What is the Ohio real estate transfer tax?
Ohio doesn’t use the phrase transfer tax in its statutes. It has two pieces that together act as one. The first is the mandatory real property conveyance fee in Ohio Revised Code 319.54(G)(3): one dollar, or ten cents for each $100 or fraction of $100, whichever is greater. That is $1 per $1,000 of value, or 0.1%, in every county.
The second is the permissive real property transfer tax in ORC 322.02. Each board of county commissioners can add up to 30 cents per $100, or $3 per $1,000, by resolution after two public hearings. The combined ceiling is $4 per $1,000, or 0.4%.
Both are charged on the value of the real property transferred and collected by the county auditor at the moment the deed is presented for transfer. Without the auditor’s stamp, the county recorder won’t record the deed.
Ohio conveyance fees in major counties
Rates differ by county, so check the one where your building sits. Cuyahoga County’s fiscal officer lists a conveyance fee of $4.00 per $1,000 of the purchase price, and the Lucas County auditor lists $4.00 per $1,000 of the sale price. Both are at the statutory maximum.
Franklin County is lower. Its auditor’s calculator applies $3 per $1,000 of the sale price, a rate in place since October 7, 2019, when the county raised its permissive tax from $1 to $2 per $1,000.
Other counties can set their permissive tax anywhere from zero to the $3 cap. The auditor’s office in each county posts its rate, and most have an online calculator that shows the fee before you close.
| County | Total per $1,000 | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|
| Cuyahoga (Cleveland) | $4.00 | 0.4% |
| Lucas (Toledo) | $4.00 | 0.4% |
| Franklin (Columbus) | $3.00 | 0.3% |
| State minimum, any county | $1.00 | 0.1% |
Who pays the conveyance fee in Ohio?
The seller, almost always. ORC 322.02 levies the county’s permissive tax on the grantor named in the deed and requires the grantor to pay it to the auditor when the deed is delivered. The state fee in 319.54 doesn’t name a payer, but Ohio closings charge both pieces to the seller as a matter of custom.
The buyer has a paperwork job instead. Under ORC 319.202, the grantee or the grantee’s representative files a statement of value with the auditor before the auditor endorses the deed. In practice this is Form DTE 100 for a taxable sale or DTE 100EX when you claim an exemption, and the title company prepares it.
A contract can shift the cost to the buyer or split it. On commercial sales that happens now and then, but most Ohio letters of intent leave the conveyance fee with the seller.
Exemptions from the Ohio conveyance fee
ORC 319.54(G)(3) lists more than twenty exempt transfers. The ones that come up for apartment owners are below. Most require an affidavit of facts or the DTE 100EX form, and the auditor decides whether the facts fit.
- No-money transfers: to or from a person when no money or other valuable and tangible consideration readily convertible into money is paid, and the transfer isn’t a gift.
- Corporate reorganizations and dissolutions, and a subsidiary deeding property to its parent for no consideration.
- Gifts between spouses, between parent and child, or their spouses.
- Transfers among heirs or devisees of a common decedent, including a surviving spouse, with no money paid.
- Deeds into a revocable trust where the grantor kept the power to revoke, and back out to the grantor.
- Deeds that only secure or release a loan, and correction deeds.
Transfers to your LLC, foreclosures and 1031 exchanges
LLCs and partnerships aren’t named in the statute. Deeding your building into an LLC you own usually qualifies under the no-money exemption in 319.54(G)(3)(m), because the LLC pays you nothing for it. If the LLC pays cash or takes on your loan in exchange, the fee is due. Some auditors look harder at entity transfers, so have your title company prepare the affidavit of facts.
Sheriff’s sales and deeds in lieu of foreclosure are not exempt. The court-order exemption in (G)(3)(f) excludes transfers that result from a sale under that order, and only sales for delinquent taxes get their own exemption.
A 1031 exchange gets no special treatment. The relinquished building is sold for money, so you pay the conveyance fee at the county’s full rate. The fee does count as a selling expense when you calculate the deferred gain.
Does Ohio tax the sale of an entity that owns real estate?
No. Ohio’s conveyance fee and permissive tax attach to deeds presented to the auditor. If a buyer acquires the membership interests in the LLC that owns your apartment building, no deed is transferred and no fee is charged. Ohio has no controlling-interest rule like New York’s or Pennsylvania’s.
That doesn’t mean an entity sale is invisible to the county. The auditor can still revalue the property at the next reappraisal or update. At 0.4%, the fee alone is rarely a good reason to restructure a sale.
Why the price on your DTE 100 matters after closing
The statement of value does more than set the conveyance fee. It puts the sale price in the auditor’s records, and ORC 5713.03 lets the auditor treat the price of a recent arm’s-length sale as the property’s true value for property tax.
That is the buyer’s problem more than yours, but it shapes the deal. A buyer paying $2 million for a building the auditor carries at $1.3 million will underwrite the higher tax bill that may follow and price the building with it in mind. If part of the price is for personal property, such as appliances or furnished-unit contents, a supportable allocation in the contract keeps that portion out of both the fee and the recorded value.
Keep the allocation reasonable. The buyer’s depreciation, your gain calculation and the auditor’s review should all line up with the same numbers.
Worked example: conveyance fees on a $2 million and $5 million building
Take a 28-unit building in Lakewood, in Cuyahoga County, that sells for $2,000,000. The state fee is $2,000,000 × $1 ÷ $1,000, or $2,000. The county’s permissive tax at $3 per $1,000 is $6,000. The seller pays $8,000 in total.
The same price in Columbus costs $6,000: $2,000 state and $4,000 county at Franklin’s $2 permissive rate. A $5,000,000 building in Toledo pays $5,000 to the state and $15,000 to Lucas County, for $20,000.
Prices that don’t fall on a round $100 are rounded up. The fee is charged per $100 or fraction of $100, so a price of $2,000,050 is billed as $2,000,100.
| Sale | State fee (0.1%) | County tax | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2,000,000 in Cuyahoga County | $2,000 | $6,000 | $8,000 |
| $2,000,000 in Franklin County | $2,000 | $4,000 | $6,000 |
| $5,000,000 in Lucas County | $5,000 | $15,000 | $20,000 |
Ohio compared with neighboring states
Ohio’s conveyance fee is low next to Pennsylvania and Michigan and higher than Indiana, which has no transfer tax. Kentucky’s state tax is about the same as Ohio’s state-only floor, and West Virginia’s state and base county taxes add up to about 0.33%.
| State | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Ohio | 0.1% to 0.4% | $1 state plus up to $3 county per $1,000 |
| Pennsylvania | 1% state | Local realty transfer tax on top |
| Michigan | 0.75% state plus 0.11% county | $3.75 and $0.55 per $500 |
| West Virginia | 0.22% state plus 0.11% county | Counties may raise theirs to $1.65 per $500 |
| Kentucky | 0.1% | $0.50 per $500 |
| Indiana | None | No state transfer tax |
How the conveyance fee fits into your selling costs
On most Ohio sales, the conveyance fee is a small line next to income taxes. It is a selling expense, so it lowers the amount you realize. The larger items are federal long-term capital gains tax, depreciation recapture at up to 25% on the depreciation you’ve taken, and Ohio income tax on the gain.
A 1031 exchange defers the income taxes but not the conveyance fee. Seller financing can spread the income tax over the years you collect payments, but the auditor charges the fee on the full value when the deed moves. Budget the fee as a fixed cost and focus your planning on the gain.
Selling your Ohio apartment building to Skyline
Skyline Capital Investments buys apartment buildings with five or more units across Ohio, including Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Dayton and Akron. We buy directly, can offer seller-carry terms and can close inside a 1031 exchange schedule.
Send your address and unit count through the form on this page, or call (469) 660-2977. We typically respond within 48 hours, and our offer will spell out the closing costs, including the conveyance fee, so you know your net before you sign.
