US States With the Highest Share of Taxes From Alcohol

51 US states ranked by share of taxes from alcohol, from highest to lowest. First are Tennessee (1.71), Alabama (1.38) and Alaska (1.3). The middle one of the 51 has 0.259.

What this measures

The percentage from taxes on alcoholic drinks. It leaves out the profits of the seventeen states that sell liquor themselves, which count as business income, not tax. So one of those states can look as though it barely taxes alcohol. Source: Census government finances.

For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.

Every state

Rank	State	% of all taxes
1	Tennessee	1.71
2	Alabama	1.38
3	Alaska	1.3
4	North Carolina	1.22
5	Texas	1.02
6	Kansas	0.869
7	Oklahoma	0.856
8	South Carolina	0.846
9	Washington	0.809
10	Kentucky	0.779
11	Montana	0.733
12	Georgia	0.679
13	Pennsylvania	0.585
14	Arkansas	0.545
15	Virginia	0.461
16	South Dakota	0.438
17	Delaware	0.406
18	Hawaii	0.391
19	Michigan	0.368
20	West Virginia	0.345
21	Illinois	0.343
22	Louisiana	0.299
23	Mississippi	0.281
24	Rhode Island	0.273
25	Florida	0.273
26	Nebraska	0.259
27	Minnesota	0.244
28	Arizona	0.234
29	Nevada	0.23
30	Connecticut	0.23
31	Vermont	0.226
32	Ohio	0.219
33	Wisconsin	0.218
34	New Jersey	0.214
35	Maine	0.183
36	New Mexico	0.164
37	Indiana	0.158
38	Massachusetts	0.155
39	New Hampshire	0.152
40	Missouri	0.146
41	Colorado	0.142
42	North Dakota	0.136
43	New York	0.124
44	California	0.121
45	Idaho	0.112
46	Iowa	0.0949
47	Utah	0.087
48	Maryland	0.0743
49	District of Columbia	0.0669
50	Oregon	0.0596
51	Wyoming	0.0505

More on share of taxes from alcohol

A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.