Tax exemption applies to orders you create yourself in the WordPress admin, not just to orders customers place at checkout. When you add an order and assign a customer, the plugin checks that customer’s exemption status and removes tax if they are entitled to it.

Creating a new order

Go to WooCommerce › Orders › Add order and set the customer as normal. When you save the order, or click Recalculate, the plugin looks up that customer’s saved exemption and zeroes the tax if it applies.

The same eligibility checks run as at checkout — approval status, expiration date, user role and any restrictions you have configured. A customer whose exemption is pending, declined or expired will be taxed normally.

The Tax Exemption meta box

Enable Edit Order Page on the Display Locations tab and every order gains a Tax Exemption panel showing the details recorded against it: the exempt name and reason, registration number and its verification badge, certificate link, expiration date and any custom fields.

Remember that these are the details as captured when the order was placed, not a live view of the customer’s current account. That is intentional — it is what makes the order a usable record.

The Exempt column on the orders list

Orders List Column, on the same tab, adds a column to the main orders list marking which orders were placed with exemption. Handy for scanning a day’s orders without opening each one.

When a customer turned exemption off

A customer whose account defaults to exempt can untick the box at checkout for a particular order. That decision is recorded on the order, so the edit screen shows the order as non-exempt and recalculating it will not silently re-apply exemption against the customer’s wishes.

Related

• View and export tax exempt orders
• Manage exempt customers