Grand Exchange Tax Explained

How the GE Tax Works

Jagex introduced a 2% tax on all Grand Exchange sales in December 2021 as part of the item sink mechanic. When you sell an item on the GE, 2% of the sale price is deducted from the gold you receive. Buyers are not affected — they pay the full listed price.

The 5M GP Tax Cap

The tax is capped at 5,000,000 GP per item. This means items worth more than 250M GP are effectively taxed at less than 2%. For example, selling a Twisted Bow for 1.2B GP still only costs 5M in tax — well under 1%.

Tax-Exempt Items

Some items are completely exempt from GE tax. These include:

• Old School Bonds
• Items under 100 GP sale price
• Various low-level supplies (basic arrows, low-tier food)

Impact on Flipping

The 2% tax has a significant impact on flipping margins. Before the tax, a 3% margin meant 3% pure profit. Now, that same 3% margin only yields roughly 1% profit after tax. This makes it essential to use accurate, tax-adjusted profit figures.

07Flip automatically calculates profit after tax for every item, so the margins you see are what you actually take home. No manual maths required.

Tax Calculation Formula

Where Does the Tax Go?

The gold collected from the GE tax is removed from the game entirely — it acts as a gold sink to help combat inflation. The items purchased by the tax fund are also removed, functioning as an item sink. This was introduced to address the ever-growing supply of high-value items in the game.

Worked Examples: Tax at Different Prices

The tax is 2% of the sale price, rounded down, and never exceeds 5M per item. Here is what that looks like across the price range:

Two things stand out: items selling below 50 gp pay no tax at all (2% rounds down to zero), and once an item passes 250M the flat 5M cap means the effective rate keeps falling the more expensive the item is.

Why 2% Changes Your Margins

The tax comes out of the seller side only, so it eats straight into your flip margin. Say you buy at 100,000 gp and sell at 103,000 gp — a 3% spread. The tax on the sale is 2,060 gp, so real profit is 103,000 − 2,060 − 100,000 = 940 gp, just under 1%. A 3% spread became a sub-1% flip. As a rule of thumb, subtract about 2 percentage points from any raw spread to estimate your post-tax return, and treat anything under roughly a 2% spread as break-even or worse.

This is why every margin on the 07Flip dashboard is shown after tax — the profit and ROI columns already account for it, so you never have to do this subtraction by hand.

Working With (and Around) the Tax

• Target wider spreads. Aim for items whose spread comfortably clears 2% so there is real profit left after tax.
• High-value gear barely feels it. Thanks to the 5M cap, items like the Twisted bow, Scythe, or Tumeken's shadow are taxed well under 1% — the tax is almost a non-factor on big-ticket flips.
• Cheap, high-volume flips compound. Items under 50 gp pay no tax, but their tiny absolute margins mean volume is everything.
• Bonds and tools are exempt. Old School Bonds and a fixed list of utility items (chisel, hammer, saw, spade, secateurs and similar) are never taxed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do buyers pay the GE tax?

No. The tax applies only to the seller — it is deducted from the gold you receive when a sell offer completes. Buyers pay exactly the listed price.

Is the tax 2% on every item?

It is 2% of the sale price on taxable items, rounded down and capped at 5,000,000 gp per item. Items selling below 50 gp pay nothing because 2% rounds down to zero, and a fixed list of items (bonds, common tools) is fully exempt.

Is the 5M cap per item or per offer?

Per item. Selling ten of an item at 300M each is taxed 5M on each unit (50M total), not 5M for the whole offer.

Where does the gold go?

It is removed from the game permanently as a gold sink to fight inflation, along with the items bought back by the tax fund.