New Hampshire imposes a statewide "Real Estate Transfer Tax" (RETT) under RSA Chapter 78-B — there is no local/optional variant, so this is uniform across all counties and towns. The tax is levied on the "price or consideration" for the transfer at $0.75 per $100 (i.e., 0.75%) charged to the BUYER and a separate $0.75 per $100 (0.75%) charged to the SELLER — each party pays their own share directly to the state, for a combined effective rate of $1.50 per $100, or 1.5% of the sale price. This rate has been in effect since 1999. For very low-value transfers (consideration of $4,000 or less), a flat minimum tax of $20 applies to each party ($40 total) instead of the percentage calculation. Certain transfers are exempt (e.g., transfers to/from government entities, certain family/entity transfers, transfers securing a debt, etc., per RSA 78-B:2). Both parties must file a "Declaration of Consideration" with the NH Department of Revenue Administration within 30 days of the deed recording, and each must attach tax-paid indicia to the deed.
Buyers: roughly 2%–5% of purchase price (commonly cited average around 2.3%), which includes their half of the transfer tax, lender's title insurance, appraisal, loan origination/lender fees, recording fees, and attorney fees. Sellers: closing costs alone (excluding agent commissions) run roughly 3%–3.2% of sale price, covering their half of the transfer tax, owner's title insurance (if seller pays it), attorney fees, and prorated property taxes. When real estate agent commissions (commonly cited around 5%–5.6% combined, now typically negotiated directly with each side's own agent post-NAR settlement) are added, total seller-side costs commonly reach roughly 6%–10% of the sale price.
Who typically pays: The RSA 78-B transfer tax is statutorily split down the middle by law — buyer and seller each independently owe their own $0.75-per-$100 share (this is not just custom, it's how the statute assesses the tax on each party separately), so "who pays" the transfer tax itself is fixed at 50/50 and generally not something negotiated away in practice. Beyond the transfer tax, New Hampshire closings customarily involve a licensed attorney (attorney-conducted or attorney-supervised closings are standard/expected in NH, though not always framed as an absolute legal mandate in every source). For title insurance, local custom is more negotiable: the buyer typically pays for the lender's title policy (effectively required by the mortgage lender), while payment for an optional owner's title policy is negotiated between the parties — in many NH transactions the seller ends up covering it, but this is convention, not law. Real estate commissions are paid by the party who engaged that agent under their respective listing/buyer agreements.
No county- or city-level transfer tax variation exists in New Hampshire — RSA 78-B is a single statewide tax with no municipal add-on or local option, unlike some other states with city/county transfer or "mansion" taxes. New Hampshire also has no state sales tax and no broad state income tax, which is sometimes conflated with the transfer tax question, but the real estate transfer tax is a distinct, separate levy. I was unable to fetch the NH DRA's own page directly (received an HTTP 403), so figures are corroborated instead via NH statute text (RSA 78-B via the NH General Court site and Justia) and cross-checked across multiple independent real-estate/legal industry sources (LegalClarity, Alfano Law, HomeLight, ListWithClever, iBuyer, RealEstateWitch) that all converge on the same $0.75/$100 per-party figure and 1.5% combined rate — recommend an independent user double-check the live revenue.nh.gov page if precision for a specific closing is needed, since it could not be directly verified in this session.
Facts on this page reflect research current as of 2026-07-05. Programs, rates, and laws change — confirm current figures with the relevant state agency before relying on them.