Measure ULA adds a surtax of 4% to 5.5% on top of Los Angeles’s existing transfer tax, and it applies the moment your sale price crosses roughly $5.4 million — there is no way to structure around it once that threshold is hit. If you’re selling a Los Angeles City property anywhere near that number, the tax is not a footnote; it can be the single largest closing cost on the settlement statement. Here is exactly how the brackets work, how they stack with the taxes that already existed, and where the real exemptions are.

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The Current Thresholds and Rates

Measure ULA — officially the “Homelessness and Housing Solutions Tax” — took effect April 1, 2023, and applies only to real property within the City of Los Angeles, not Los Angeles County as a whole. The ordinance built in an annual inflation adjustment to the dollar thresholds, recalculated each July 1. For the period beginning July 1, 2025, the City’s published figures were $5,300,000 for the 4% tier and $10,600,000 for the 5.5% tier. Multiple tax advisory sources tracking the July 1, 2026 adjustment put the new thresholds at approximately $5,400,000 and $10,900,000. Because the City’s Office of Finance publishes the exact figure shortly before each July 1 reset and because different advisory firms have rounded it slightly differently in 2026 commentary, confirm the precise current-year number with the Office of Finance or your escrow officer before closing — the rate itself (4% and 5.5%) has not changed since 2023.

Sales below roughly $5.4 million: no ULA surtax, only the pre-existing city and county transfer tax
Sales from roughly $5.4 million up to roughly $10.9 million: a 4% ULA surtax on the full price
Sales above roughly $10.9 million: a 5.5% ULA surtax on the full price

Note the phrase “on the full price.” Measure ULA is not a marginal bracket tax the way federal income tax is. Once your sale price clears the 4% threshold, the 4% applies to the entire sale price, not just the amount above the threshold. A sale at $5,399,999 owes no ULA; a sale at $5,400,001 owes 4% of $5,400,001 — roughly $216,000. That single-dollar cliff has driven a well-documented pattern of sellers pricing just under a threshold rather than just over it.

Which Properties Are Actually Covered

Measure ULA is a City of Los Angeles ordinance, not a Los Angeles County ordinance, and the distinction matters more than most sellers assume. It applies only to property within the incorporated City of Los Angeles — including neighborhoods like Encino, West Los Angeles, San Pedro, and the San Fernando Valley communities that are part of the city proper. It does not apply in separately incorporated cities that sit inside the county, such as Beverly Hills, Culver City, West Hollywood, or Santa Monica, and it does not apply to unincorporated county land. If you’re not certain whether your parcel is inside city limits, the Los Angeles County Assessor’s parcel lookup and your preliminary title report will both show the correct jurisdiction, and it’s worth confirming before you price a listing near the threshold.

That said, a seller just outside Los Angeles city limits isn’t necessarily free of a similar tax. Santa Monica passed its own measure, known as Measure GS, which layers an additional transfer tax tier on sales at $8 million or more — reported at a combined rate around 5.71% at that tier, separate from and not the same ordinance as Measure ULA. Culver City has adopted its own separate transfer tax increase as well. The broader trend across several Los Angeles County cities has been toward higher transfer taxes on large transactions, so “this city doesn’t have ULA” is not the same as “this city has no mansion tax at all” — check the specific city’s own transfer tax ordinance rather than assuming.

How ULA Stacks on Top of the Existing Transfer Tax

Los Angeles sellers already pay two transfer taxes before ULA ever enters the picture: the City of Los Angeles documentary transfer tax of $4.50 per $1,000 of value (0.45%) and the Los Angeles County transfer tax of $1.10 per $1,000 (0.11%). Combined, that baseline is 0.56% — due on every taxable transfer in the city regardless of price. Measure ULA is additive, not a replacement. A $7 million sale owes the baseline 0.56% plus the 4% ULA tier, for a combined rate of 4.56% — roughly $319,000 in transfer taxes alone, before any other closing cost.

One detail that surprises sellers: ULA is calculated against “consideration,” a term the City has interpreted broadly to include the value of debt and liens that remain on the property at the time of transfer, not only cash changing hands. The pre-existing documentary transfer taxes are calculated differently. If your deal involves assumed debt, seller financing, or an unusual structure, get the consideration calculation confirmed by your escrow officer rather than assuming it matches the gross sale price on your purchase agreement.

A Worked Example

Say a single-family home in Mar Vista, inside City of LA limits, sells for $6,200,000 with no assumed debt. The baseline city and county transfer tax is 0.56% of $6,200,000, or $34,720. Because the price falls in the 4% ULA tier, an additional $248,000 is owed on the full price — not just the portion above the threshold. Total transfer taxes: roughly $282,720, before escrow fees, title insurance, or any commission. Now compare a sale at $10,950,000, just over the upper tier: baseline tax of $61,320 plus a 5.5% ULA tax of $602,250, for a combined transfer-tax bill above $663,000. These aren’t marginal costs — at the top tier, ULA alone can exceed what many sellers expect to pay in real estate commission.

Who Actually Owes the Tax

Measure ULA makes the seller or transferor liable for the tax, similar to the existing documentary transfer tax convention in Los Angeles, though as with any transfer tax the parties can negotiate who pays as part of the purchase agreement. In practice, most residential purchase contracts in the city still default to seller-paid transfer taxes by local custom, and ULA has generally followed that pattern rather than shifting to buyers. As-is disclosure obligations under California law are separate from the tax question and apply regardless of who pays the transfer tax.

The Exemptions Worth Knowing

The ordinance carves out several categories that matter to sellers who assume no exemption could possibly apply to them:

Transfers to or from a qualified affordable housing organization or community land trust that will keep the property deed-restricted for lower-income households
Transfers to government entities and certain qualifying nonprofits
Transfers that already qualify for an exemption under the pre-existing documentary transfer tax rules, which ULA generally mirrors (for example, certain transfers securing debt, or transfers confirming or correcting a previously taxed transfer)

What is not exempt: a personal residence, no matter how long you’ve owned it or how much of the gain is sheltered by the federal Section 121 capital gains exclusion. ULA is a transfer tax, not an income or capital gains tax, so it is calculated on sale price regardless of your basis or exclusion eligibility. Sellers sometimes assume the two taxes offset each other; they don’t, because they are different taxes on different things. An inherited property is not automatically exempt either — if you’re selling an inherited Los Angeles house that happens to be worth more than the threshold, ULA applies the same way it would to a property you bought and held for decades; the exemption categories are about the type of buyer and intended use, not about how the seller came to own the property.

Where the Money Actually Goes

Measure ULA revenue is earmarked for affordable housing production and homelessness prevention programs administered through the city, including funding for tenant legal defense, income support to prevent eviction, and construction or acquisition of affordable units. This isn’t directly relevant to what a seller owes, but it explains why the measure has been politically durable even as real estate groups have pushed back on it — the ad hoc committee’s decision not to recommend a 2026 ballot change reflects that the programs the tax funds already have committed spending built around the revenue stream. That’s part of why sellers near the threshold shouldn’t assume the tax is likely to be repealed or reduced before their transaction closes; absent the statewide initiative passing in November 2026, the city has shown no appetite to change it unilaterally.

Common Misconceptions That Cost Sellers Money

A few assumptions show up repeatedly in conversations with sellers near the threshold, and all of them are wrong. First, some sellers assume ULA is a marginal tax like federal income brackets, where only the amount above the threshold is taxed at the higher rate — it isn’t; the full price is taxed once the threshold is crossed. Second, some assume splitting a sale into multiple smaller transfers (for example, selling a 50% interest now and 50% later) avoids the tax — the City has anti-avoidance language intended to catch structured transfers designed primarily to dodge the tax, and attempting this without real legal and business justification is a risky strategy, not a loophole. Third, some sellers confuse ULA with the documentary transfer tax and assume paying one satisfies the other — they are separate line items calculated separately, and both appear on the same closing statement. Fourth, some assume a 1031 exchange defers ULA the way it defers federal capital gains — it does not; a 1031 exchange only defers federal and state capital gains tax, and transfer taxes including ULA are still due at closing regardless of exchange treatment.

The November 2026 Ballot Fight — and Why It Doesn’t Change Anything Yet

An ad hoc City Council committee declined in May 2026 to place any amendment to Measure ULA’s rates or thresholds on the ballot, so the structure above is unchanged going into the 2026 cycle. Separately, a statewide initiative — the Local Taxpayer Protection Act, backed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association — qualified for the November 2026 statewide ballot. If voters approve it by simple majority, it would cap local real estate transfer taxes statewide at 0.05%, which would functionally eliminate the 4% and 5.5% ULA tiers along with similar surtaxes in other California cities. As of this writing that measure has not been voted on, so Measure ULA remains fully in effect at the rates described above. Anyone timing a sale around this ballot measure should talk to a tax professional rather than assume an outcome or an effective date.

Who Collects the Tax and When It’s Due

In practice, the escrow or title company handling your closing calculates and collects both the standard documentary transfer tax and the ULA surtax as part of the closing statement, then remits the combined amount to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk at the time the deed is recorded. The tax is due at recording, not on some later filing deadline, which is part of why it can’t be deferred or paid in installments the way a tax bill from the assessor might be. If your deal has an unusual structure — a trust distribution, a partial interest transfer, or a transfer involving an LLC — ask your title company early which consideration figure they intend to use for the ULA calculation, since disputes over consideration are easier to resolve before closing than after a deed is already recorded.

Why a Fast Sale Doesn’t Make the Tax Go Away

It’s worth being direct about this: no closing method — not escrow length, not a cash buyer, not an off-market deal — changes whether ULA applies. The tax is triggered by the recorded transfer and the consideration amount, not by how the sale was marketed or how quickly it closed. If your property is genuinely worth more than the threshold, the tax is owed regardless of buyer type. Where a fast, as-is sale actually helps is on the other costs around a high-value transaction: carrying costs on an expensive property while it sits on the market, commission on a large sale price, and the holding risk of a property that may need repairs or disclosures resolved before a traditional buyer’s lender will fund. None of that offsets ULA itself — it only affects the costs around it.

When a Cash Sale Is the Wrong Move Here

If your property is well above the ULA threshold and in good, marketable condition, a traditional listing with a qualified agent who has handled high-value Los Angeles transactions will usually net more than a direct cash sale, even after commission — the buyer pool for $5 million-plus homes is sophisticated and competitive, and that competition is what actually sets price. A cash sale makes more sense near the threshold when the property needs real work, when a fast, certain close is worth more to you than maximizing price, or when the holding costs of a longer marketing period would eat into any price premium a listing might capture. It also doesn’t make sense to let ULA push you into an unnecessarily rushed decision: taking a lowball offer just to “beat” an inflation adjustment that moves the threshold by a few percent each July 1 usually costs more than the adjustment itself would have.

Where the math genuinely favors speed over maximum price: an estate or trust sale where heirs want certainty and a single closing date rather than a drawn-out marketing period at this price point; a property that needs significant deferred maintenance before it could pass a high-end buyer’s inspection contingencies; or a situation where carrying two mortgages, double property tax bills, or out-of-state logistics make every additional month on market an active cost rather than a neutral wait.

Before You List Above $5.4 Million

Confirm the current-year ULA thresholds with the LA Office of Finance before you price the listing — they move every July 1
Ask your escrow officer how “consideration” will be calculated if any debt or liens are being assumed rather than paid off at closing
Run the net-proceeds math at both a price just under the threshold and your actual target price, since the cliff effect can be larger than expected price appreciation from waiting
Loop in a CPA or real estate attorney before closing if any exemption might apply

If you’d rather skip the uncertainty around timing, pricing, and exemption questions altogether, a cash offer on your Los Angeles property gives you a fixed closing date and a known number to run the ULA math against before you commit to anything. When you sell to us, we pay the standard closing costs, including the county and city transfer taxes, escrow and title. For a no-obligation conversation about your specific numbers, Cash Home Buyers CA is available at (424) 435-2326.

Measure ULA: What Los Angeles Sellers Actually Pay Above $5.4 Million