Every Santa Monica home sale owes a city transfer tax on top of the Los Angeles County tax, and which rate applies depends entirely on the sale price. Below $5 million, the city charges $3.00 per $1,000 of value. From $5 million up to just under $8 million, it jumps to $6.00 per $1,000.

At $8 million and above, it jumps again to $56.00 per $1,000 — nearly nineteen times the base rate. That top tier is Measure GS, the city’s 2022 ballot measure, and it is the single biggest line item most Santa Monica sellers never see coming until escrow sends the closing statement.

For context on how the county portion works underneath any city tax, see the transfer tax every Los Angeles seller pays, with or without Measure ULA.

Whether you’re selling a condo near the Promenade or a single-family house north of Montana Avenue, the first two tiers apply to the overwhelming majority of transactions, and the third tier — the one that generates headlines — applies only above $8 million.

Knowing which bracket your sale actually falls into, and knowing it before you sign a purchase agreement rather than after, changes how you should think about net proceeds.

Table of Contents

The Three Price Tiers Under Measure GS

Santa Monica’s documentary transfer tax, administered under the city’s own code, is not a flat percentage. It is a bracket system, and the city’s own published examples apply the bracket rate to the entire transfer value, not just the slice above the threshold.

That detail matters more here than almost anywhere else in California, because the jump between tiers is so steep that a sale price a few dollars over a line changes the tax by tens of thousands of dollars.

Transfers under $5,000,000: $3.00 per $1,000 of value (0.30%)
Transfers from $5,000,000 to $7,999,999.99: $6.00 per $1,000 of value (0.60%)
Transfers of $8,000,000 or more: $56.00 per $1,000 of value (5.60%) — this top tier is Measure GS

Measure GS passed on November 8, 2022, and took effect March 1, 2023. Voters created it specifically to fund affordable housing and homelessness programs, and the city set the top-tier rate deliberately high to capture a relatively small number of very large transactions. The first two tiers were already in place before Measure GS; the measure only added the third.

How the County Tax Stacks on Top

The city tax is not the whole bill. Los Angeles County charges its own documentary transfer tax of $0.55 per $500 of value — $1.10 per $1,000 — on every transfer in the county, Santa Monica included.

The County Recorder’s Office collects both the city and county portions together at the time the deed is recorded, so a Santa Monica seller writes one check that covers both, but the two taxes are calculated separately and stack rather than replace each other.

Worked Examples at Each Tier

These numbers come straight from the brackets above, applied to the full sale price:

$4,000,000 sale (first tier): city tax $12,000, county tax $4,400, combined $16,400
$6,500,000 sale (second tier): city tax $39,000, county tax $7,150, combined $46,150
$8,000,000 sale (Measure GS tier): city tax $448,000, county tax $8,800, combined $456,800

Notice what happens crossing from $7,999,999 to $8,000,000: the city tax alone jumps from roughly $47,999 to $448,000 — an increase of about $400,000 for one dollar of additional sale price. There is no phase-in and no marginal-rate softening. Anyone negotiating a sale price near that line should know the bracket, not just the eventual number on the closing statement.

Who Actually Pays It, and What’s Negotiable

California law does not assign the documentary transfer tax to buyer or seller by statute; it is a matter of custom and contract.

In Los Angeles County, including Santa Monica, local custom has the seller pay both the county and any city transfer tax in a typical listed sale, and that custom is strong enough that most purchase agreements simply assume it.

It can be negotiated between the parties in a conventional sale, which is one more variable sellers near the $8 million line should factor into their asking price and net proceeds math.

Why the Top Tier Exists — and Why It Might Not Last Forever

Measure GS followed a pattern other California cities have used to fund housing programs with a tax that falls almost entirely on the sale of expensive property — Los Angeles did something similar with Measure ULA.

Local transfer taxes like these have also drawn legal and political pushback, including efforts at the state level aimed at limiting how far a city can go with its own transfer tax rate.

Nothing about Measure GS has been repealed as of this writing, but the rate structure above is not necessarily permanent, and any seller near the top bracket should confirm the current rate with the City Treasurer’s office before finalizing a sale price, since bracket thresholds and rates are the kind of detail that can change with little public notice.

How “Value Conveyed” Is Calculated When There’s a Loan Involved

Documentary transfer tax in California, including the city add-on taxes that cities like Santa Monica layer on top, is generally calculated on the value of the interest or property conveyed — not simply on the cash the buyer hands over at closing.

If a buyer takes title subject to an existing loan that stays in place, or assumes debt as part of the deal, that value typically counts toward the taxable transfer.

Most residential sales are a straightforward purchase where the full price is the relevant number, but anyone structuring a more complicated transaction — a sale with seller financing, a transfer that pays off some liens and leaves others in place, or a transfer between related parties — should have the title company or a real estate attorney confirm exactly what figure the tax will be calculated against before assuming the sale price alone sets it.

Why Splitting a Sale to Dodge the Top Bracket Doesn’t Work

Because the jump at $8 million is so large, it’s tempting to wonder whether a sale could be structured as two smaller transfers — say, a lot split into two parcels sold separately, or a sale broken into a down payment transfer followed by a second transfer later — to keep each piece under the threshold.

County recorders and title companies are alert to exactly this kind of structuring, and transfers to the same buyer that are part of one overall transaction are generally treated as one transfer for transfer-tax purposes regardless of how the paperwork is divided.

A seller who is seriously considering any structure more complicated than a single, ordinary sale should run it past the City Treasurer’s office or a tax attorney before relying on it, rather than discovering at recording that the county or city calculated the tax on the combined value anyway.

How Santa Monica Compares to Its Neighbors

Santa Monica is not the only city in the region that layers its own transfer tax on top of the county’s. Los Angeles added Measure ULA in 2023, and we’ve broken down what every Los Angeles seller pays before and after that measure.

Culver City passed its own Measure RE, covered in what Measure RE actually costs at closing. San Francisco runs a multi-tier schedule of its own, detailed in San Francisco’s tiered transfer tax breakdown.

Each city set its brackets and rates independently through its own ballot measure or ordinance, so a seller who owns property in more than one of these cities cannot assume the same math applies — Santa Monica’s top bracket, at 5.6% of the full sale price, is among the highest rates of any of them once a sale crosses $8 million.

What the Measure GS Revenue Actually Funds

Measure GS was marketed to voters as a dedicated funding source for affordable housing production, homelessness prevention and services, and tenant protections in Santa Monica, financed by taxing the city’s highest-value property transfers rather than raising taxes broadly across all residents.

That framing is part of why the measure passed and part of why the top bracket is set so much higher than the first two — the city’s position was that transfers above $8 million represent a small share of total sales and a seller at that price point can absorb a materially higher rate without the same impact a flat citywide increase would have on an ordinary homeowner.

Exemptions and Edge Cases

A handful of transfers are exempt from documentary transfer tax statewide under California Revenue and Taxation Code Section 11911 and related sections — transfers that don’t actually change beneficial ownership, certain transfers into or out of a revocable trust, transfers between spouses incident to divorce, and a few others.

These exemptions apply to the county portion and generally to city transfer taxes modeled on the same statute, but they are narrow and documentation-dependent.

A transfer that looks exempt on its face — for example, moving a house into your own living trust before a later sale — can still trigger tax if it is not structured correctly.

Anyone relying on an exemption should get it confirmed in writing by the title company or recorder before closing, not after.

Most Santa Monica sellers will never see the Measure GS bracket at all — the majority of single-family and condo sales in the city fall well under $5 million and owe only the base $3.00-per-$1,000 city rate plus the county’s $1.10-per-$1,000.

Even at that base rate, though, the combined tax on a $2 million sale is $8,200, which is easy to underestimate if a seller is only thinking about agent commissions and forgets the recording-time tax entirely.

The lesson scales down as well as up: know your bracket before you set your number, whether that number is $1.8 million or $18 million.

Who to Call Before You Rely on Any of This

Because bracket thresholds, exemption rules, and even the top-tier rate itself can be revisited by future ballot measures or ordinance amendments, the City Treasurer’s office is the authoritative source for the rate that applies on any given closing date, and the County Recorder’s office confirms how the county portion is calculated on your specific deed.

Questions about the city tax go to Treasury@santamonica.gov; the figures and brackets in this article reflect what the city currently publishes, but a seller with a closing date months away should reconfirm the numbers closer to the actual transaction rather than relying on rates quoted today.

When the Tax Is Actually Collected

The transfer tax, city and county portions together, is paid at the time the deed is recorded, which in practice means it comes out of escrow at closing rather than being billed separately afterward.

The escrow or title company calculates both the county’s $1.10-per-$1,000 rate and whichever Santa Monica bracket applies, includes them on the closing statement, and the County Recorder’s Office collects the combined amount when it accepts the deed for recording.

If the sale price changes during negotiations — a buyer renegotiates after an inspection, for example — the tax recalculates against whatever the final recorded sale price turns out to be, which is one more reason a seller near a bracket line should watch where last-minute price adjustments land relative to $5 million or $8 million.

Why the Custom Favors the Seller, and When That Can Shift

The seller-pays custom in Los Angeles County didn’t come from a statute; it developed because standard California purchase agreement forms default that way and most agents and attorneys simply follow the form.

In a competitive market, or in a negotiated private sale, a buyer and seller are free to allocate the tax differently in the purchase contract, and at the upper end of Santa Monica’s market — where a single bracket crossing can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars — that allocation is sometimes actually negotiated rather than assumed.

A seller listing a property anywhere near $8 million should treat the transfer tax as a number to discuss with their agent and attorney before setting an asking price, not a fixed cost to discover after an offer is accepted.

When a Cash Sale Is the Wrong Move in Santa Monica

None of this changes with a cash buyer — the transfer tax is owed on the transfer itself, not on how the buyer financed the purchase, and it is calculated the same way whether the house sells to us or to a family moving in.

If a Santa Monica property is nowhere near the $5 million line, has no title, probate, or tenant complications, and would likely draw strong offers on the open market, a traditional listing with an agent may net more after the tax and commissions are subtracted, especially with enough time to wait for the right buyer.

A cash sale makes more sense when the property has condition issues, an unresolved title or ownership question, tenants in place, or the seller needs certainty and a fast, firm closing date more than they need to test the top of the market.

It’s also worth saying plainly: we can’t tell you how we arrive at our offer number or walk through our internal formula, but we can tell you upfront what the transfer tax, escrow fees and other closing costs will actually subtract from a given sale price, so you’re comparing a realistic net number against any other offer on the table — not just comparing headline prices.

Santa Monica’s transfer tax applies no matter who buys the house, but a lot of the other variables in a sale — timeline, repairs, financing contingencies, appraisal risk — do not have to be variables at all.

If you want a no-obligation cash offer on a Santa Monica property and a clear answer on what the transfer tax will actually cost at your price point, Cash Home Buyers CA can walk through the math with you, and when you sell to us, we pay the standard closing costs, including the county and city transfer taxes, escrow and title.

You can see how we work with Santa Monica sellers specifically, and you can find Cash Home Buyers CA on our Google Business Profile if you’d like to see our listing before reaching out. Call us at (424) 435-2326 with any questions about your specific price point and timeline.

Santa Monica’s Measure GS Transfer Tax: What Every Seller Actually Pays