Every home sale inside the city limits of Los Angeles carries a transfer tax that has nothing to do with Measure ULA. It applies at every price point, from a $300,000 condo to a $20 million estate, and most sellers never see the number until it shows up on their closing statement.

Here is what the City of Los Angeles actually charges, how it stacks on top of the County’s own tax, and where Measure ULA fits in once a sale crosses into mansion-tax territory.

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The Two Taxes on Every Deed

California lets a county’s board of supervisors adopt a documentary transfer tax of fifty-five cents per $500 of consideration, or $1.10 per $1,000, under Revenue and Taxation Code Section 11911. Los Angeles County did exactly that, and the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk collects it on every recorded deed in the county, including every deed inside the City of Los Angeles.

Under that same statute, a city inside the county is normally limited to half the county’s rate — about $0.275 per $500 — and that city tax then gets credited against the county’s bill so sellers in most cities pay only the county’s $1.10 per $1,000 combined.

Los Angeles does not use that conforming half-rate. As a charter city, it imposes its own separate tax under the Los Angeles Municipal Code at $2.25 per $500 of value, equal to $4.50 per $1,000, and that amount is not credited against the county’s tax. It stacks fully on top.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder publishes the combined schedule it actually collects: $1.10 per $1,000 to the county, plus $4.50 per $1,000 to the city, for a combined base rate of $5.60 per $1,000, or 0.56% of the sale price, before Measure ULA is even part of the conversation.

Why Measure ULA Is a Different Tax, Not a Bigger Version of This One

Measure ULA, the tax voters approved in 2022 and sometimes called the “mansion tax,” is a separate, additional charge that only applies once a sale’s price crosses a dollar threshold.

We’ve broken down what Los Angeles sellers actually pay under Measure ULA above that threshold, but the short version is that for transfers recorded on or after July 1, 2026, ULA adds 4% of the full transaction value once the price exceeds $5,400,000, and 5.5% once it exceeds $10,900,000.

Those thresholds move every July 1 because the ballot measure ties them to the regional Consumer Price Index, which is why the figures you may have read from a 2023 or 2024 article are already out of date.

The base $5.60-per-$1,000 tax covered in this article applies first, on every sale, regardless of price. ULA then layers on top only for the sales large enough to trigger it. A $700,000 bungalow sale owes only the base tax. A $6,000,000 estate sale owes the base tax on the full price, plus 4% of the full price under ULA. The two taxes are calculated independently and both get paid at the same closing.

Who Actually Writes the Check

California law doesn’t assign the transfer tax to buyer or seller by statute — that split is a matter of contract and local custom.

In Los Angeles County, local custom overwhelmingly has the seller pay both the county’s and the city’s transfer tax, and escrow companies default to that allocation unless the purchase agreement says otherwise.

A seller negotiating a contract can try to shift some or all of it to the buyer, but in a typical residential resale that rarely happens, because buyers expect the seller to cover it the way sellers in this market always have.

That is the regular listed-sale picture. When you sell to us, we pay the standard closing costs, including the county and city transfer taxes, escrow and title. The seller does not need to negotiate who covers this tax because it is already built into how we structure the transaction.

Running the Math at a Few Price Points

The combined base rate of $5.60 per $1,000 is easiest to picture at specific prices, before any Measure ULA threshold is involved:

$450,000 sale: $2,520 combined city and county transfer tax
$850,000 sale: $4,760 combined city and county transfer tax
$1,500,000 sale: $8,400 combined city and county transfer tax
$3,200,000 sale: $17,920 combined city and county transfer tax, still below the ULA threshold

Once a sale passes $5,400,000, Measure ULA’s 4% applies to the entire transaction value on top of these figures, not just the amount above the threshold — one more reason the math around ULA surprises sellers who assume it works like an income tax bracket.

How Escrow Actually Calculates and Collects It

The tax isn’t something a seller writes a separate check for.

The county recorder won’t accept a grant deed for recording unless the transfer tax has been paid or a valid exemption is declared on the face of the deed, so escrow collects it as part of closing and pays both the county’s and the city’s share before the deed goes to the recorder’s office.

Your preliminary and final closing statements should each show two line items — one for the Los Angeles County documentary transfer tax and one for the City of Los Angeles tax — rather than a single combined figure.

If your closing statement shows only one number, ask the escrow officer to itemize it; some title companies combine the two for simplicity, which makes it harder to catch an error.

The tax is calculated on “consideration,” which for a conventional arm’s-length sale is the purchase price. Where the deal includes assumed debt that isn’t being paid off at closing, the taxable consideration can differ slightly from the gross sale price, which is one more reason to confirm the number on your actual settlement statement rather than estimating from the listing price alone.

A Worked Example on a $950,000 Sale

Numbers are easier to trust with a full example rather than a rate alone. Say a seller in the Mid-City area is closing on a $950,000 sale, well under the Measure ULA threshold. The county’s $1.10-per-$1,000 share comes to $1,045. The city’s $4.50-per-$1,000 share comes to $4,275.

Combined, the transfer tax line items on the closing statement total $5,320 — before any agent commission, escrow fee, title insurance premium, or payoff of the existing mortgage.

On a traditional listed sale, that $5,320 typically comes out of the seller’s proceeds at closing, the same way a commission does, rather than being billed separately beforehand.

Scale that same math up to a $2,400,000 sale in a neighborhood like Hancock Park or Brentwood, still below the ULA threshold, and the combined base tax rises to $13,440. At that price point the transfer tax alone is a five-figure cost most sellers don’t budget for until their agent or escrow officer walks them through the settlement statement for the first time.

Exemptions That Actually Apply

A handful of transfers are exempt from the documentary transfer tax under state and local law.

Revenue and Taxation Code Section 11927 exempts a deed that divides community or quasi-community property between spouses when the division is required by a dissolution judgment, a legal separation judgment, a nullity judgment, or a written marital settlement agreement made in contemplation of one — but only if the deed itself carries a written recital, signed by either spouse, stating that it qualifies for the exemption.

Leave that recital off and the exemption doesn’t apply even if the underlying transfer would otherwise qualify.

Beyond the divorce exemption, the tax generally does not apply to a transfer into a revocable trust where the beneficial ownership doesn’t change, a deed that simply confirms or corrects an existing ownership interest without conveying anything new, or a deed of trust recorded to secure a loan rather than to convey title.

A straight sale between unrelated parties — the situation most homeowners selling a house are actually in — does not qualify for any of these, and sellers sometimes mistakenly assume a 1031 exchange changes that.

It doesn’t: a 1031 exchange defers capital gains tax under the Internal Revenue Code, but it has no bearing on the documentary transfer tax, which is owed on the deed regardless of what the seller does with the proceeds afterward.

Gifts and inheritances outside of probate sales can raise their own exemption questions, and we’ve covered how inherited property gets a different tax treatment entirely once you’re ready to sell. If your sale involves a trust, a divorce settlement, or an estate, it’s worth confirming the exemption with the title company before assuming the tax applies in the usual way.

Where Los Angeles Spends This Money

The county’s $1.10-per-$1,000 share goes into the county’s general fund.

The city’s $4.50-per-$1,000 base rate — the part specific to this article, as distinct from Measure ULA’s housing and homelessness earmarks — also lands in the city’s general fund and has existed in some form for decades, well before ULA was ever on a ballot.

It’s a routine cost of recording a deed in Los Angeles, not a dedicated housing program, which is one more reason it’s easy to conflate with ULA even though the two have almost nothing in common beyond both being collected at the same closing.

How This Compares to Other Cities in the County

This $4.50-per-$1,000 base rate only applies to property within the incorporated City of Los Angeles.

A property in an unincorporated area of the county, or inside most of the roughly 87 other incorporated cities in Los Angeles County, pays only the county’s $1.10 per $1,000, because most of those cities never adopted a separate tax of their own.

A smaller group did, and the rates are not uniform.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s own published rate history shows Pomona and Redondo Beach each charging $2.20 per $1,000 — less than half of Los Angeles’s rate — while Culver City and Santa Monica both run tiered schedules that climb sharply at the high end.

We’ve written about what Culver City’s own Measure RE actually costs at closing, which starts at the same 0.45% as Los Angeles for sales under $1.5 million but jumps to 3% between $3 million and $10 million and 4% above that.

Santa Monica’s tiered tax reaches an even steeper $56 per $1,000 — 5.6% — on the portion of a sale at or above $8 million, among the highest municipal transfer tax rates in the state.

The practical takeaway is that “the Los Angeles area” is not one transfer-tax market.

A seller comparing a Los Angeles city listing against a nearly identical house a few blocks away in an unincorporated pocket of the county, or in a smaller contract city with no separate tax, could see a meaningfully different net at closing on otherwise comparable sale prices.

If you’re not certain whether your property sits inside the Los Angeles city limits, a neighboring city with its own tax, or an unincorporated community, the county assessor’s parcel lookup will confirm it before you budget for closing costs.

Frequently Confused Questions

Does refinancing trigger this tax? No. The documentary transfer tax applies to a change in ownership evidenced by a recorded deed, not to recording a new deed of trust for a loan. Refinancing your existing mortgage doesn’t transfer title, so no transfer tax is owed.

Does it apply to a transfer into my own LLC? Often yes, if the deed reflects a change in legal ownership from an individual to the entity, even though the underlying beneficial owner is the same person — the tax applies to the recorded deed, not to whether anyone’s economic interest actually changed.

Measure ULA includes its own additional rules for transfers of a legal entity’s controlling interest, which is a different and more complex question than a simple deed transfer.

Can the county or city audit the declared sale price? Yes. Both the county recorder and, for sales large enough to implicate Measure ULA, the city’s own compliance office can request documentation supporting the stated consideration, and understating a sale price to reduce the tax owed can trigger penalties and interest on top of the correct tax amount.

When a Cash Sale Is the Wrong Choice

None of this tax math changes the larger decision of how to sell.

If your Los Angeles home is in solid, move-in condition in a neighborhood with strong buyer demand, and you aren’t under time pressure, listing with an agent will usually net you more even after paying both transfer taxes, agent commissions, and the cost of prepping the house for the market.

A cash sale makes more sense when the house needs real repair work you don’t want to fund, when a legal deadline (probate, foreclosure, divorce, or an estate dispute among heirs) is forcing a faster timeline than a traditional listing allows, or when you’d simply rather not manage showings, inspections, and a buyer’s financing contingency falling through weeks into escrow.

Weigh both paths honestly before picking one — the transfer tax is a fixed cost either way, so it shouldn’t be the deciding factor, but it should be part of the net-proceeds comparison you run before signing anything.

It’s also worth remembering that the transfer tax is only one line among several closing costs.

Title insurance, the county recorder’s filing fees, any outstanding loan balance, prorated property taxes, and HOA transfer or demand fees all land on the same closing statement, and a seller who only budgets for the transfer tax can still be surprised by the total.

Ask for a full estimated settlement statement early, not just a transfer tax estimate, so the number you’re comparing against a cash offer reflects everything that actually comes out of your proceeds.

What to Confirm Before You Set a Price

Confirm your property is inside the Los Angeles city limits, not an unincorporated county pocket or a neighboring city
Calculate the combined $5.60-per-$1,000 base tax on your expected sale price before you set a listing price or evaluate an offer
If your sale price is anywhere near $5,400,000, get specific advice on how Measure ULA’s threshold applies, since the figure adjusts every July 1
Ask your escrow officer to show the full tax allocation on your preliminary closing statement, not just an estimate

Transfer tax math is one of the more predictable parts of selling a Los Angeles home, but it’s still worth confirming against your own numbers before you commit to a price or a closing date.

If you’d rather skip the uncertainty altogether, Cash Home Buyers CA can give you a no-obligation cash offer and walk through exactly what you’d net after both transfer taxes.

You can also see current examples of how we buy houses throughout Los Angeles County, or find Cash Home Buyers CA on Google to see our business profile directly.

The Transfer Tax Every Los Angeles Seller Pays, With or Without Measure ULA