generators, legislative tracking, news clipping and credit reports.

An agent that researches, monitors or compiles and sells the result fits that list. The guidance has two examples that mark the line:

• Example 15: a customized investment report built on "private proprietary information about the company's clients" that "may not be disclosed to anyone other than the company" is not taxable.

• Example 16: a customized list of sales leads is taxable, because the underlying information "is already publicly available."

The test is not whether the output is personalized. It is whether the information is proprietary to that client and cannot be sold to anyone else. An agent that runs a client's own confidential data has a case. One that writes a tailored summary from public sources does not.

What Is Not Taxed

The guidance lists three things that are "not deemed to be digital products or information services subject to sales and use tax":

• Cloud storage services and data transfer fees

• Web hosting services (storage of site files, domain connections and email management; not site building or design)

• Data processing

It separately lists data processing, "including payment processing services," among the statutory exclusions from information services, citing La. R.S. 47:301.3(10)(b). Payroll processing and consulting on hardware and software needs are on its list of services that are not information services.

That is much of an agent's infrastructure bill. The guidance does not define data processing, and it does not say whether hosted model inference is data processing or software access. A charge for running the buyer's own workload on raw compute looks more like processing. A charge for calling your model through an API looks more like access to prewritten software, since the buyer is using your software, not renting your hardware. The Department has not said, and until it does I would treat a model API as taxable.

The Professional-Services Exclusion Assumes a Human

Louisiana excludes from digital products a professional's electronically delivered work product, such as an accountant's or engineer's, "if it primarily involves human effort that originated after the service was requested" (the Department cites La. R.S. 47:301(31)(c)). Its tax-preparer example (Example 9) treats the PDF return and software use as "inconsequential elements" of an untaxed service.

An AI-generated deliverable is the opposite case. When an agent produces the report and a person reviews it, the work product does not primarily involve human effort, and the exclusion is hard to claim. Professional firms that move work from staff to agents should expect this exclusion to apply to less of their output.

Exemptions Worth Knowing

Business inputs, but only if your output is taxable. The Commercial Production Exemption (cited to La. R.S. 47:305.12(A)) applies only when the digital tool is bought exclusively for commercial purposes, used directly in producing goods or services for sale, and those goods or services are themselves taxable. We cover it in detail in our earlier post.

The rule is still proposed. The Department's proposed rule on these exemptions (LAC 61:I.4405) was first noticed in December 2025. A July 20, 2026 notice made substantive changes, narrowed "used directly" to exclude tools that are "supportive, administrative, managerial, planning, communication, or analytical," took comments through August 26 and held a hearing on August 27. I did not find a notice of final adoption.

Agents you build for yourself. The same notice explains the self-created digital products exemption (cited to R.S. 47:305.12(B)). Its examples include "an in-house workflow automation tool." The tool you build is not taxed, but the notice says tax "will be owed" on the software services you use to build it.

Maintenance and support. Updates are taxable however delivered. Support that only answers questions is not taxable "if separately stated." Support bundled with a taxable product is taxable.

Bundles. A single price for a digital product and an untaxed service is fully taxable "if the dominant purpose of the sale is to obtain a digital product" (cited to La. R.S. 47:301.5). Itemize setup, training and consulting.

How AgentTax Handles Louisiana

Verified against the engine today (buyer, B2B, $1,000; New Orleans 70112 at 10.00%, Baton Rouge 70801 at 10.50%, 5.00% state without a ZIP):

• Taxable, matching the guidance: saas, api_access, ai_model_access, license, digital_good (every digital_content_type), data_purchase, subscription and software_maintenance.

• $0, matching the guidance: web_hosting (plain hosting) and payment_processing_fee. it_support also returns $0, which fits the guidance only for support that is separately stated and does not modify the software.

• Taxable, against the guidance: data_processing, compute, storage and cloud_infrastructure return the full rate. The engine's note says it holds digitally delivered processing taxable while "implementing regulations" were in progress. The Department's guidance now says data processing, cloud storage and data transfer are not taxed. consulting also computes as taxable, against the guidance's treatment of computer consulting.

We flagged these in September and have now filed them for review. Taxability changes need sign-off, so the engine has not been edited. Until it is, treat a Louisiana result on those five categories as the high end of the range. The engine also does not model the Commercial Production Exemption: an is_b2b flag does not exempt anything.

For sellers, the guidance says an out-of-state vendor must collect when gross revenue from digital products, tangible property and taxable services delivered into Louisiana "exceeds $100,000 during the previous calendar year or the current calendar year." It names no transaction count. Sales are sourced to where the buyer receives the product, then to the buyer's address on file (La. R.S. 47:301.4, as cited). See economic nexus for AI agents. To run the numbers, use the playground or the AI agent sales tax API. For other states, see the 50-state SaaS guide.

What to Watch

First, final adoption of LAC 61:I.4405, and whether the final text keeps "analytical" tools out of the production exemption. Analytics is what many agents sell. Second, any guidance that says whether model inference is data processing or software access. That one answer decides whether most of an AI company's Louisiana bill is taxable.

This analysis is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice. This post reflects AgentTax's current interpretation of evolving law. Consult a licensed tax professional for compliance decisions.