California · Sales tax closure
Close a California seller's permit.
Your seller's permit is not held by the EDD. It sits with a different agency entirely, the CDTFA, and closing it uses form CDTFA-65, the Notice of Closeout. That form does three jobs at once: it closes the account, releases your security deposit, and issues an escrow clearance if the business is being sold.
Last updated:
Who you are dealing with
California Department of Tax and Fee Administration
- Handles:
- Seller's permit and related registrations. This is a different agency from the EDD, which holds your payroll accounts
- System:
- CDTFA online services
- Form:
- CDTFA-65, Notice of Closeout. Publication 74, Closing Out Your Account, is the companion guidance the form tells you to read first
- Phone:
- 1-800-400-7115 (Customer Service Center, CRS:711)
California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, sales tax closure
State fee. $0 to close. The form is also how you get money back, because CDTFA-65 is what triggers the release of any security you posted when the permit was issued. Closing the account has no effect on tax already owed.
Our fee. $180 per state, flat. State fees are passed through at cost.
What California actually requires
The seller's permit is a CDTFA account, not an EDD payroll account. Close the permit in Online Services (Account Maintenance → Account Closure), or on CDTFA-65, Notice of Closeout, if you cannot use Online Services. Closing a location is a different Online Services action from closing the account. CDTFA-65 is also the paper path for releasing posted security and requesting an escrow clearance.
CDTFA online services resources · CDTFA-65, Notice of Closeout · Publication 74, notifying the CDTFA
Publication 74 is not optional reading. CDTFA wants the closeout date and reason, how resale inventory, furniture, fixtures, and equipment were disposed of, the purchase price of retained inventory, a forwarding address, and where the books and records will be kept. File the final return (and any prior unfiled returns) and pay what is still owed; report sales of fixtures and equipment and tax on inventory kept for your own use. After the account is closed, keep the records four years. A tax-and-fee clearance for a sale can take 60 days or more when an audit is required.
Publication 74, Closing Out Your Account · Publication 74, notifying the CDTFA
When you have to close or cancel
You file when you stop making taxable retail sales under the permit, whether the business ends, changes ownership, or the entity dissolves. Temporary seller's permits close the same way. If a sale is involved, start early, because the escrow clearance runs through this same form.
Final returns come first
File the final return covering all taxable periods first, and pay by EFT or certified funds where required. The final return has to account for tax on inventory you kept rather than sold, which is the part most people leave out, and CDTFA-65 asks you to state where that inventory went.
How long it takes
The CDTFA does not publish a turnaround for a closeout. Where a business is being sold, the escrow clearance is usually the item everyone is waiting on, so the practical timeline is set by the transaction rather than by the closure.
What we do
We confirm which accounts are open, file any outstanding final returns, submit each cancellation, and follow up until every agency confirms in writing. You keep the client. We never email them.
What makes California harder than average
- The form asks where your leftover inventory went, and every answer has a consequence. Section II gives you the options: sold and reported on the final return, retained, included in an audit, donated, sold for resale with the purchaser's account number, or other. Retained means use tax. Sold for resale means the buyer's permit number had better be real. This is not a box to tick quickly.
- It also asks whether you bought things for your own use on your seller's permit. That is the use tax question stated plainly, and the follow-up asks whether you paid the tax to your vendor or to the CDTFA. A business that used the resale permit for supplies over the years has an answer to work out before the form goes in.
- It asks where your books and records will be kept, and the forwarding address. California expects to be able to find you and your records after the business is gone, and the closeout form is where that is captured.
- The permit is not at the same agency as your payroll accounts. California payroll lives at the EDD in one combined account. The seller's permit lives at the CDTFA. Closing one has no effect on the other, and people who found California easy on the payroll side are often surprised by that.
- There is a security deposit to get back, and only this form releases it. If you posted security when the permit was issued, CDTFA-65 is what starts the refund. Walking away without filing it leaves your own money with the state.
Dissolving the company is not the same as closing the tax accounts
Articles of dissolution leave the withholding, unemployment, and sales tax accounts open, and those agencies keep expecting returns until each one is closed with them. That is the separate filing that stops the notices.
For CPAs and bookkeepers
Send the state, the last payroll or sale date, and the account numbers. The written confirmations come back to you. We do not dissolve the company and we do not take over payroll.
Questions and answers
Is closing my seller's permit the same as closing my EDD payroll account?
No. Those are two different agencies. The seller's permit is with the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration and the payroll accounts are with the Employment Development Department. Neither closure affects the other.
I have inventory I never sold. Does that matter?
Yes. CDTFA-65 asks specifically what happened to remaining inventory and purchases for resale, and retaining it generally means use tax on the final return. Tell us what is left and we will account for it rather than leaving it as an open question.
I am selling the business rather than closing it.
The same form handles that, and it is also what produces the escrow clearance. Start it early, because in a sale the clearance is usually what everyone else is waiting on.
Will I get my security deposit back?
CDTFA-65 is what releases it, if you posted one. That is one of the three things the form does, alongside closing the account and issuing an escrow clearance. It does not happen automatically when you stop trading.
What do you need from me to start?
The account number and legal name, the date the business closed, what happened to any remaining inventory and resale purchases, whether you made purchases for your own use on the permit, a forwarding address, and where your records will be kept.
Comparing states? How to close (cancel) a sales tax permit in every state lists the cancellation route and final return rule for all 50 states and DC, with California anchored.
Also in California
Agency details verified 2026-08-03
About the provider
Regcrest LLC is a document preparation and filing service based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, founded in 2026. It prepares and files state payroll and sales tax registrations, account closures, and resale certificates on behalf of the businesses that instruct it, and works behind accounting firms, bookkeepers, and payroll providers as well as directly with businesses.
Regcrest LLC is not a CPA firm and not a law firm. It gives no tax or legal advice. It files in all 50 states, and publishes a full page for the 29states it has verified against the agency's own material so far, each one showing the date it was checked. For anything that turns on your specific situation, ask a licensed accountant or attorney.