Real estate transfer taxes by state

15 states have no real estate transfer tax at all. They cluster in the Mountain West and Plains: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Wyoming. In those states the closing-cost stack is dominated by commissions, lender fees, and title insurance rather than tax.

The range runs from 0.01% to 4%. Delaware carries the heaviest combined burden at 4% (a stacked state-plus-county structure), while Colorado’s documentary fee of 0.01% is close to nominal. Most states with a transfer tax fall between 0.1% and 1.5%.

The customary payer is a market convention, not a law. In most states the seller customarily pays; 10 states customarily split it between buyer and seller; and only 2 (Tennessee and Vermont) customarily place it on the buyer. Because it is a convention, a purchase contract can and sometimes does reallocate it.

6 states levy a separate mortgage recording tax on the loan amount, paid by the buyer, on top of any transfer tax on the sale price: Alabama (0.15%), Florida (0.35%), Georgia (0.3%), Minnesota (0.23%), New York (1.8%), Tennessee (0.115%). New York’s mortgage recording tax is the largest and the one buyers most often miss when estimating closing costs.

New Jersey and New York apply “mansion tax” surcharges on higher-value homes, with rates that step up at price thresholds starting around $1M. These are cliff-structured: the applicable rate applies to the entire sale price, not just the amount above the threshold.

Rates shown are state-level base rates. Counties and cities frequently add local transfer taxes on top, sometimes substantial ones (Los Angeles, Chicago, and several Maryland and Virginia counties are notable examples). Where a state’s tax has a graduated or tiered structure (Washington’s REET, Connecticut, Vermont, Hawaii, the District of Columbia), the table shows a representative effective rate for a typical sale and the notes column describes the actual structure.

The customary payer column reflects the prevailing market convention in each state. It is not a legal assignment: a purchase contract can allocate the tax differently, and in competitive or slow markets the allocation is sometimes a negotiating point.

The data is compiled from state revenue and taxation departments, state realtor associations, and state bar association closing-practice references, last verified April 2026. Tax rates change through legislation; the per-state guide linked from each jurisdiction carries the fuller local picture and citations. The same dataset drives the closing-costs estimator.

State guides — the full per-state reference, including attorney customs, title insurance regulation, and the local tax stack.

Transfer tax — the glossary definition: how the tax works, why it matters, and the common gotcha.

Closing-costs estimator — applies the transfer tax, with the rest of the closing-cost stack, to a specific sale price and state.