Alaska's first port of call, the Salmon Capital of the World, and a sales tax rate that jumps on April 1 and drops on October 1. Tides handles the books for Ketchikan Gateway businesses. 100% remote. Clean every month.
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The Ketchikan Gateway Borough sits at the southern tip of Southeast Alaska on Revillagigedo Island, and it is the first Alaska port most cruise ships reach coming up from Seattle or Vancouver. That single fact shapes almost everything about the local economy.
The borough contains the City of Ketchikan, the City of Saxman, and the unincorporated areas around them - including Ward Cove and Gravina Island, where the airport is. It calls itself the Salmon Capital of the World, and it has the commercial fleet and processing history to justify it.
Today the economy runs on cruise tourism, commercial fishing, the Tongass National Forest (whose headquarters are here), and the Ketchikan Shipyard. And it runs on a sales tax structure that is genuinely one of the most confusing in the state.
Wherever your business sits, we serve the whole area with the same level of service. We are 100% remote, so your exact location does not change anything about how we work.
The borough seat and the cruise port. Creek Street, the Tongass Narrows waterfront, and a sales tax rate that changes with the season - 8% in summer, 5.5% in winter.
A Tlingit community just south of Ketchikan with one of the largest collections of standing totem poles in the world - and its own 6.5% sales tax rate.
The old pulp mill site north of town, redeveloped as a cruise berth. Industrial, marine services, and the newest chapter in Ketchikan's tourism story.
Ketchikan International Airport is on a different island than the town it serves - you take a ferry to catch your flight. Aviation services and air taxis.
A full-service shipyard that builds and repairs vessels for the Alaska Marine Highway and the commercial fleet - a rare year-round industrial employer in Southeast.
Also serving Herring Cove, Mountain Point, North Tongass, and every community in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough.
Serving the borough means understanding a sales tax that changes with the season and the city line, a summer that carries the whole year, and roughly 150 inches of rain.
Ketchikan started as a Tlingit fish camp at the mouth of Ketchikan Creek, became a salmon cannery town around 1900, and at its peak claimed to be the Salmon Capital of the World with more canneries than anywhere else on earth. Creek Street - the boardwalk on pilings over the creek - was the town's red-light district for decades and is now its most photographed block.
Timber replaced salmon as the dominant industry when the Ketchikan Pulp Company mill opened at Ward Cove in 1954, and for forty years the mill defined the town. It closed in 1997, and Ketchikan spent the following decades rebuilding its economy around cruise tourism. Today Ward Cove itself has been redeveloped as a cruise berth - the mill site turned into a dock.
The result is an economy with a very sharp shape. Roughly a million cruise passengers arrive between spring and early fall, and the downtown retail, jewelry, tour, and flightseeing businesses earn most of their year in that window. What keeps the lights on the rest of the year is the durable stuff: the commercial fishing fleet, the Ketchikan Shipyard, and the U.S. Forest Service, whose Tongass National Forest headquarters sits here in the largest national forest in the country.
Alaska has no state sales tax and no state personal income tax — which is exactly why so many business owners get Alaska tax wrong. More than 100 local jurisdictions levy their own sales tax, and the rules change borough by borough and city by city.
Ketchikan may have the most complicated sales tax structure in Alaska. The rate depends on where you are (city, borough, or Saxman), what season it is, and even what kind of transaction it is. Getting it right is not optional and it is not easy.
Rates shown are as of 2026 and can change. Always confirm the current rate with the taxing jurisdiction before you rely on it. Tides keeps your books tax-ready and works alongside your CPA — we do not file returns for you.
Seven core services, all delivered remotely. Everything your business needs to stay financially clean and tax-ready year-round.
Our flagship service. Every transaction categorized, every account reconciled, and clean financial reports delivered to your inbox each month — without you lifting a finger. The financial foundation every Alaska business deserves.
Behind on your books? We clean up any backlog — whether it is 3 months or 3 years — so you can move forward with accurate, up-to-date records.
New business or inherited a mess? We configure QuickBooks, connect your accounts, and build a chart of accounts that actually makes sense for your industry — including landed cost and job costing where Alaska demands it.
Monthly reconciliation of every bank account and credit card — ensuring your books match your statements and no transactions fall through the cracks.
P&L statements, balance sheets, and cash flow reports delivered monthly in a format you can actually understand and act on.
We keep your AP and AR organized so you always know what is coming in, what is going out, and what is overdue.
We make sure your payroll expenses hit your books correctly and stay in sync with your payroll processor every pay period — including seasonal crews.
We understand the financial patterns of the industries that actually drive this economy — not a generic list copied from somewhere in the Lower 48.
Cruise line contracts, deferred revenue, a six-month season
Misty Fjords tours, aircraft depreciation, weather cancellations
Fish tickets, crew shares, fisheries business tax
Barge freight, inventory, a rate that jumps on April 1
Job costing, vessel contracts, year-round work
COGS, tip payroll, seasonal staffing, seasonal rate
Deposits, bed tax, packages sold a year out
Barged materials, rain, sales tax on services
"Our shop is downtown but we also run a booth out at Ward Cove, and I had no idea the rates were different or that the city rate jumps to 8% on April 1. We had been collecting 5.5% all summer for two years. Tides sorted it out, got us square with the borough, and set the register up so it flips on its own now. I sleep better."
It depends on where and when. Inside the City of Ketchikan the combined city-plus-borough rate on non-residential sales is 8.0% from April 1 through September 30 and 5.5% from October 1 through March 31. Residential rent is 5.5% year-round. Outside city limits the borough rate alone is 2.5%. Saxman has its own 6.5% rate. This is one of the most complex sales tax structures in Alaska. Rates are as of 2026 - confirm with the Ketchikan Gateway Borough.
Because the cruise ships arrive. Ketchikan runs a seasonal sales tax that is higher during the visitor season and lower in winter. If your point-of-sale system does not flip the rate on April 1 and October 1, you will spend six months either over-collecting from customers or under-collecting and owing the difference out of pocket. It is the single most common sales tax error we see in this borough.
Yes. A downtown storefront, a lodge out on North Tongass, and a booth in Saxman are three different rates in the same borough. If you operate in more than one, each location has to be tracked separately in your books so the correct rate is applied to the correct sale. We structure the chart of accounts around that from the start.
That is the normal shape of a Ketchikan business and we plan for it. We handle deferred revenue on bookings taken months in advance so your income lands in the period you actually deliver the tour, track seasonal payroll correctly, and build a cash view that shows whether the season generated enough to carry you through a very quiet winter.
No. If you do not have QuickBooks Online, we set it up as part of onboarding. If you already have an account, we connect to it and clean it up as needed. We also connect Puzzle.io for real-time dashboards and an instant snapshot of your books before regular monthly service begins.
Pricing is based on your monthly transaction volume, not your zip code. Most small businesses land between $395 and $895 per month. You get an exact quote during your free consultation - no guesswork, no setup fees.
Alaska does not border another state, so we do not pretend to serve one. We serve Alaska — from Southeast to the Interior to the Y-K Delta.
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation. Tell us about your business and we will give you a clear picture of where your books stand - seasonal rates and all.
No setup fees · Cancel anytime · First month guaranteed
Official government resources for registering, filing, and staying compliant. Tides handles your books; these help with the rest.