Sell Online in the United States — Marketplaces, Fees and the 1099-K Rules for 2026
The $600 rule is gone, but four states still report you at $600. Here is which marketplaces a US seller can actually reach, what each takes, and the tax and shipping facts that make selling from here different.
- The $600 rule is dead. For 2026 a platform files a Form 1099-K only when your gross payments exceed $20,000 and you pass 200 transactions — both, not either. The One Big Beautiful Bill restored the old threshold and the IRS’s own page now says so.
- Your state is what will actually trigger the form. Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia report at $600 with no transaction minimum; New Jersey at $1,000; Illinois at $1,000 and four sales. Most US sellers who get a 1099-K get it from their state, not the IRS.
- You do not handle sales tax on marketplace orders. Marketplace facilitator laws make the platform collect and remit it for you in all 45 sales-tax states — but nobody does that for your own Shopify, WooCommerce or Square store.
- Vinted charges US sellers nothing and has only been here since January 2026 — its first market outside Europe. Zero fees, thin buyer base.
- Depop charges US sellers a $0 selling fee too, and has since July 2024 — on USD sales only. Sellers elsewhere still pay 10%.
- Poshmark, Mercari and Whatnot barely exist in Europe. They are the three channels a US seller has that a British one simply does not.
- Shipping is roughly double the European floor. Poshmark’s flat label is $6.49 for anything to five pounds; a UK locker drop is about £3.
- Cost: FLUF Connect crosslists to 50+ marketplaces from one dashboard. 7 days for £1, then from £9/month. There is no free plan.
On this page
- The 1099-K rules, correctly
- Sales tax: who actually collects it
- Where you can sell from here
- The three channels Europe does not have
- The one that runs the other way
- What each one takes
- Shipping from the US
- Running several of these at once
- Sources and verification
- Related guides
The 1099-K rules, correctly
More bad information circulates about this than about anything else in US resale, largely because the rule genuinely did change three times.
The position for 2026 is settled. A third-party settlement organisation — which means eBay, Poshmark, Mercari, Etsy, PayPal and every other platform that pays you — must file a Form 1099-K when your gross payments for goods or services exceed $20,000 and the number of transactions exceeds 200. Both conditions, not either. The IRS states it in those terms on a page last reviewed in June 2026.
The $600 threshold that was announced, delayed and endlessly written about was retroactively repealed by the One Big Beautiful Bill. The IRS confirmed it in an October 2025 fact sheet, and in January 2026 proposed regulations applying the same line to backup withholding — which is how you can tell it is settled rather than another one-year reprieve.
Now the part that catches people. Several states set their own, far lower, reporting thresholds, and they override the federal line in practice:
| State | Threshold |
|---|---|
| Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia | $600, no transaction minimum |
| New Jersey | $1,000 |
| Illinois | $1,000 and four or more transactions |
If you sell from one of those states, the number that matters is $600 or $1,000, not $20,000 — a seller clearing $900 in Massachusetts gets paperwork an identical seller in Texas does not. Check your own state’s department of revenue rather than a national summary; these change and are not uniform.
One more thing worth saying plainly, because the IRS says it too: not receiving a 1099-K does not make income untaxable. The form is a reporting mechanism; the obligation exists whether or not anyone sends you a copy.
Sales tax: who actually collects it
This one is good news, and it is the reason a US reseller’s life is administratively simpler than a British one’s in at least one respect.
Every state with a sales tax — 45 of them, plus the District of Columbia — now has a marketplace facilitator law. These place the obligation to collect and remit sales tax on the platform rather than on you. When you sell on eBay, Etsy, Poshmark or Mercari, the marketplace calculates the tax, adds it to the buyer’s total, and remits it. You do not register, you do not file, and you do not touch it.
The caveat matters to anyone crosslisting. That relief applies to sales made through a collecting marketplace, not to your own store. If you also run a Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce or Square storefront, no facilitator exists there — you are the seller of record, and economic nexus in each state is yours to track and register for. Marketplace orders are handled; direct orders are not. Moving from marketplaces-only to marketplaces-plus-your-own-store is the compliance line, and it is worth knowing before the first order rather than after the first notice.
Where you can sell from here
A US-based seller can reach essentially everything. The globally available channels — eBay, Etsy, Depop, Shopify, WooCommerce, Facebook Marketplace, Grailed, TikTok Shop, Temu, BigCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, Discogs and AbeBooks — are all open to you on the same terms as anyone else.
What makes the United States distinctive is the set that is effectively domestic: Poshmark, Mercari, Whatnot, Square and, newly, Vinted.
A word of correction on one channel that appears on a lot of “sell in the US” lists including some of our own older material: Tilt is not available in the United States. It describes itself as a live auction app for the UK and Europe and is live in the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. A US entry is a funded intention, not a market you can sell into today. Do not plan around it.
The three channels Europe does not have
Poshmark is the largest and the most expensive. It claims more than 130 million community members — a registration figure rather than an active-buyer one, and worth reading as such, since nothing audited has been published since 2022. Its fees are the bluntest in US resale: a flat $2.95 under $15, and 20% from $15 up. That is the highest headline rate of any major US channel, offset by a buyer-paid prepaid label and a social discovery model that sells clothing other platforms cannot.
Mercari is the general-goods one, and its fee history matters because so much advice is stale. It ran a zero-seller-fee experiment through 2024 with buyers paying instead, then reversed: for listings created or updated on or after 6 January 2025 the seller pays 10% of the item price plus buyer-paid shipping, with no separate processing fee, while buyers pay 3.6%. Reported US monthly active users are around 4.2 million. Any page calling Mercari free to sell on is over a year out of date.
Whatnot is the one with no European equivalent at scale, and the one growing fastest. It reported $8 billion in live GMV for 2025, more than doubling year on year, with over 20 million new accounts created. Commission is 8% on the final price for most categories — 5% for electronics, 4% for coins and money — plus 2.9% and $0.30 payment processing on the order total. It is live selling rather than listing, which makes it a different job rather than another place to paste the same listing; but for anyone with volume and a tolerance for being on camera, it is the highest-growth surface available to a US seller right now.
The one that runs the other way
Everything above describes an American advantage. Vinted is the inversion, and it is the most interesting single fact about the US market in 2026.
In Europe, Vinted is the default second-hand clothing platform — €10.8 billion of goods sold in 2025, up 47%, across 26 countries. In the United States it is eight months old. It launched in New York in January 2026, its first market outside Europe, and its American buyer base is correspondingly thin.
What it brings is the model Europe already knows: the seller pays nothing at all. No listing fee, no commission, no processing deduction. Buyers pay a protection fee of $0.70 plus 5% of the item price, excluding shipping. On a $40 sale you receive $40 — against roughly $32 on Poshmark, $36 on Mercari and $34.16 on eBay.
The honest read: Vinted US is worth listing on precisely because it costs nothing, and not yet worth relying on. It is the one channel where being early pays off if the American launch follows the European trajectory.
What each one takes
| Channel | Seller pays | Buyer pays |
|---|---|---|
| Vinted US | Nothing | $0.70 + 5% of item price |
| Depop (USD sales) | $0 selling fee since 15 July 2024; payment processing still applies | Up to 5% plus a fixed amount up to $1 |
| Mercari | 10% of item price plus buyer-paid shipping | 3.6% buyer protection |
| Poshmark | $2.95 flat under $15; 20% at $15 and above | Shipping, at the flat label rate |
| eBay US | 13.6% of the total sale to $7,500, plus $0.30 or $0.40 per order | — |
| Etsy | $0.20 listing, 6.5% transaction on the buyer’s total, 3% + $0.25 processing | — |
| Whatnot | 8% commission most categories, plus 2.9% + $0.30 processing | — |
| TikTok Shop US | 6% referral fee per order | — |
| Square (your own store) | 2.9% + $0.30 per online transaction | — |
The same $40 item nets $40 on Vinted, about $36 on Mercari and about $32 on Poshmark. Most experienced multi-channel sellers set one price everywhere and treat that spread as a reason to care which channel sells it, rather than a reason to maintain nine price lists.
Shipping from the US
Prepaid labels are the norm and the buyer usually pays. Poshmark’s flat label — one price for anything up to five pounds — fell from $8.27 to $6.49 on 12 September 2025, its first reduction in over a decade, when it moved from Priority Mail to USPS Ground Advantage at two to five business days. Mercari offers a carrier menu instead, with published examples such as Ground Advantage at $4.91 for a quarter-pound parcel.
Those numbers are moving: USPS confirmed a competitive price change effective 12 July 2026, with the dimensional divisor tightened for larger parcels. Re-check any figure you memorised in 2025.
The comparison worth making is with Europe. A light garment costs roughly $4.91 to $6.49 to send domestically in the United States; the equivalent United Kingdom locker or shop drop is around £3. American domestic shipping is, very roughly, double, and there is no consumer-scale locker network to undercut it. On sub-$20 items that difference is the whole margin, which is why US sellers bundle low-value inventory far more often than European ones do.
Running several of these at once
The case for crosslisting is stronger in the US than almost anywhere, for a specific reason: the channels genuinely do not overlap. Poshmark’s social feed, Mercari’s search, Whatnot’s live rooms, eBay’s global reach and Vinted’s fee-free European model reach materially different buyers. An item that sat unseen on one for a month can sell on another in a day.
The cost is administrative and it compounds: nine listings of one item is nine sets of photographs and nine places to remember to remove it from when one sells.
FLUF Connect holds one master record per item, publishes it to each connected channel, and pulls the others down when it sells anywhere. Crosslisting and inventory sync are on every plan; relisting, offer management and smart pricing are included from Growth (£19 a month) upwards. See the plans — 7 days for £1, then from £9/month, then plans from £9 a month.
Sources and verification
Every fee, threshold and date on this page was checked against a primary source on 5 September 2026.
- IRS: Understanding your Form 1099-K for the $20,000-and-200 threshold and the statement that income is reportable regardless; the IRS fact sheet on the One Big Beautiful Bill reversion; and the January 2026 proposed regulations on backup withholding.
- Streamlined Sales Tax on marketplace facilitators and the state-by-state facilitator guide for who collects and remits, and for the registration caveat.
- Poshmark’s own seller guide for the $2.95 and 20% structure; Poshmark’s September 2025 shipping announcement for the $8.27 to $6.49 change; Poshmark’s about page for the 130 million member claim.
- Mercari’s fee help article and its selling fee article for the 10% seller fee effective 6 January 2025, the 3.6% buyer fee and the label examples.
- Vinted’s US launch announcement, its price list for the $0.70 + 5% buyer protection fee, and its 2025 financial results for the €10.8 billion GMV figure.
- Whatnot’s seller fee schedule for the 8% commission and processing rates, and its 2026 live selling report for the $8 billion 2025 GMV and account growth.
- Depop’s announcement removing US selling fees, including the USD-sales-only limitation.
- eBay’s US seller fee page, Etsy’s fee schedule, TikTok Shop’s US referral fee documentation and Square’s published rates.
- the USPS release confirming the 12 July 2026 competitive price change, and eBay’s Q2 2026 results for its global active-buyer figure.
- HMRC’s guidance on income from online platforms, for the UK comparison.
What we could not verify, and therefore left out. Any active-buyer count for Poshmark, Whatnot or Vinted US — none publishes one, and the “150 million active users” figures circulating for Poshmark are derived from its membership claim rather than measured. Grailed’s current commission tiers, which its own help page would not serve us. Facebook Marketplace’s US selling fee, for the same reason. The per-service percentage increases in the July 2026 USPS change, which USPS’s release does not itemise. Depop’s US payment-processing rate, which its announcement references but does not state. And US reseller forum sentiment, which we could not gather from a citable source and have therefore not characterised at all rather than paraphrasing from memory. The state thresholds above should be confirmed against your own state’s department of revenue before you rely on them.
Related guides
- Selling online from the United Kingdom
- Sell on Poshmark — the complete seller guide
- Sell on Mercari — the complete seller guide
- Sell on Whatnot — the complete seller guide
- All marketplace guides
- All crosslisting routes
- Selling online in Australia
- Sell online in Germany — every marketplace you can reach
- Sell online from Canada
Frequently Asked Questions
Gross payments exceeding $20,000 and more than 200 transactions — both conditions, not either. The One Big Beautiful Bill retroactively repealed the $600 rule, the IRS confirmed the reversion in an October 2025 fact sheet, and in January 2026 issued proposed regulations applying the same line to backup withholding. But several states set much lower thresholds that apply regardless: Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia at $600 with no transaction minimum, New Jersey at $1,000, and Illinois at $1,000 with four or more transactions. Most US sellers who receive a 1099-K receive it because of their state, not the IRS.
No. Every state with a sales tax has a marketplace facilitator law placing the collection and remittance obligation on the platform, so eBay, Etsy, Poshmark, Mercari and the rest calculate the tax, add it to the buyer's total and remit it for you. The important exception is your own storefront: if you also run a Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce or Square store, no facilitator exists there, you are the seller of record, and tracking economic nexus and registering in each state is your own responsibility.
Vinted, because it charges the seller nothing at all — no listing fee, no commission, no processing deduction. On a $40 sale you keep $40, against roughly $36 on Mercari after its 10% fee, about $34.16 on eBay after 13.6% plus the per-order charge, and about $32 on Poshmark after its 20%. Depop also charges US sellers a $0 selling fee on USD sales. The catch with Vinted is reach rather than cost: it only launched in the US in January 2026 and its American buyer base is still small.
Yes, since January 2026, when it launched in New York — its first market outside Europe after 26 European countries. Sellers pay nothing; buyers pay a protection fee of $0.70 plus 5% of the item price, excluding shipping. Bear in mind the scale difference: Vinted sold €10.8 billion of goods in 2025, but essentially all of that was European. In the US it is a new and thinly populated marketplace that happens to be free to list on, which makes it worth adding rather than worth relying on.
No, and any page saying so is out of date. Mercari ran a zero-seller-fee model during 2024 with buyers paying instead, then reversed it: for listings created or updated on or after 6 January 2025, the seller pays 10% of the item price plus buyer-paid shipping. There is no separate payment-processing fee, and buyers pay a 3.6% protection fee. Withdrawing by direct deposit is free; Instant Pay costs $3.
Poshmark, Mercari and Whatnot, principally. Poshmark claims over 130 million members and is the largest social resale platform in the US, with the highest headline fee at 20% on sales of $15 or more. Mercari is the general-goods equivalent, with around 4.2 million US monthly active users. Whatnot is live selling and the fastest-growing of the three, reporting $8 billion in live GMV for 2025 and more than 20 million new accounts. None of the three has European scale, which is why a US crosslisting strategy looks structurally different from a British one.
Poshmark uses a flat prepaid label at $6.49 for anything up to five pounds, reduced from $8.27 on 12 September 2025 when it moved from Priority Mail to USPS Ground Advantage. Mercari offers a carrier menu instead, with Ground Advantage from about $4.91 on a quarter-pound parcel. USPS confirmed a further competitive price change effective 12 July 2026, so re-check any figure you memorised earlier. As a rule of thumb, US domestic shipping runs roughly double the European floor — a UK locker drop is about £3 — which is why low-value American inventory is so often sold in bundles.
No. Tilt is a live auction app for the United Kingdom and Europe, currently live in the UK, Italy and Spain. A US launch has been talked about and funded but is not a market you can sell into today, and you should not plan around it. It appears on some lists of US-available channels, including older material of ours, and that is an error we are correcting. The US-specific channels you can actually reach are Poshmark, Mercari, Whatnot, Square and Vinted.