Fulton County, GA Local Taxes & Fees: Business Tax Classification (2026)

Fulton County Code Section 18-34 governs occupation tax registration and classification for the unincorporated county. Subsection (a) requires every person, firm or corporation subject to Article II to file an application with the department of finance on or before March 31 of each calendar year, listing all business activities, the applicant's Standard Industrial Classification Code and/or North American Industry Classification System Code, estimated gross receipts for the registration year, the computed tax due including the administrative fee and per-employee tax, a copy of the profit and loss statement, and a copy of the Georgia income tax return.

A new business or practitioner must register within 30 days of starting operations. § 48-13-16, has its entire gross receipts classified according to its single dominant service or product, determined from the information filed under subsection (a); the county does not split a mixed business into multiple tax categories. Subsection (c) covers businesses with locations in more than one jurisdiction, allocating gross receipts to the Fulton County office proportionally, or dividing receipts equally among locations when a clean allocation is not reasonably possible, and caps the combined tax burden across all local governments at 100 percent of total gross receipts.

Subsection (d) reaches out-of-state businesses with employees soliciting in the unincorporated county or income-producing property located there. Subsection (e) makes real estate brokers subject to the tax on receipts from unincorporated-county property transactions even without a local office. Late or unfiled registrations draw the penalties set out in Sec. 18-41: a ten percent penalty on the amount owed and interest at one and one-half percent per month on delinquent taxes and fees.