(The Center Square) – Two candidates from opposite parties have announced proposals to do away with the state’s tax on restaurant meals and other prepared food.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, as well as Democratic candidate for the State Board of Equalization, John Pimentel, are campaigning on reducing costs on Californians. Their platforms include eliminating the states’ sales and use tax on food Californians buy when going out to eat or getting takeout.
“In the modern economy, more than 56% of the average California families’ food spend is outside of the house, meaning restaurants or delivered food,” Pimentel told The Center Square on Thursday. “I believe that we should eliminate the sales tax on food as a measure that could impact affordability immediately and leave one to two thousand dollars a year in the hands of families to pay their bills or otherwise make their ends meet.”
Pimentel said if he were elected to the Board of Equalization, he wouldn’t have the ability to institute this policy, but that it would have to be passed into law via the introduction of a bill or codified by a voter-approved constitutional amendment. Toward that end, he is pushing for a ballot initiative that is expected to save California’s taxpayers $10 billion to $15 billion a year, according to the ballot title and summary. It will be on the November 2028 ballot.
Hilton’s proposal, according to his campaign website, would repeal state sales tax on food served at restaurants, allowing Californians to save $4 for every $10 they spend on going out to eat. That would average out to saving California’s taxpayers $185 a year, or roughly $15 a month.
Hilton’s campaign did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment on Thursday.
According to a September 2026 report from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, California’s local and state governments charge a sales and use tax on goods, ranging from 7.25% – the state’s sales and use tax – to 11.25% in various parts of the state, depending on what cities and counties levy in the form of their own sales tax. California’s taxpayers pay more than $75.41 million in state sales and use tax alone, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. However, counting local sales tax in cities and counties that have their own sales tax, California taxpayers pay $10 billion to $15 billion in 2025.
A database maintained by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration shows that California taxpayers paid $80.2 billion in sales and use tax for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, up from $79.3 billion in fiscal year ending June 30, 2024.
Californians do not pay sales tax on food sold by grocery stores, according to the California tax code, except for hot prepared foods, according to the California tax code.
Parsing out how much money California taxpayers pay in sales and use tax on food and meals out is difficult, since the state doesn’t keep a database of how much sales and use tax is collected based on the type of business.
However, the state does separately tax alcoholic beverages. The sales and use tax charged for the purchase of alcoholic beverages generated $623.8 million for beer alone in 2025, more than $19 million for the sale of wine, $4.3 million for champagne and $71.3 million for distilled spirits. It is unclear how much of that tax Californians paid for alcoholic beverages at restaurants and how much they paid at grocery stores and liquor stores.
Officials with the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, the California Franchise Tax Board, the California Treasurer’s Office and the California Department of Finance did not make anyone available to answer questions for this story.
This story has been corrected.
