What Gen Con Vendors Selling in Indianapolis Need to Know About Permits and Sales Tax
Indiana requires its own sales tax registration from every vendor making taxable sales inside the Indiana Convention Center, regardless of where your business is based. Here's what to do before mov…
Indiana requires its own sales tax registration from every vendor making taxable sales inside the Indiana Convention Center, regardless of where your business is based. Here’s what to do before move-in day.
Editor’s note: Gen Con 2026 dates should be confirmed at gencon.com before publication. Marion County OBNS requirements should be verified by calling 317-327-5137. INTIME processing times for temporary seller certificates should be confirmed with the Indiana DOR at 317-232-2240 before the step-by-step section is finalized. ICC independent credentialing policy should be confirmed at 317-262-3400.
Gen Con pulls somewhere north of 60,000 attendees to the Indiana Convention Center each August — consistently the largest tabletop gaming convention in North America. For four days, the exhibit hall is one of the most concentrated retail events Indianapolis sees all year. Vendors work the floor selling art prints, dice, hand-sewn costumes, painted miniatures, rulebooks, and everything else the hobby generates. It’s a serious revenue event for those who run it well.
Prep starts months out: booth design, inventory, travel, badge logistics. What frequently doesn’t happen until too late — or doesn’t happen at all — is registering with the Indiana Department of Revenue.
This is not a technicality that slides. The moment a vendor makes a taxable sale inside the Indiana Convention Center at 100 S. Capitol Ave., they have established sales tax nexus in Indiana under IC 6-2.5-8-1. Every seller on the floor carries that obligation — the independent artist from Portland, the Chicago game publisher, the Indiana-based dice retailer. No local guide specific to Gen Con’s vendor population has walked through what Indiana actually requires. This article is that guide, and it sits alongside our broader business & professional coverage of what Indianapolis actually requires from operators doing business here.
Your Home-State Business License Does Not Cover You Here
Start here, because this misunderstanding is nearly universal among first-time Gen Con exhibitors from out of state: whatever registration you hold at home creates zero reciprocity with Indiana.
A California seller’s permit is a California instrument. An Illinois business license covers Illinois. A Texas sales tax certificate means nothing to the Indiana DOR when you’re ringing up a sale on the Gen Con exhibit hall floor. Indiana requires its own registration from every person or business making retail sales of tangible personal property within the state, full stop.
The controlling statute is IC 6-2.5-8-1: a person making retail sales of tangible personal property at an Indiana location must hold a valid Indiana retail merchant certificate before making that first sale. The ICC is in Indiana. Gen Con is in the ICC. The chain of logic is complete.
Indiana has a registration vehicle built specifically for vendors in this situation.
Two Certificate Types, One Right Answer for Most Gen Con Vendors
Indiana DOR offers two primary registration paths. The Registered Retail Merchant Certificate (RRMC) is the full ongoing registration for businesses with continuous Indiana sales activity. The temporary seller certificate is event-tied, carries lighter ongoing obligations, and is the correct choice for the vast majority of Gen Con exhibitors.
The self-diagnostic is simple: if Gen Con 2026 is your only Indiana sales event this calendar year, and you don’t have Indiana customers through online sales at volumes that trigger economic nexus (currently $100,000 in Indiana sales or 200 transactions annually under IC 6-2.5-2-1), get the temporary seller certificate. It ties to the specific event, the specific location, and the sales dates you declare on your application. After the show, you file one return, remit what you collected, and your Indiana obligation for that period is done.
Vendors who sell at multiple Indiana events during the same year — Gen Con in August and an Indianapolis craft fair in October, say — may need to reconsider whether the temporary certificate still fits or whether an RRMC handles the cumulative activity better. Same applies to online sellers who’ve already crossed the economic nexus threshold. If you owe Indiana tax on your remote sales year-round, you probably need a full RRMC; your Indiana activity isn’t actually limited to four days in August.
Indiana-based businesses holding an existing RRMC: in most cases, Gen Con sales roll into your standard filing cycle without separate event registration. Verify with DOR (317-232-2240) before assuming that’s true for your specific certificate.
How to Register Through INTIME Before the Deadline
Indiana’s tax portal is INTIME, at intime.dor.in.gov. This is where temporary seller registration lives. Working through it before you’re staring down a move-in Wednesday is not optional — it’s the whole point.
Create an INTIME account with a valid email if you don’t have one. Once inside, select the business registration path and look for temporary seller or retail merchant registration. The portal’s interface updates periodically, so the exact label may shift; if you hit friction, call DOR at 317-232-2240 and they’ll walk you through current navigation.
When prompted for the sales location, enter: Indiana Convention Center, 100 S. Capitol Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46225. Be exact — this ties your certificate to the event location. Specify your Gen Con sales dates (confirm the exact dates at gencon.com). Some vendors list only the public show days; listing from move-in Wednesday forward is the more conservative choice and easy to defend.
Submit and retain your confirmation. If you request a physical certificate by mail, confirm current processing times with DOR at 317-232-2240 before counting on it arriving by move-in day. Early July for an early August show is the right timeline. Don’t wait until the week before.
If the portal gives you trouble — and it does, for first-time registrants — call 317-232-2240 during business hours. DOR handles temporary event seller registrations regularly and can clarify the current process. They’re used to these calls.
Indiana’s 7% Rate and What It Hits at a Gen Con Booth
Indiana imposes a flat 7% state sales tax on retail sales of tangible personal property. There’s no Marion County rate and no City of Indianapolis rate stacked on top. For vendors from Illinois, where combined state and local rates can exceed 10%, or from California, where district taxes routinely add more than a point on top of the state rate, Indiana’s structure is a relief. Seven percent, on every taxable transaction, no local math required.
What’s taxable in Gen Con’s specific product mix varies more than first-time exhibitors expect.
Art prints are taxable. A printed art reproduction is tangible personal property regardless of whether the artist created the original or is selling prints of their own work. Original paintings are taxable when a physical object changes hands — sell a completed canvas at your booth and that’s a taxable sale. Dice, miniatures, game mats, tokens: all taxable as tangible personal property, no exemption applies. Published rulebooks and board games are taxable. Printed books are not exempt in Indiana the way they are in some states, so a hardcover RPG rulebook sold at Gen Con is subject to the 7% rate.
Cosplay apparel and costumes catch vendors from Pennsylvania or Minnesota off guard — those states exempt clothing. Indiana doesn’t. Physical media carrying digital content is generally taxable as tangible personal property when the physical object changes hands.
Two categories need direct DOR verification before you finalize your tax configuration. Commissioned artwork drawn on-site, where no physical product transfers at the time of the transaction, may be characterized as a service rather than a retail sale — the tax treatment is genuinely unclear and depends on the specifics. Digital download codes sold on the floor — a card or slip of paper that functions as a code to access a PDF rulebook, digital content, or an online game license — may fall into Indiana’s specified digital products category rather than the standard physical goods analysis. Indiana’s rules on digital products have shifted in recent years; I wouldn’t trust any guidance older than 2023 on this. Get current DOR guidance on these two product types before you configure your POS.
For everything else in the standard Gen Con vendor mix, the rule is clean: if it’s a physical object that leaves your booth with a customer, collect 7%.
How the Money Actually Flows During and After the Show
Configure your point-of-sale system to calculate Indiana’s 7% rate before you open for business. If you’re coming from another state, your POS may be defaulting to your home rate. Fix this before move-in, not during the show floor rush. Indiana DOR doesn’t restrict which payment processor a vendor uses, but the vendor is fully responsible for accurate collection. Your Square account being set to the wrong state is not a defense against a short-payment assessment.
Keep a running daily sales log separating taxable transactions from non-taxable ones. If a wholesale buyer presents a valid Indiana exemption certificate, retain that documentation — it’s your defense against owing tax on a sale you were legitimately relieved of collecting. Don’t accept verbal exemption claims. Require the completed form, and confirm the current Indiana exemption certificate form number with DOR at 317-232-2240. Track cash, card, and any promotional transactions separately; your post-show filing will need to match reported gross sales with tax remitted.
After the show, temporary sellers file the ST-103 Sales Tax Return through INTIME for the event period and remit by the applicable deadline. Verify the current filing deadline with DOR — it’s tied to your certificate’s specified sales period, not Indiana’s standard monthly or quarterly cycles. File promptly. Indiana’s interest and penalty structure accrues from the due date regardless of whether you’re a temporary seller or permanent registrant.
Marion County’s Role — What OBNS Requires (or Doesn’t)
Indianapolis operates under Unigov, the consolidated city-county government structure established in 1970. The Indianapolis Office of Business and Neighborhood Services handles municipal permitting authority for Marion County. The relevant question for Gen Con vendors is whether OBNS imposes any additional temporary event seller permit on top of Indiana DOR’s registration.
Current indications are that OBNS doesn’t require a separate license for short-duration convention vendors who hold valid state DOR registration — but this requires a direct phone call before you treat it as settled. Call 317-327-5137 and ask specifically about temporary retail seller requirements for convention vendors at the Indiana Convention Center. If no additional permit is required, that’s clarifying and useful. If something is required, get the process and application before move-in day.
One separate matter worth flagging: food vendors at Gen Con operate under a Marion County Health Department permitting framework that has nothing to do with the sales tax registration discussed here. If your booth involves any food or beverage sales — samples, concessions, packaged items — you’re in a different regulatory lane entirely. Contact the Marion County Public Health Department separately.
What Gen Con and the ICC Actually Check at the Booth Level
Gen Con distributes exhibitor contracts through its exhibitor portal. That contract reportedly includes a tax compliance acknowledgment — language indicating exhibitors are responsible for obtaining required permits and paying applicable taxes. What Gen Con’s exhibitor services team actually reviews at the booth level, and whether they require a certificate at check-in, requires verification through the portal or by contacting Gen Con exhibitor services directly.
The Indiana Convention Center itself, managed by the Capital Improvement Board of Marion County, can be reached at 317-262-3400 to confirm whether the venue imposes any independent seller documentation requirement separate from Gen Con’s exhibitor contract.
Regardless of what either organization actually checks: keep your temporary seller certificate or RRMC in physical form at your booth for the entire show. Indiana DOR has authority to conduct compliance checks at events. Carry a printed copy. If you received only a digital confirmation number and the physical certificate hasn’t arrived, keep the confirmation email accessible and call DOR before the show to understand what documentation is sufficient for display purposes. Resolve a missing certificate during move-in Wednesday setup time. That’s your last window before sales activity begins.
Records You Are Required to Keep
Indiana requires sales records to be retained for three years.
For a Gen Con vendor, that means: daily sales totals broken out by taxable and non-taxable category for each day of the show — not a single four-day lump sum, but day by day. A copy of your registration as issued by Indiana DOR. Exemption certificates from any wholesale buyers claiming tax exemption (without these, you can’t justify reduced tax remittance if DOR questions it). End-of-day reports pulled from your payment processor for each show day — card processor records are among your most defensible documentation. A copy of the filed ST-103 return and confirmation of your remittance. All initial registration correspondence, portal confirmation numbers, and any DOR emails. Keep it in one file. You will not remember where you put these things in two years.
One angle that rarely surfaces in Gen Con vendor guidance: use tax exposure on inventory transported into Indiana. If you manufactured or purchased inventory outside Indiana and transported it in for sale without having paid Indiana sales tax on those goods, there’s a technical argument that use tax applies. In practice, inventory purchased for resale and actually sold is generally not the target of use tax enforcement — goods held for resale carry a resale exemption. But supplies and materials brought into Indiana for booth use rather than resale (display fixtures, consumable supplies, equipment) carry a use tax exposure. It’s an edge case, but vendors who exhibit across multiple states and haven’t closely examined their use tax obligations should be aware it exists.
What Skipping Registration Actually Costs You
Indiana isn’t known for aggressive enforcement sweeps at consumer conventions. Plenty of out-of-state vendors have exited Gen Con having never registered without consequence. That doesn’t make non-registration safe. It makes it an unquantified gamble with a real downside.
Under IC 6-8.1-10, Indiana imposes a 10% penalty on unpaid tax for failure to file or pay on time, with interest accruing at a rate set by statute. A mid-tier Gen Con exhibitor doing $15,000 in gross sales over four days — a realistic number at a show this size — collects roughly $1,050 in Indiana sales tax over the weekend. The non-filing penalty is $105 on top of that $1,050, plus interest. Manageable in isolation, but it arrives with a compliance history attached to your business’s tax record.
The worse exposure is an audit that reconstructs your sales from payment processor records. Gen Con exhibitors who accept card payments generate a clear transaction record tied to an Indiana location and date range. An unregistered vendor with identifiable card sales is a straightforward assessment target. Add the reconstructed tax, the 10% penalty, interest, and the cost of responding to an audit inquiry from across state lines, and it’s considerably less pleasant than spending an hour on INTIME in July.
Criminal exposure exists for willful non-compliance under IC 6-8.1-10. For vendors with repeated or substantial unregistered Indiana sales activity, that’s not hypothetical. Registration isn’t onerous — Indiana built a mechanism specifically for this situation. Use it. Indianapolis-based vendors managing broader tax obligations year-round may also want to review what Indianapolis accountants say small businesses get wrong at mid-year.
The Short Version for Vendors Who Need It Fast
If you’re selling physical goods at Gen Con 2026 and don’t currently hold Indiana registration:
Go to intime.dor.in.gov and register for a temporary seller certificate now. Enter the Indiana Convention Center, 100 S. Capitol Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46225 as your sales location and specify your Gen Con dates. Configure your POS to collect 7% Indiana sales tax on all taxable transactions. Keep daily sales logs, collect exemption certificates from any wholesale buyers, and pull end-of-day reports from your payment processor. After the show, file the ST-103 through INTIME and remit what you collected. Keep everything for three years.
Questions the portal doesn’t answer: Indiana DOR at 317-232-2240. Marion County permit questions: OBNS at 317-327-5137. What Gen Con expects to see at your booth: the exhibitor portal or exhibitor services directly.
Move-in Wednesday is the deadline that actually matters. Don’t make it a problem you’re solving on the way to 100 S. Capitol Ave.
