Does Indiana have a real estate transfer tax?
No. Indiana does not tax the transfer of real estate, and its counties and cities don’t add a transfer tax either. On the sale of a $2,000,000 or $5,000,000 apartment building in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Evansville or Bloomington, the transfer tax line is $0.
Instead of a tax, Indiana uses a disclosure. Indiana Code chapter 6-1.1-5.5 requires a Sales Disclosure Form whenever a conveyance document transfers a real property interest for valuable consideration. The form carries a $20 filing fee to the county auditor under IC 6-1.1-5.5-4. That fee is the same on a $200,000 duplex and a $20,000,000 complex.
The Indiana Sales Disclosure Form
The transferor and the transferee both complete the form. All parties can sign one form, or, if they disagree on what it should say, each side can file its own. When more than two parties are involved, one seller and one buyer signing is enough.
The county assessor reviews the form for completeness and stamps it, and then it goes to the county auditor with the deed. The auditor may not accept the conveyance if the form is missing, incomplete or unstamped, so a bad form can hold up recording.
File one form per parcel. A deed that conveys several parcels needs a separate form for each, unless the parcels are contiguous and sit entirely within a single taxing district. The Department of Local Government Finance’s guidance treats parcels separated by a road as not contiguous, which catches many garden-style complexes split across a street.
- Form required: deeds, contracts of sale, judgments and other documents that transfer an interest for value, including foreclosure, divorce, court-ordered, condemnation and probate transfers.
- Form required: leases that include the fee simple and run more than 90 years.
- No form: mortgages and trust deeds, leases under 90 years, and quitclaim deeds that are not a source of title.
- No form: mergers and incorporations involving only nonlisted stock, utility or government easements, and conveyances to the state or a local unit.
Who pays the $20 fee and other closing costs?
The person filing the Sales Disclosure Form pays the $20 fee to the county auditor, and in most sales the title company files it and charges it to whichever party the contract names. No fee is due when the conveyance is to a charity, is a compulsory transaction from foreclosure or threat of foreclosure, divorce, court order, condemnation or probate, or partitions land among co-owners.
Beyond that, an Indiana seller’s costs are the ordinary ones: title insurance, closing and escrow fees, any brokerage commission, loan payoff and recording charges, and prorated property taxes. None of them is a percentage tax set by the state.
Why the disclosure matters to a seller
The sales data on the form goes to the assessor and the state. According to the Department of Local Government Finance, the form was created in 1993 to collect sales data for studying fair market value, and the data is used mainly in ratio studies that test whether assessed values are equitable and uniform.
So your price does not stay private, unlike in a nondisclosure state such as Idaho. A strong sale becomes a data point for your county’s next round of assessments. That doesn’t cost the seller anything at closing, but buyers model the property tax on their price, and that shows up in what they will pay.
LLC transfers, entity sales, foreclosures and 1031 exchanges
Because Indiana has no transfer tax, deeding your building to your own LLC costs no tax, and neither does selling membership interests in the LLC or transferring a controlling interest. A deed to your LLC that recites valuable consideration still needs a Sales Disclosure Form, and the $20 fee applies unless an exception fits. Mergers involving only nonlisted stock fall outside the form entirely.
Foreclosures and deeds in lieu need the form but no fee. Gifts and inheritances follow the same logic. With no consideration there may be no conveyance for disclosure purposes, while probate transfers need the form but are fee-exempt.
A 1031 exchange changes nothing on the transfer side in Indiana. There is no tax to defer or exempt, so the exchange only matters for income tax. Each leg of the exchange that involves Indiana real estate gets its own Sales Disclosure Form.
Worked example: transfer costs on a $2,000,000 and $5,000,000 Indiana sale
Take a 20-unit building in Indianapolis selling for $2,000,000 on a single parcel, and a 48-unit complex in Carmel selling for $5,000,000 that sits on two parcels divided by a public road.
On the $2,000,000 sale, the transfer tax is $0 and one Sales Disclosure Form costs $20. On the $5,000,000 sale, the transfer tax is also $0, but the road means two forms, so the disclosure fees total $40. The same $2,000,000 sale would carry $3,000 of state and county transfer tax in Illinois outside Chicago.
| Line item | $2,000,000 sale (1 parcel) | $5,000,000 sale (2 parcels) |
|---|---|---|
| State transfer tax | $0 | $0 |
| County or city transfer tax | $0 | $0 |
| Sales Disclosure Forms | 1 | 2 |
| Sales disclosure fees at $20 each | $20 | $40 |
| Total transfer tax | $0 | $0 |
Indiana compared with neighboring states
Indiana is the only state in its immediate neighborhood with no transfer tax. Kentucky charges 0.10%, Illinois charges 0.15% before any municipal tax, and Ohio’s county conveyance fees run from 0.10% to as much as 0.40% depending on the county.
For an Indiana owner, that gap cuts both ways. Selling here costs nothing in transfer tax, but exchanging into a Chicago or Cincinnati building means the next sale, or even the purchase if your contract assigns the tax to the buyer, will carry a transfer tax you never paid at home. Put it in the hold-period numbers before you choose a replacement property.
| State | Transfer tax | $2,000,000 sale |
|---|---|---|
| Indiana | None ($20 disclosure fee) | $0 |
| Kentucky | $0.50 per $500 (0.10%) | $2,000 |
| Illinois (outside Chicago) | 0.10% state + 0.05% county | $3,000 |
| Illinois (Chicago) | 1.20% with city and CTA tax | $24,000 |
| Ohio | County fees of $0.10 per $100 plus up to $0.30 per $100 (0.10% to 0.40%) | $2,000 to $8,000 |
Where your money goes when you sell in Indiana
Without a transfer tax, income tax is the cost to plan around. Federal capital gains tax and the up-to-25% federal rate on unrecaptured depreciation come first. Indiana’s individual income tax rate is 2.95% for 2026 under IC 6-3-2-1, falling to 2.9% in 2027, and counties add their own local income tax on top.
A 1031 exchange can defer the federal and Indiana income tax. If you are weighing an Indiana sale against keeping the building, the low state rate and the absence of a transfer tax mean a larger share of your price stays with you than in most of the Midwest.
Recent changes to the Sales Disclosure Form
The form has changed more often than the law that requires it. According to the Department of Local Government Finance, there have been fourteen versions. A 2008 law, HEA 1293, expanded it so taxpayers could use it to apply for certain deductions, and widened the definition of conveyance document to include compulsory transactions and partitions.
In 2020, HEA 1113 removed some of the details about seller-provided financing that the form used to ask for, which matters if you carry a note for your buyer. In 2025, HEA 1641 added conveyances to a local unit of government to the list of documents that are not conveyance documents. Use the current state form, since counties can reject outdated versions.
What to have ready for an Indiana apartment sale
An Indiana closing has no tax to calculate, so preparation is about getting the disclosure and the deed right the first time.
- The parcel numbers for every parcel in the sale, so the title company knows how many Sales Disclosure Forms to prepare.
- A current rent roll, leases and a schedule of security deposits.
- Trailing 12-month operating statements and recent property tax bills, which buyers will use to model taxes after the sale.
- A payoff letter from your lender for the mortgage release.
- Exchange documents from your qualified intermediary before closing if the sale is part of a 1031 exchange.
Selling your Indiana apartment building to Skyline
Skyline Capital Investments buys apartment buildings with five or more units across Indiana and nationwide. We buy directly, can offer seller-carry terms and can work inside a 1031 exchange timeline.
Send the address and unit count through the form on this page, or call (469) 660-2977. We typically respond within 48 hours.
