Closing costs by state in 2026: what sellers and buyers pay to close

Closing costs are what each side pays to finish a sale, beyond the price and the down payment. Some of them are the same almost everywhere, like an appraisal or a settlement fee. Others are set by each state: transfer taxes, taxes on the buyer’s mortgage or deed, title insurance prices in a few states, and whether an attorney runs the closing.

We worked out both sides’ closing costs in every state with the same engine as our free seller net sheet and closing cost calculators, and published the results as an open dataset: closing costs by state. This brief covers what we found.

How we did this

Each state’s rules (its taxes and who usually pays them, title insurance customs and rates, and whether an attorney closes) come from its statutes and agencies, checked in September and October 2026. We ran both calculators for every state on a $400,000 home and at the state’s median home value, with 20% down on a conventional loan.

Fees no state sets are national estimates, the same ones the calculators start with:

• Both sides: a $600 settlement fee, and $900 for an attorney where one usually closes.
• Seller: $100 in recording and release fees, and an owner’s title policy estimated at 0.35% of the price where the state doesn’t set the rate.
• Buyer: lender charges of 1% of the loan, a $700 appraisal, $250 in recording fees, and a lender’s title policy estimated at 0.11% of the loan, with a $500 minimum.

We leave out commissions, the loan payoff and the property tax split at closing, which depend on the deal and the date rather than the state. Exemptions, like first-time buyer breaks, aren’t applied.

Because those fees are the same everywhere, states that set none of the costs come out close together. Nineteen states land at the same $5,250 for a buyer. That’s the floor of this model, not a claim that a closing costs exactly that in each of them.

What a typical closing costs

On a $400,000 home, across the 50 states and DC:

• The middle buyer pays $6,130 to close with 20% down, or 1.53% of the price. With prepaid interest, a year of homeowner’s insurance and the opening escrow deposit, the middle state is $10,318.
• The middle seller pays $2,500 before commissions and the payoff, or 0.63% of the price.

The range is wide. A buyer’s costs run from 1.21% of the price to 3.89%, and a seller’s from 0.28% to 2.4%.

Where it costs the most

For buyers, Delaware is highest at $15,550, then DC ($12,450), Vermont ($11,490), Maryland ($11,050) and Pennsylvania ($10,650). The biggest single cost behind each is a tax: Delaware’s and Pennsylvania’s transfer taxes, which buyers usually split with sellers; DC’s deed recordation tax; Vermont’s property transfer tax, which the buyer pays; and Maryland’s state and county transfer taxes.

For sellers, Delaware is highest again at $9,600, then Washington ($8,500), DC ($6,500), Connecticut ($5,600), Florida ($5,575) and Michigan ($5,540). Washington’s excise tax and DC’s deed transfer tax are the seller’s alone. Florida’s comes mostly from two state-set costs: the documentary stamp tax ($2,800) and the owner’s title policy, whose price the state sets.

Both sides together, Delaware tops the list at $25,150, followed by DC ($18,950), Maryland ($16,150), Pennsylvania ($15,350) and Washington ($13,750).

Where it costs the least

For buyers, Texas is lowest at $4,850. It has no state transfer tax or mortgage tax, and the state sets the lender’s title policy at $100 when it’s issued with the owner’s policy. Nineteen states follow at $5,250, where the buyer pays no state tax and doesn’t usually buy the owner’s policy, so only the national estimates are left.

For sellers, Kentucky and Virginia are lowest at $1,100, then Iowa ($1,339), Louisiana and Vermont ($1,600) and Hawaii ($1,800). In Kentucky and Virginia the buyer usually buys the owner’s title policy, so the seller’s costs are little more than a small transfer tax and the fees.

Both sides together, 11 states tie at $7,350: Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. None has a state transfer tax or a tax on the buyer’s loan, and none usually uses an attorney.

What makes the difference

Transfer taxes are the biggest swing. On a $400,000 sale the state’s tax runs from nothing in 15 states to $16,000 in Delaware, and who pays it depends on the state’s custom. Our transfer taxes report covers each state.

Some states tax the buyer’s loan or deed. Ten places charge buyers a tax of their own: Alabama, DC, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Virginia. New York’s mortgage recording tax ($2,400 on a $320,000 loan outside New York City) and Florida’s stamps on the note and intangible tax ($1,760 together) are the best known.

Title insurance follows local rules. Florida and Texas set title insurance prices by law, so every company charges the same. Elsewhere the price is a quote, and who buys the owner’s policy is custom: the seller in many states, the buyer in others, and the county in a few, like Florida.

Attorney states add a fee for each side. In 15 states an attorney usually handles the closing: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia. Buyers’ closing costs average $8,442 there, against $6,274 in the other 36, though taxes account for much of that gap too.

At each state’s median home

A $400,000 home is a fair comparison, but it’s an expensive home in some states and a modest one in others. At each state’s median home value (Census Bureau, 2024), DC is highest for buyers: $21,263 on a $733,400 median. Washington is highest for sellers: $12,582 on a $602,200 median, because its excise tax rises with the price. The lowest buyer costs at the median are in Kansas ($3,960), Ohio ($3,968) and Indiana ($3,998), where median values are under $250,000 and there’s no buyer’s state tax.

Use the data

Every state’s figures, on $400,000 and at its median, are in closing costs by state, free to download as CSV or JSON and reuse with credit. The JSON includes every national estimate the figures rest on.

For a particular home, the closing cost calculator and seller net sheet calculator let you change every line, and every state has its own page, like Delaware’s or Texas’s.

Our other reports cover transfer taxes in every state and what homeowners pay in property taxes.