San Benito County, CA Local Taxes & Fees: Business Tax Classification (2026)
Key Facts
- Class A/B/C/E base tax (2019)
- $118.80/year
- Class D base tax (2019)
- $30.00/year
- Class C employee multiplier
- $7.80 per employee
- Applies to
- unincorporated county only
- Adjusted annually by
- Bay Area CPI
Summary
Unincorporated San Benito County sorts every business into one of five license-tax classes (A-E), each with its own base tax and per-employee or per-ton multiplier.
(A) Class A. Each retail, wholesale, construction, and manufacturing business, excluding a mining operation, and each business for which no other classification is provided in this section, shall be treated as a class A business. Each class A business shall pay an annual basic license tax specified in § 5.03.123(A), in addition to the annual payment of an amount determined by multiplying the average number of employees by the class A business employee multiplier specified in § 5.03.123(B).
Official source re-checked September 7, 2026: no newer edition of the code had been published (publisher’s edition: 2025 S-28: current through Ordinance 1078).
Full Breakdown
Any business operating in unincorporated San Benito County must classify itself as Class A (retail/wholesale/construction/manufacturing, the catch-all), Class B (services, hotels/motels, rentals, entertainment, food service, apartments), Class C (professionals), Class D (itinerant vendors), or Class E (mining). Each class pays an annual base license tax plus a per-employee multiplier (or, for Class E, a per-ton mineral-depletion multiplier); the base rates and multipliers are adjusted every July 1 by the Bay Area Consumer Price Index. As of July 1, 2019 the base tax for Classes A, B, C, and E was $118.80 and for Class D was $30.00, with employee multipliers ranging from $0.66 (Class D) to $7.80 (Class C) per average employee.
Violations & Fines
Operating without the required license in the unincorporated area is a violation; the Tax Administrator computes and collects the classified tax, and unpaid amounts can be enforced as a debt owed to the county.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which businesses fall into Class B in San Benito County?
Does this classification apply inside Hollister or San Juan Bautista?
Sources & Official References
Other rules in San Benito County
California rules heatmap·Compare San Benito County to another location·View the California local taxes & fees overview
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