Louisiana has no statewide tax on the transfer of real estate, and 63 of its 64 parishes charge only the statutory recording fee. Orleans Parish is the exception. The City of New Orleans levies a documentary transaction tax when an instrument affecting land in the parish is recorded, and the Clerk of Civil District Court collects it. For a sale or a donation the tax is $300 or $325; for a quitclaim, an act of correction, or a community property settlement between spouses, it is nothing, because the ordinance exempts them. A gift for no price is a donation, even when it is written as a quitclaim, and it is taxed.
This page explains what the tax reaches, the rates, who pays, the exemptions that matter for a quitclaim, the penalty, and the other charges the Clerk collects at the same counter.
What the Tax Reaches
The ordinance levies the tax on the execution by the parties of any instrument, act, writing or document creating, transferring, alienating, leasing or otherwise affecting any right in or to immovable property located in the parish. Sales, donations, exchanges, mortgages and commercial leases are all inside it. The tax is not due and collectible until the instrument is recorded in the parish's conveyance or mortgage records, which in practice means it is paid at the Land Records Division counter when the act is filed.
The Rates
The ordinance's rate section sets two figures for the transactions a homeowner meets.
- $300 for a sale, or a mortgage, or a sale and mortgage treated as one transaction, involving only one single-family residence or residential double. A single condominium unit or townhouse counts as a single-family residence. Where such a document runs past twenty-five pages, a notarized statement that the property is a single-family residence or residential double keeps it at $300.
- $325 for all other transactions, for a document of up to twenty-five pages, plus $100 for each additional page, to a maximum of $2,500 per document. A donation, whatever the property, is in this group.
A page is one side of a sheet no larger than eight and one-half by fourteen inches; a sheet printed on both sides is two pages. Certificates and researches issued by a government office and attached to the act are not counted. A small mortgage on a residence, $9,000 or less, has its own lower scale.
The Clerk of Civil District Court's own published schedule quotes a flat $325 for sales, donations, transfers and commercial leases, without the $300 residential figure. The ordinance is the law the Clerk collects under.
Who Pays
The ordinance names the taxpayer by transaction. For an act of cash sale, donation or other transfer that carries no vendor's lien or mortgage, the seller or transferor pays, so for a donation the donor pays. For a credit transaction that transfers no title, the mortgagor pays. For a sale with a concurrent mortgage, the seller pays. For a lease, the person recording it pays. The taxpayer may delegate the remitting of the tax to the notary or attorney handling the act, but remains liable to the city.
The Clerk's schedule adds a practical point: the tax is paid at the time of recording, and where it is not, a billing form is completed and the tax is due within thirty days. The ordinance's penalty for a delinquent tax is twenty percent of the tax plus interest at ten percent a year, or $500, whichever is greater, waived if payment arrives within forty-five days of the first notice.
The Exemptions That Matter for a Quitclaim
The ordinance lists thirty-five exempt instruments. Three of them are the ones a person recording a quitclaim needs to know.
- Quitclaims. Listed by name, without qualification. A quitclaim in Louisiana is the act the Civil Code describes as a transfer of whatever rights the transferor has, without warranting that they exist.
- Acts of correction. An act that corrects an error in a recorded act, such as a misspelled name or a wrong lot number, pays no tax.
- Partition or settlement of community property between spouses or former spouses. The act by which divorcing spouses divide the house is exempt. A separate exemption covers an act by which spouses declare the family home to be community property.
The rest of the list is made up of things outside an ordinary home transfer: residential leases, tax liens, sheriff's deeds and other foreclosure documents, judgments of possession and small-succession affidavits, dations en paiement, tax sales, transactions with the school board, and a set of housing-program transfers by nonprofit organizations and churches.
Notice what is not exempt: a donation. A parent who gives a house to a child in Orleans Parish pays $325 at recording. That puts weight on Step 2 of our Louisiana page: whether an act is a quitclaim or a donation is a question of what it does, not what it is called, so ask the notary who drafts it which one you are signing. An act that conveys the transferor's undivided share to a co-owner without warranty is a quitclaim; an act that gives the whole property away for love and affection is a donation.
The Other Charges at the Same Counter
The recording fee itself is set by state statute for every clerk of court acting as recorder, Orleans included: $100 for a document of one to five pages, $200 for six to twenty-five, $300 for twenty-six to fifty, including one certified copy of the recorded act and indexing of up to ten names. The first page carries a caption naming the type of act, a two-inch top margin and one-inch margins elsewhere, in type of at least eight points.
The Clerk of Civil District Court adds a $30 building fund fee to every recording, under an order of the court. So a five-page quitclaim costs $130 to record in Orleans Parish, a five-page donation of a house $455, and a five-page sale of a single-family residence $430.
Orleans Parish Documentary Transaction Tax — Common Questions
What is the Orleans Parish documentary transaction tax?
A tax the City of New Orleans levies on the execution of any instrument that creates, transfers, alienates, leases or otherwise affects a right in immovable property in Orleans Parish. It is not due until the instrument is recorded, and it is collected then, by the Clerk of Civil District Court's Land Records Division on the city's behalf. No other Louisiana parish has one, and Louisiana has no statewide transfer tax.
How much is it?
For a sale or mortgage of a single-family residence or residential double, the ordinance sets $300. For all other transactions, $325 for a document of up to twenty-five pages, plus $100 for each page beyond twenty-five, to a maximum of $2,500. A donation of a house is an "other transaction" at $325. The Clerk's own schedule quotes $325 for sales, donations, transfers and commercial leases; where the two differ, the ordinance is the law and the Clerk applies it at the counter.
Is a quitclaim exempt?
Yes. The ordinance's list of exempt instruments includes quitclaims, acts of correction, and partitions or settlements of community property between spouses or former spouses. A quitclaim in Louisiana is an act transferring whatever rights the transferor has without warranty. An act that gives property away is a donation, and donations are taxed, so the exemption depends on what the act is, not on the word in its caption.
Who pays it?
The seller or transferor, or the donor, for a sale, donation or other transfer that carries no vendor's lien or mortgage; the mortgagor for a credit transaction that transfers no title; and the person recording the instrument for a lease. The taxpayer may have the notary or attorney remit it, but stays liable. If it is not paid when due, the penalty is twenty percent of the tax plus interest, or $500, whichever is greater.
What else does recording in Orleans Parish cost?
The statewide recording fee, $100 for a document of one to five pages and $200 for six to twenty-five, set by the Revised Statutes for every clerk of court, plus a $30 building fund fee the Clerk of Civil District Court adds to every recording. An exempt quitclaim of five pages or fewer therefore costs $130 to record; a donation of the same length costs $455.
Official Sources
The tax is a city ordinance rather than a state statute, so its text is published by the City of New Orleans; the recording fee and the forms of act are in state law, and those link to the Louisiana Legislature's website in a new tab.
- New Orleans Code of Ordinances, Chapter 150, Article V, Documentary Transaction Tax: section 150-366 (the levy and who pays), 150-367 (penalties), 150-369 (the thirty-five exemptions, including quitclaims, acts of correction and community property partitions), and 150-391 (the rates). Published by the City of New Orleans; applied and collected by the Clerk of Civil District Court, Land Records Division, 1340 Poydras Street, fourth floor, New Orleans, which also publishes its recording fee schedule and the $30 building fund fee.
- R.S. 13:844 — the statewide recording fees by page count, what they include, and the first-page caption, margins and type size.
- Civil Code art. 2502 — the transfer of rights without warranty that a quitclaim is.
- Civil Code art. 1468 and art. 1541 — what a donation is, and the authentic act it requires.
Tax and fee amounts checked against the ordinance and the Louisiana Revised Statutes on September 3, 2026.