Avalara

What it is and what it does

The Avalara package is a Python SDK that wraps Avalara's AvaTax REST v2 API, allowing developers to integrate tax calculation and compliance operations into their applications. It provides an authenticated client that handles API communication, request formatting, and response parsing, with support for creating transactions, querying tax data, and managing company configurations. The SDK includes a TransactionBuilder utility to simplify the construction of complex tax transaction models.

The package depends only on requests for HTTP communication and is designed for both sandbox testing and production use. It requires valid Avalara credentials and network connectivity to the AvaTax service. The client is initialized with application metadata (name, version, machine name) and an environment flag, then authenticated with account credentials before making API calls.

Use it for:

• Calculate sales tax liability for e-commerce transactions across multiple jurisdictions.
• Create and commit tax transactions in AvaTax for audit trail and compliance reporting.
• Validate customer addresses and determine applicable tax rates before checkout.
• Integrate tax compliance into billing or invoicing systems via the AvaTax REST API.
• Build transaction models programmatically using the TransactionBuilder utility for complex multi-line orders.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Python client library for Avalara's AvaTax REST v2 API, enabling tax calculation, transaction creation, and tax compliance operations through a single authenticated interface.

Yes, with conditions. The package is actively maintained and has no known vulnerabilities, making it suitable for production use if you are an Avalara customer. However, verify the license terms before committing, confirm Python version compatibility for your environment, and investigate the high install friction to ensure it does not block your deployment pipeline. The single dependency (requests) is standard and low-risk.

Install

avalara on PyPI

pip install avalara

uv add avalara

poetry add avalara

Installing Avalara

Before you install

High install friction reported. Package is actively maintained (last commit 2026-07-27, 18 days old) and marked Production/Stable, but the single runtime dependency is requests, a standard library. No known vulnerabilities.

License in practice

License treatment is unclear—no SPDX identifier or raw license text is available in the package metadata. Verify the actual license terms in the repository before committing to a production integration.

Quickstart

from avalara import AvataxClient

client = AvataxClient('my app', 'ver 1.0', 'my machine', 'sandbox')
client = client.add_credentials('USERNAME', 'PASSWORD')
response = client.ping()
print(response.text())

Requires valid Avalara account credentials (username/account ID and password/license key) and network access to AvaTax service endpoints (sandbox or production).

Verify before relying

• Whether the unclear license permits commercial use and redistribution.
• Current Python version support—classifiers list 2.7 and 3.6, but requires_python is unspecified.
• Whether high install friction is due to missing wheels, C extensions, or large package size.

Package facts

Evidence: avalara-26.7.3.tar.gz

Tags

More WWW/HTTP packages