St. Peters, MO Local Taxes & Fees: Business Tax Classification (2026)

St. Peters Municipal Code Section 605.005 requires anyone doing business, trading, or practicing a profession in the City of St. Peters, Missouri to hold a City license before opening, whether by maintaining an office here or soliciting orders by any other means. Section 605.030 then sorts every licensee into a class: if no special business license exists for the activity, the operator defaults to the general business license, billed at the flat annual rate on the fee schedule kept at Section 605.013. Public utilities are a distinct class.

Section 605.195 subjects every public utility, as defined in Section 605.001, operating inside the corporate limits to a license tax rather than the flat general fee, and Section 605.200 sets that tax at five percent of the utility's gross receipts from business done within the City, billed monthly. Section 605.205 exempts a utility from this tax only if it instead pays a franchise tax to the City under a separate franchise ordinance, though it still owes property tax and any merchant or manufacturer's tax that applies.

Section 605.210 requires every public utility to file a sworn quarterly statement of gross receipts with the City Clerk within thirty days after each calendar quarter, and City staff may inspect the utility's books to check the figures. Misclassifying a business, or failing to pay the tax due for its actual class, is enforced the same way as any unlicensed operation: Section 605.060 makes noncompliance with Chapter 605 an ordinance violation punishable by up to five hundred dollars, with each day of continued noncompliance a separate offense.