Who Pays Transfer Tax When Selling Land? Nine Laws Disagree

North Carolina and Michigan make the seller pay, Tennessee the buyer, and New Hampshire both, so who pays transfer tax when selling land depends on the state. Georgia and Alabama leave it to the contract, and Texas and Louisiana levy no statewide transfer tax at all. On a $100,000 sale the bill runs from $0 to $1,500.

Perspective Properties buys vacant and rural land for cash in all nine of those states, and the transfer tax is a closing cost we pay in the seven that charge one. The answer to who owes it sits in nine different statutes. We read each one, computed the tax at three prices and on a typical 20-acre tract, and found an online transfer-tax calculator site’s state-by-state guide, checked on September 21, 2026, wrong on four of the nine.

Who pays the land transfer tax in each of the nine states?

North Carolina and Michigan name the seller in their statutes, Tennessee names the buyer, and New Hampshire names both parties. Georgia and Alabama name no one, which leaves the purchase contract to decide. Arkansas splits its rate into a buyer share and an unassigned share, and Texas and Louisiana have no statewide tax.

The North Carolina excise statute is the plainest of the nine. It levies the tax on each instrument that conveys an interest in real property and requires the transferor to pay the register of deeds before the deed records. Tennessee’s recordation statute runs the other way: the tax “shall be paid by the grantee,” who also swears to the price or value on the face of the deed.

Michigan makes the seller liable for its state tax under MCL 207.523, and the Van Buren County Register of Deeds tells anyone who transfers real estate worth $100 or more that they must pay both taxes: $3.75 state and $0.55 county for every $500 or part of it. New Hampshire’s RSA 78-B charges 75 cents per $100 and applies that rate separately to the purchaser and to the seller, so the combined cost is 1.5 percent, and the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration describes it as a tax imposed on both the buyer and the seller.

Arkansas is the odd split. A.C.A. § 26-60-105 levies $1.10 per $1,000 without naming a payer, then adds $2.20 per $1,000 “to be paid by the purchaser.” The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration states the combined rate as $3.30 per $1,000 of actual consideration. Georgia’s O.C.G.A. § 48-6-1 and Alabama’s § 40-22-1 set their rates and demand payment before recording, and neither says whose money it is. There, the contract decides.

How much transfer tax does a land sale cost in each state?

At a $100,000 sale price, the statewide transfer tax runs from $0 in Texas and Louisiana to $1,500 in New Hampshire, where buyer and seller each owe $750. Michigan’s $860 is the largest statewide bill placed on the seller alone, and Georgia and Alabama tie for the lightest tax at $100.

The $40,000 column shows why each statute’s rounding rule matters on a small parcel. North Carolina charges $1 for each $500 “or fractional part thereof,” so if you sell for $40,001 you are billed as though the price were $40,500, and the tax is $81 rather than $80. Georgia charges a flat dollar on the first $1,000, and New Hampshire rounds each side’s share to the nearest whole dollar, with a $20 minimum per side at $4,000 or less.

A 2026 closing statement on rural land carries more than this one line: a recording fee, title work, any rollback of a farm-use assessment, and income tax on the gain, which our comparison of capital gains tax on vacant land by state covers. The transfer tax is the one closing cost a statute fixes before anyone negotiates, which is why it is worth knowing to the dollar.

What does the transfer tax take from a 20-acre tract at 2026 prices?

USDA’s 2026 averages put the transfer tax on a 20-acre tract between $0 in Texas and Louisiana and $2,002 in New Hampshire. The same 20 acres costs $1,204 in Michigan, $481 in Tennessee and $230 in North Carolina, or $1,380 in the seven North Carolina counties that add a local tax on top of the state stamp.

The per-acre values come from the USDA Land Values 2026 Summary, released July 31, 2026, and our 2026 USDA comparison of the nine states walks through what moved this year. Multiplying by 20 acres is our calculation, not the agency’s, and your parcel prices on its own road frontage, timber and title rather than on a statewide farm average.

Tennessee shows how the tax ranking departs from the land-value ranking. Its land averages $6,500 an acre, only $500 below Michigan, yet the tax on the tract is less than half of Michigan’s and falls on the buyer. Arkansas land is worth less per acre than Georgia land, yet its tax runs nearly three times Georgia’s, because $3.30 per $1,000 is roughly three times Georgia’s effective rate.

Why do seven North Carolina counties charge six times as much?

Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Washington counties add a local land transfer tax of $1 per $100, or 1 percent, on top of the state’s $1 per $500. The local levy is five times the state rate, so a sale there carries six times the transfer tax of the same sale anywhere else in North Carolina.

Perquimans County’s land transfer tax page describes the levy in its own words: $1.00 per $100 “or fraction thereof” of the sales price or value, certified by the county tax department and paid to the register of deeds when the deed is recorded, and it names the other six counties. All seven sit in the Albemarle Sound region of northeastern North Carolina, where Dare and Currituck also take in the Outer Banks.

On a 20-acre tract at North Carolina’s 2026 average of $5,750 an acre, that difference is $230 in 93 counties against $1,380 in the seven. Our page on selling land fast in North Carolina covers the rest of the state’s closing rules, and none of the other 93 counties adds anything beyond the state’s $1 per $500.

Do heirs owe transfer tax when inherited land changes hands?

Inherited North Carolina land usually changes hands twice, and only the second transfer is taxed. North Carolina and New Hampshire exempt an inheritance whether it passes by will or without one, Tennessee exempts an executor’s deed carrying out a will, and Georgia and Michigan exempt gifts and transfers with no real price.

North Carolina shows why the difference matters for a family that inherits and then sells. If you inherited the land, you are a transferor on the sale deed, so the $1 per $500 is yours unless the contract moves it. Our guide to selling inherited North Carolina land covers why many families there can sell without opening a full probate in the first place.

Tennessee adds two rules that heirs can use. Under the same section, a deed dividing co-owned land in kind among tenants in common is exempt, so if you and your siblings split a farm into separate tracts, you pay no transfer tax on the split. A quitclaim deed is taxed only on the money actually paid, which keeps a sibling buyout by quitclaim taxed on the buyout price rather than on the whole tract’s value.

Michigan’s state exemption list under MCL 207.526 also exempts a conveyance from an owner to a child or grandchild. That helps a parent who deeds land to the next generation during life, and it does nothing for a later sale to someone outside the family, which is taxed at $4.30 per $500 like any other.

Which land deals fall outside the transfer tax?

Arkansas exempts a timber deed that grants the right to cut for no more than 24 months, and both Arkansas and New Hampshire under RSA 78-B:2 exempt a deed conveying land sold for delinquent taxes. Alabama taxes only the value above a mortgage on which mortgage tax was paid, and Georgia and Arkansas skip conveyances of $100 or less.

Arkansas’s timber rule is the one most likely to matter to a rural owner. Under A.C.A. § 26-60-102, a timber deed with a cutting window of two years or less records without the tax, while a sale of the land itself, standing trees included, pays the full $3.30 per $1,000. Selling stumpage and ground separately changes which deed carries tax, though timber income is a separate question for a CPA.

Alabama’s mortgage rule in § 40-22-1 reaches the same place from the other side. Only the value above a mortgage on which the mortgage tax was paid is taxed on the deed, so a financed buyer pays deed tax on the equity portion and mortgage tax on the loan. A cash sale has no mortgage to subtract, and the Alabama Department of Revenue rate of 50 cents per $500 applies to the full price.

Can the purchase contract move the transfer tax to the other side?

In Georgia and Alabama the contract decides from the start, because neither statute names a payer. Elsewhere, the statute names the party the recorder collects from, and a contract can still set who funds that payment at closing. What a contract cannot do is skip the tax: North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama all refuse to record an unpaid deed.

North Carolina’s statute names the transferor as the party who pays the register of deeds, yet the purchase agreement can set who bears that cost, and a credit on the closing statement moves the money. Tennessee works the same way in reverse. Read the contract before the statute, because the contract is what your settlement agent follows when the numbers are finalized.

North Carolina’s stamps, Michigan’s $4.30 per $500 and the seller’s half in New Hampshire are all closing costs we cover on land we buy, along with any other transfer tax a statute assigns to the seller. We put the net figure in a written cash offer within 24 hours, and a clear-title parcel can close in as little as 14 days.

Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas appear as no-tax states in that calculator site’s state-by-state guide, and the same page puts Michigan’s combined rate at $1.10 per $500 instead of $4.30. All four are wrong by statute, and a seller who budgets from a wrong table meets the real number at closing. Whoever you sell to, ask for the transfer tax as its own line, check it against the rate for your state, and request a written offer that shows the net number.

September 2026 is when we read each state’s code for these figures, and every rate above links to the statute or agency page it came from. Christian Smith, our managing partner, and our team buy land for cash in all nine states covered here. Local recording fees change more often than statutes, so confirm the county’s current fee before you sign.