Oct. 22, 2025

Sioux Falls sales tax continues to trend ahead of last year despite showing some weakness in the most recent revenue returns.

Sales tax revenue is up 2 percent on a year-over-year basis, though “September was a bit lackluster — only 1 percent growth overall coming off of three stronger months,” director of finance Shawn Pritchett said.

“Most of the sectors .. we continue to see lagging behind in manufacturing, utilities, wholesale goods, lumber, miscellaneous retail, all down.”

Revenue collected in September generally represents actual sales in August.

Department stores were up 3 percent while restaurants were up 6 percent on the sales tax side.

The restaurant sector helped drive growth in the entertainment tax, too, which is down slightly year over year because of a one-time adjustment that resulted in a large take back of funds.

“We did see entertainment tax actually come in about 10 percent higher month over month for September, so we saw some pretty aggressive growth there, and that was driven by restaurants, which were up 20 percent from an entertainment tax side,” Pritchett said.

The lodging tax “is also lagging behind overall,” he said. “They’re down 1.6 percent overall with lower occupancies and also seeing some of those average daily rates coming down.”