During the 2025 Legislative Session, the Alabama House of Representatives passed House Bill 176, a bill that would exempt optical aids, including eyeglasses and contact lenses, from Alabama sales tax. However, HB176 ultimately failed to pass through the Senate before the end of the session, preventing it from becoming law.
Now, HB176’s sponsor, state Representative Mark Shirey, R-Mobile, has prefiled a new version of the bill with the hopes of passing it into law in 2026.
Nearly identical to HB176, Shirey’s House Bill 15 would strike the language from the Alabama sales tax code that provides for the collection of state sales tax on the sale of “ophthalmic materials, including lenses, frames, eyeglasses, contact lenses, and other therapeutic optic devices.” Instead, the gross proceeds of optical aid sales would be exempted from all state sales and use tax under HB15.
The bill defines optical aids as “eyeglasses, contact lenses, or other instruments or devices that may aid or correct human vision and that have been prescribed by a physician or optometrist licensed by a state, country, or province,” with “eyeglasses” including both prescription lenses and frames.
Although the bill would exempt optical aids from state sales tax, it does not undo or prevent any county or municipality from instituting a sales or use tax on such products.
Alabama remains one of only a handful of states that continues to levy sales tax on optical aids without exceptions, while some states completely exempt such products from their sales tax.
An optometrist by trade, Shirey has previously argued that taxing optical aids disadvantages providers and retailers while simultaneously hitting patients with unexpected costs.
“People don’t realize that vision insurance doesn’t cover taxes,” Shirey said earlier this year. “Even if your plan says it will cover a pair of glasses, patients still have to pay the taxes on those.”
Shirey also emphasized that Alabama does not levy sales tax on other medical devices during a House Ways and Means Education Committee meeting in February.
“Alabama is one of only six states that tax eyeglasses and contact lenses. Out of the states that do tax contacts and glasses some of them only tax them at half rate,” Shirey explained. “[Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] classifies eyeglasses as prescription medical devices, and I am not aware of any other medical device that Alabama taxes. This bill would help people of all ages in your district.”
HB15 has been referred to the House Ways and Means Education Committee ahead of next year’s legislative session.
