When Sandra Meyers sold a condo and bought a single-family home last year in Delaware, she wasn't prepared for the hit she'd take from government taxes and fees.
"I always thought Maryland was high for closing, but this hurt," she wrote on Facebook. "Run all the numbers, but brace yourself."
She said she'd sold her mom’s home in Annapolis, MD, the previous fall.
"It was 100K more than my house here [in Delaware], and closing was less there than here," she wrote.
Delaware's closing costs—including transfer taxes and recording fees—account for 3.06% of the sale price on average, the highest share nationwide, according to a new study by LodeStar Software Solutions, a provider of mortgage closing cost data.
Total closing costs in Delaware are a steep $12,707, on average, with recording fees and taxes accounting for a whopping $9,098 of that total, the study found.
"Delaware does have a higher realty transfer tax compared to many states, so education upfront is critical for both buyers and sellers," Delaware real estate agent Jennifer Allen tells Realtor.com®.
Many buyers and sellers blindsided
Many homebuyers and sellers are so focused on home prices, they don't factor in closing costs—even though both buyers and sellers are responsible for closing costs in a real estate transaction.
"One of the biggest mistakes in real estate is focusing only on the purchase price and ignoring the full financial picture," says Allen.
Sellers typically cover expenses such as transfer taxes, owner title insurance, half of escrow fees, and other related charges.
Buyers are usually responsible for such costs as recording fees, appraisal and inspection fees, attorney fees, lender charges, lender title insurance, half of escrow fees, and additional expenses.
And in some states, these costs represent a much larger percentage of the sale price than in others.
Where transfer taxes and recording fees are highest
The states with the highest recording fees and transfer taxes as a percentage of sales price are Delaware (2.19%), Vermont (1.68%), New York (1.53%), Washington, DC (1.53%), Pennsylvania (1.43%), Maryland (1.17%), Florida (0.91%), New Hampshire (0.80%), and Virginia (0.68%).
Real estate transfer taxes are imposed on the "transfer" of the property deed from the seller to the buyer. It's a one-time fee, and the amount you'll pay in a transfer tax will vary depending on where you live.
Delaware's current transfer tax rate is $4 per $100. According to LodeStar, a median-priced home there is $415,814. So the transfer tax alone would be $16,633.
In Florida, it's considerably less, although the government takes a bigger bite out of home sales in the Sunshine State than in any other state in the South.
"In Miami-Dade County, for every deed that gets recorded, the transfer taxes—or 'doc stamps'—are 60 cents for every 100 dollars of the sale," Florida real estate attorney Jacqueline A. Salcines tells Realtor.com. "So a property that sells for $500,000 in Miami-Dade would owe transfer taxes—or 'documentary stamp taxes'—of $3,000."
According to Salcines, recording fees are one-time charges from a county or local government to file the documents related to the closing—and are typically one of the smaller line items in real estate closing costs.
"The fees vary county to county," she says. "In Miami-Dade County, the recording fees are 10 dollars for the first page and $8.50 for each subsequent page. So if you are recording a two-page deed, it would be $18.50."
How closing costs compare across states
"Delaware has led the pack two years in a row because its transfer tax structure is unusually heavy compared with many other states," Ron Carvalho, director of data operations at LodeStar, tells Realtor.com.
"When you combine the state transfer tax with local transfer taxes, buyers and sellers in many Delaware transactions face a total rate in the 3% to 4% range. Although there are credits and exemptions for first-time homebuyers, structurally, those taxes will keep Delaware’s closing costs elevated as a share of the purchase price, unless the state’s transfer tax framework changes meaningfully."
But Delaware doesn't pay the highest dollar amount nationwide when measured against average sale price.
People buying property in Washington, DC, can expect to pay the most at closing: $13,836. LodeStar's findings are based on the $616,476 average sales price in the nation's capital and 2.24% of the sales price.
Closing costs, as a percentage of sales price, is around 0.5% to 3%, with an average percentage of 1.04% and a median of 0.85%, according to LodeStar.
States without transfer taxes or minimal transfer taxes are found to have lower total closing costs, but the states with the highest closing costs as a percentage of sales price tend to be locations where the transfer taxes make up a bulk of the pricing.
Highest and lowest closing costs
Washington, DC ($13,836), Delaware ($12,707), New York ($12,418), Maryland ($9,486), and Vermont ($9,164) have been identified as the top five markets with the most expensive average closing costs, including recording and taxes.
The high closing costs in Washington, DC, are affected by the city's steep transfer tax rates—1.1% of the sale price for residential properties below $400,000, and 1.45% on the full amount for transfers above $400,000.
The states with the lowest closing costs are South Dakota ($1,386), Iowa ($1,541), and Missouri ($1,748).
How the data was calculated
To come up with its data, LodeStar used the average closing costs as the average fees, recordation charges, and transfer taxes required to close a typical purchase transaction in a geographical area, in addition to the following: settlement/closing/escrow fees and title policies (both owners and lenders).
The actual closing fees were taken from a sample of 620,000 purchase quotes from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2025. Home prices over $10 million were not considered for the study.
LodeStar calculated the percentage of the sales price as the average total closing costs with recording fees and taxes included, divided by the average sales price in a given geographical area.
Julie Taylor is a reporter for Realtor.com. She was most recently a writer and co-executive producer on “The Talk” where she won two Daytime Emmy Awards. A member of the Writers Guild of America, Julie has written for Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Redbook magazines and is the author of six books. Julie earned a B.A. in magazine journalism from the University of Central Oklahoma. After two decades in New York City and Los Angeles, she recently relocated to the Midwest.
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