Limit on State e-filing

That’s just a decision made by Intuit. 

As an Aside...the "Online" software does allow e-filing 5 states along with the one main Federal tax return and the efile is included in the purchase of the state software....but most of us using Desktop really hate to use the "Online" version.   Also, the Online software has a hard limit of 5 states total..no more, and those whose jobs take them to more than 5 states can't use it.

Why the 3 limit with Desktop is a puzzle...read one long thread with a series of gripes about this limit not being the same on both platforms....or even higher with desktop.

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If you happen to have NY as one of those states, make sure NY is selected as one of the e-files since there is no e-file fee for NY (on desktop)

A few years ago there was a rash of fraudulent state tax returns filed that took advantage of the fact that most states had weaker security procedures than the federal government, scammers would file many state returns using stolen or fake information without filing a matching federal return.  Even though the states should have taken a significant amount of blame for the problem (in my opinion), most of the blame went on the software companies instead.

One result is that you now can't e-file a state return unless you also e-file a federal return.  The limit on the number of state e-files may be another result of the same situation.  But that's just a guess.