Across the state, many staple back-to-school items will be included in the annual sales tax holiday beginning Friday.

The ninth annual sales tax holiday begins August 1st at 12:01 a.m. and ends Sunday August 3rd at midnight.

All typical school supplies such as paper, notebooks, pencils, pens, binders, crayons and more will be sales tax free.

Walgreens store manager Daphne Lee said the tax holiday is good for business.

“We typically see a bigger turnout for school supply shoppers,” Lee said. “It brings more people into the store and we get to meet more of the community.”

The Troy Walgreens expanded to being open 24 hours in February, and this will be their first tax holiday weekend since the expansion.

“Customers can beat the rush, come in earlier and have a bigger selection of on-sale items,” Lee said.

Clothing items costing $100 dollars orless such as school uniforms, raincoats, diapers, coats, boots and most other general apparel are included in the tax holiday.

The Freckled Frog, a clothing boutique in Troy, is hosting a back to school open house this weekend. Manager Symantha Griffin said the store has been busy this week with back to school shoppers and hopes more will come to the open house.

“We’ve seen college students coming to get stocked up before they go back to Auburn or Alabama,” Griffin said.

Other items included in the tax holiday include:

• Computers, computer software and school computer supplies of a single purchase of $750 or less

• Printers, printer ink and paper

• Art supplies such as clays, glazes, paints and paintbrushes, watercolors and drawing pads less than $50 per item are included.

• Reference maps and globes

• Required textbooks on an official schoolbook list with a sales price of more than $30 and less than $50.

• Other books $30 or less are exempt as well.