The Maine Real Estate Transfer Tax Declaration: Form RETTD, Line by Line

What the Declaration Is For

Maine taxes the transfer of real estate at $2.20 for each $500 of value, half on the grantor and half on the grantee, and the register of deeds is the collector. The statute tells the register, when a deed is offered for recording, to ascertain and compute the tax due and collect it, and to compute it on the value of the property as set forth in the declaration of value. The declaration, then, is the tax return for the transfer: it is where the value comes from, and payment is evidenced by a stamp the State Tax Assessor prescribes on the declaration itself.

It does a second job. The register transmits every declaration to the State Tax Assessor within 40 days of recording, and the Assessor sends each one to the assessors of the town where the property lies by the twentieth of the following month. That is how the town learns the property changed hands and what it sold for, and it is why the form asks for the tax map and lot number and the property type. The declaration itself is not recorded in the deed books.

Which Deeds Are Excused

The statute lists the instruments that need no declaration, and the list is short:

1. A conveyance by or to the United States, the State of Maine, or their agencies and subdivisions.
2. A mortgage or a discharge of mortgage.
3. A partial release of a mortgage deed.
4. A deed that, without additional consideration, confirms, corrects, modifies or supplements a previously recorded deed.
5. A deed of distribution from an estate under the Probate Code.
6. A transfer on death deed.

Every other deed carries a declaration, and that includes the deeds that owe no tax. A gift between spouses or from parent to child is exempt from the tax, but it is not excused from the declaration; the declaration is where the exemption is claimed. The one family transfer that needs no form is the correction deed, and only when no additional consideration passes.

The Form, Line by Line

Form RETTD is one page, with a supplement for transfers involving more than two parties on either side or more than one town or parcel. The Department's instructions accompany it.

• Lines 1 and 2, county and municipality. Where the property lies. Land in two counties gets a separate declaration filed at each registry; land in two towns gets the supplement.
• Lines 3 and 4, grantee and grantor. Last name first, one person per line, with each party's mailing address after the transfer. A business entity gives its federal ID number; an individual does not give a Social Security number, and for a transfer of land under $25,000 or improved property under $50,000 the ID field may be zeros.
• Line 5, property. The tax map, block, lot and sub-lot from the town's tax maps, or a box checked if the town has none; the property type code from the instructions' table, such as 201 for a rural house or 202 for one in town; the physical location; and the acreage, estimated if need be. For a gift, the type code and acreage are left blank.
• Line 6, transfer tax. The purchase price, entered as zero for a gift; the adjusted assessed value; and the exemption boxes. A full exemption is checked when the whole transfer is exempt, a partial one when only one party qualifies, and the exemption code from the instructions' list goes in the box beside them.
• Line 7, date of transfer. The date title is delivered, which is the date the deed is signed and handed over, not the recording date.
• Line 8, classified land. Checked if the land is enrolled in tree growth, farm and open space, or working waterfront classification, which carries a penalty for a change of use.
• Line 9, special circumstances. Checked, with an explanation, if the price was well above or below the adjusted assessed value.
• Line 10, income tax withheld. Why the buyer did not withhold Maine income tax from the price: the seller is a Maine resident, a waiver was issued, the price is under $100,000, or the transfer is a foreclosure sale.
• Line 11, declaration. The preparer's name, address, phone and email, signed under the penalties of perjury.

The register looks the form over before accepting the deed, and the Department's online system lets the registry reject an electronic declaration back to the preparer for correction.

How the Value Is Decided

The statute defines value two ways. For a sale, value is the actual consideration: the total price paid or to be paid, in money or otherwise, including the amount of any mortgage or lien on the property, whether or not the grantee assumes it. A buyer who pays $50,000 cash and takes the house subject to a $200,000 mortgage has paid $250,000 for tax purposes.

For a gift, or a deed with nominal consideration or without stated consideration, value is the estimated price the property would bring in the open market between a willing seller and a willing buyer. The statute defines nominal: less than 20 percent of the property's adjusted assessed value. So a "$10 and other consideration" deed is a gift deed for tax purposes, and so is a sale to a child at a token price. Revenue Services' bulletin says that for a gift the fair market value is taken to be the adjusted assessed value entered on line 6b, unless the taxpayer provides an attestation from the local assessor that the assessment does not reflect market value.

Adjusted assessed value is the town's most recent assessed value divided by the town's certified ratio. The town assessor supplies both figures, and the Department says originators must enter the adjusted assessed value on every declaration, sale or gift.

Claiming an Exemption on the Declaration

The statute says that if the transfer is exempt from the tax, the reason for the exemption must be stated on the declaration of value. On the form that is line 6: check the full-exemption box, or the partial-exemption box where only one side is exempt, and enter the code. The instructions list the codes against the statute's subsections; the ones a family quitclaim deed uses are 13 for deeds between spouses, parent and child, or grandparent and grandchild without actual consideration and deeds between spouses in a divorce, 12 for a deed correcting a recorded deed, 15 for a partition, and 22 for a deed to a trustee, nominee or straw party for the grantor. Our Maine transfer tax exemptions page goes through every exemption with its code.

An exempt declaration still carries the adjusted assessed value and a price of zero. The register checks the code against the deed. The family exemption is for transfers without actual consideration, so a deed that recites a real price does not fit it.

Paper or Online

Revenue Services runs a Real Estate Transfer Tax database on the Maine Tax Portal. Originators, which the Department defines as agents authorized to file declarations, such as attorneys, title company employees and others who assist in transfers, create and file declarations there; the registry processes them in the same system; towns view and print them; and the public can search approved declarations. The Department's bulletin says the online service is mandatory for some preparers and optional for others, under its rule on filing returns.

An individual recording one deed completes the paper Form RETTD, which the Department publishes with its instructions, and presents it with the deed. Whichever way it is filed, payment of the tax is made to the register and approved before the deed is recorded, and the register keeps 9.2 percent of the tax and remits the rest to the State each month.

After Recording

The register transmits the declaration to the State Tax Assessor within 40 days, and the Assessor sends it to the town by the twentieth of the next month. A register who records a taxable deed without collecting the tax or obtaining the declaration, intending to defeat the statute, commits a civil violation. A person who knowingly falsifies a declaration commits a Class E crime, and the Assessor may inspect the property and the parties' records for three years after recording. None of that reaches back to the deed: the statute says a failure to comply with the transfer tax chapter does not affect the validity of any recorded instrument.

Maine Real Estate Transfer Tax Declaration — Common Questions

Official Sources

Maine's laws are collected in the Maine Revised Statutes, and a citation such as 36 M.R.S. § 4641-D is an address: the title, then the section within it. Each links to the section on the Maine Legislature's website, or to the Department's own page, and opens in a new tab.

• 36 M.R.S. § 4641-D — the declaration of value: every deed must have one, the six instruments excused, the map and lot requirement, the exemption reason, and the register's 40 days to transmit it.
• 36 M.R.S. § 4641 — the definitions of consideration and value, including the 20 percent test for nominal consideration.
• 36 M.R.S. § 4641-A and § 4641-B — the rate and who pays; the register computes the tax on the value in the declaration and collects it.
• 36 M.R.S. § 4641-C — the exemptions the declaration's codes refer to.
• 36 M.R.S. § 4641-J, § 4641-K and § 4641-L — the register's liability for recording without the tax or declaration, the crime of falsifying a declaration, and the rule that noncompliance does not affect a recorded instrument.
• 36 M.R.S. § 5250-A — the income tax withholding on a nonresident seller that line 10 refers to.
• Maine Revenue Services — Form RETTD — the declaration, its supplement, the line-by-line instructions, and the property type and exemption codes.
• Maine Revenue Services — Property Tax Bulletin No. 31 — the Department's explanation of value, adjusted assessed value, filing and payment.
• Maine Revenue Services — Transfer Tax and the Real Estate Transfer Tax database FAQ — the Department's transfer tax page, and how originators, registries and towns use the online system.

Checked against the Maine Revised Statutes and Revenue Services' form and bulletin on September 3, 2026.