From Anchorage to Fairbanks, Juneau to Kodiak, Tides Bookkeeping provides remote bookkeeping, payroll support, and monthly financial reporting for small businesses across Alaska — including the local borough and city sales taxes that catch so many owners off guard. Clean books. Real results. No commute required.
No setup fees · Cancel anytime · 100% Remote
Alaska is one of the very few states with no statewide sales tax and no state personal income tax. But that headline hides the part that actually hits your books: more than 100 boroughs and cities levy their own sales tax — roughly 0% to 7.5% — each with its own rate, exemptions, caps, and filing calendar. Rates below are as of 2026; always confirm the current rate with your borough or city.
The two taxes most business owners expect to fight simply are not there — which is genuinely great news, and also the reason so many Alaska owners get blindsided by the taxes that are.
A snapshot of the communities we serve most. Rates are as of 2026 and approximate — several jurisdictions run seasonal rates or single-sale caps, so confirm the current rate with the borough or city before you file.
You cannot file a borough sales tax return correctly if your books do not separate revenue by where the sale actually happened. A charter operator running trips out of Homer and Seward, a contractor bidding jobs in Palmer and Anchorage, an online seller shipping statewide — each needs revenue tagged by jurisdiction from the moment it is recorded, not reconstructed in a panic at filing time. That is the work we do.
Alaska's economy looks like nowhere else in America: North Slope oil moving down the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, one of the world's great commercial fishing and seafood-processing industries, a tourism season that packs most of a year's revenue into five months, major military installations, and Ted Stevens Anchorage International — one of the busiest cargo airports on the planet. And nearly everything a business sells here arrived by barge, plane, or pipeline.
Alaska is a resource state with a services economy layered on top. Oil and gas still underwrite much of the public budget, commercial fishing feeds a global seafood market, and tourism, the military, mining, and Alaska Native corporations round out the base. Anchorage is the commercial center; Juneau is the seat of government; Fairbanks anchors the Interior.
The bookkeeping reality behind all of it is freight. Almost every input a business uses got here by barge, plane, or truck, and shipping is often one of the largest lines in the P&L. If freight is not tracked properly, your landed cost is wrong, your margins are fiction, and you cannot tell a bad month from a bad price. That — plus seasonal revenue and borough-level sales tax — is what Alaska books have to get right.
Alaska has a handful of highways and an enormous amount of everything else. The state ferry and the airplane do the work the interstate does elsewhere — and that shows up directly in what you spend to move goods and people.
Shipping, barge, and air-freight costs can move a product's true cost by double digits — and they rarely arrive on the same invoice as the goods. We categorize freight to the right accounts so your cost of goods sold reflects what it actually cost to get the thing to Alaska, not just what the vendor charged for it. That one habit changes what your margins look like — and what you decide to charge.
Seven core services designed for small businesses across every industry in Alaska — all delivered remotely, all handled by our team.
Your most important foundation. We categorize every transaction, reconcile your accounts, and deliver clean P&L and balance sheet reports every single month — so you always know exactly where your business stands, in season and out.
Behind after a hard season? We clean it all up — systematically organizing your past transactions so you can get current and stay compliant.
Starting fresh or inheriting a mess? We connect your accounts, configure your chart of accounts — including freight and jurisdiction tracking — and set everything up correctly from day one.
Every account, every month. We match your books to your bank statements and flag any discrepancies before they become problems.
P&L, balance sheets, and cash flow statements delivered monthly in a format you can actually read and act on — built to survive a seasonal revenue curve.
We track what you owe and what's owed to you — including freight and barge invoices that show up weeks after the goods — keeping your cash flow picture clear.
We make sure your payroll expenses hit your books correctly every pay period — including seasonal crews and summer headcount swings — working alongside your payroll processor to keep everything reconciled.
From Southcentral to the Interior, the Inside Passage to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Tides Bookkeeping serves small businesses across Alaska's boroughs and census areas. 100% remote means we are just as effective in Bethel as we are in Anchorage — and no one has to catch a flight.
Alaska does not have counties. It has boroughs — and, in the vast Unorganized Borough, census areas. Anchorage, Juneau, and Sitka are unified city-boroughs, meaning the city and the borough are the same government.
From Anchorage professional services to Kodiak seafood, Mat-Su contractors to Southeast charter and tour operators, we understand the financial rhythms of Alaska's most common industries — including the ones that make all their money between May and September.
Job costing, subcontractor payments, freight-heavy material costs
Seasonal revenue, crew pay, permits and gear — books that survive winter
COGS with real freight in it, tip payroll, vendor management
Commission tracking, rental income, property expenses
Consultants, attorneys, agencies — clean P&L every month
Inventory, merchant fees, local sales tax and ARSSTC tracking
Insurance billing, payroll, HIPAA-aware practices
Fleet and aircraft expenses, fuel costs, freight and barge billing
We are not a local firm that added remote services. We were built remote-first — which matters more in a state where your bookkeeper might otherwise be a ferry ride or a bush flight away.
Tides is based in Greenville, SC and serves clients across the country. We know Alaska's tax picture cold — no state sales tax, no personal income tax, but 100+ borough and city sales taxes, ARSSTC filing for remote sellers, and a corporate income tax for C-corps.
No hourly billing surprises. You pay one flat rate each month based on your transaction volume — and you always know exactly what you are getting.
Barge, air freight, and shipping get categorized to the right accounts so your cost of goods sold shows what it truly costs to do business in Alaska — and your margins stop lying to you.
If you earn most of your year in five months, generic reporting will mislead you. We build reports that show the season for what it is and tell you whether the winter is covered.
We earn your business every month. There are no lock-in agreements — just great service that makes you want to stay. Cancel anytime if it is not working.
"I run halibut charters out of Homer and a small gear shop on the side — which means I make almost all my money in five months and still pay for freight all winter. Tides got two years of books cleaned up, sorted out how our borough and city sales tax gets tracked, and now I actually know whether the season covered the year. First time that has ever been true."
No — we serve businesses nationally. But Alaska is a service region we know well, from Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley to the Interior, the Kenai Peninsula, Southeast, and the island and Delta communities. Because we are 100% remote, where you are located changes nothing about the quality of your books.
No. Alaska is one of the few states with no statewide sales tax and no state personal income tax. But that headline hides the real story: more than 100 local jurisdictions — boroughs and cities — levy their own sales tax, generally somewhere between 0% and 7.5%. Each one sets its own rate, exemptions, maximum taxable amounts, and filing calendar. That local layer, not the state, is where Alaska sales tax compliance actually happens.
It varies widely, and the answer surprises people. Anchorage and the Fairbanks North Star Borough have no general local sales tax at all — two of the state's biggest markets are sales-tax-free. Meanwhile Juneau (about 5%), Sitka (about 6%), Ketchikan (about 6.5% combined), Kodiak (about 7%), Bethel (about 6%), Wasilla (about 2.5%), and the Kenai Peninsula Borough plus its cities (Kenai, Soldotna, Homer) all do collect. Rates and seasonal variations shown here are as of 2026 — always confirm the current rate directly with your borough or city before you file.
Possibly — through the ARSSTC, the Alaska Remote Sellers Sales Tax Commission. Rather than registering with 100+ individual towns, remote sellers and marketplace facilitators file once through a single statewide system that distributes the tax to member jurisdictions. The threshold is $100,000 in gross statewide sales in the current or prior calendar year; the old 200-transaction test was removed effective January 1, 2025. We track your Alaska gross sales so you know well before you cross the line. Figures are as of 2026 — confirm current rules with the ARSSTC.
There is no state personal income tax — Alaska repealed it in 1980 and never brought it back — so owners of pass-through entities pay no Alaska tax on that business income. Alaska does have a corporate income tax on C-corporations, applied on graduated brackets topping out around 9.4%, plus industry-specific taxes such as the fisheries business tax for seafood processors and exporters. We keep your books structured so those filings are straightforward for your CPA. Figures are as of 2026 — confirm current rates.
Yes — this is Alaska bookkeeping in a nutshell. Fishing, charter, tour, and cruise-season businesses earn most of a year's revenue in a few months and then carry fixed costs through the winter, so your books have to show that rhythm clearly. And because nearly everything a business sells here arrived by barge, plane, or truck, freight and shipping are real cost lines — not rounding errors. We categorize freight properly so you can see true landed cost and true margin, and we build reporting that survives a seasonal cash-flow curve.
Everything is handled through QuickBooks Online and Puzzle.io — giving you real-time dashboards and an instant snapshot of your books at any time. You connect your bank and credit card accounts, and we handle the rest. Monthly reports and communication happen via email and a dedicated client portal — no in-person meetings, which matters more in Alaska than almost anywhere else.
Pricing starts at $395/month for small businesses and is based on your monthly transaction volume — a free consultation gets you an exact quote with no obligation. And yes, we cover the entire state: because we are 100% remote, we serve every borough and census area in Alaska, from Anchorage and Fairbanks to Juneau, Ketchikan, Kodiak, and Bethel.
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation. No pressure, no commitments — just a clear picture of where your books stand and how we can help.
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.