Maine Transfer Tax and Its Exemptions: Who Pays, and Which Deeds Do Not

How the Tax Is Measured

The tax is imposed on each deed by which real property in Maine is transferred, and the statute's definition of a deed is any written instrument by which the grantor conveys title in whole or in part. A quitclaim deed, with or without covenant, is a deed. The rate is $2.20 for each $500 of value or fractional part of $500, and the tax is imposed half on the grantor and half on the grantee.

• For a sale, value is the price: the total 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.
• For a gift, or a deed with nominal or no stated consideration, value is the estimated open-market price between a willing seller and a willing buyer. "Nominal" is defined: less than 20 percent of the property's adjusted assessed value. Revenue Services takes the market price to be the adjusted assessed value on the declaration, unless the local assessor attests otherwise.
• Above $1 million, an additional $3.80 per $500 applies to the value over that line. A $1.5 million sale pays $2.20 per $500 on all of it and $3.80 per $500 on the last $500,000: $10,400, or $5,200 each side.

A token price on a family deed therefore does not lower the tax. It makes the deed a gift deed, and the tax, if any is due, is computed on the adjusted assessed value. Where the deed is exempt, the declaration still carries that value and the tax is nil.

Who Pays, and When

Both parties, in equal halves, and the register of deeds collects the whole amount when the deed is offered for recording. The register computes the tax on the value set out in the transfer tax declaration, and payment is shown by a stamp on the declaration. A deed is not recorded until the tax is paid or the exemption stated. Where only one side is exempt, the other side owes its half, and the declaration has a partial-exemption box for that case.

Every Exemption

The statute says the following are exempt from the tax. The ones a family quitclaim deed meets are in bold; the number is the statute's subsection, and the code in brackets is the one the declaration uses.

1. Deeds to or by the United States, the State of Maine, or their agencies and subdivisions. Only the government side is exempt, except for gifts to a government, land transferred to the Department of Transportation or the Turnpike Authority for transportation purposes, and land sold to a government by a nonprofit land trust. [10]
2. Mortgage deeds, discharges and partial releases of mortgage; on a deed in lieu of foreclosure, only the mortgagor is exempt. [11]
3. Deeds that, without additional consideration and without changing ownership or ownership interest, confirm, correct, modify or supplement a deed previously recorded. [12]
4. Deeds between spouses, parent and child, or grandparent and grandchild, without actual consideration, and deeds between spouses in divorce proceedings. Revenue Services reads parent and child to include stepchildren. [13]
5. Tax deeds. [14]
6. Deeds of partition when the interest conveyed is without consideration. If one co-owner takes a share worth more than their undivided interest, tax is due on the difference. [15]
7. Deeds made in mergers of business entities on which no tax gain or loss is recognized. [16]
8. Deeds by a subsidiary to its parent company for nothing but the subsidiary's stock. [17]
9. Deeds dated or acknowledged before October 1, 1975. [18]
10. Deeds by a parent company to its subsidiary for nothing but the subsidiary's stock. [17]
11. Deeds of distribution from an estate or trust under the Probate Code or Trust Code. [19]
12. Deeds executed by public officials in the performance of their duties. [20]
13. Repealed.
14. Deeds given pursuant to the United States Bankruptcy Code. [21]
15. Deeds to a trustee, nominee or straw party holding for the grantor; to one holding for another person, if a direct deed to that person would be exempt; and from a trustee, nominee or straw party back to the real owner. A deed into a revocable living trust and back out again. [22]
16. Deeds between a family-owned company or partnership and its owners in forming, dissolving or winding it up, for nothing but shares or interests. [23]
17. Gifts of land to nonprofit land trusts meeting the statute's conservation purposes. [24]
18. Deeds to a limited liability company from another business where the grantor or grantee owns the same share of the company as of the land. [25]
19. A mere change in the name or form of an entity, with no change in who owns it. [26]
20. Transfers of a controlling interest in an entity that would be exempt if made by deed.
21. Transfers effected by a transfer on death deed. [27]
22. Since November 1, 2025, deeds to buyers receiving financial assistance through the Maine State Housing Authority's first-time home buyer mortgage programs; both buyer and seller are exempt. [28]
23. Deeds conveying a mobile home park from its owner to a majority of its residents or their association under the park-sale statute. [29]

The list has gaps a family should notice. It does not include brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, a child's spouse, or an unmarried partner. A quitclaim deed giving property to any of them is taxed on the adjusted assessed value, half on the giver and half on the receiver, and a sale between a parent and child at a real price is taxed on the price, because the family exemption is for transfers where nothing is paid.

Claiming an Exemption

The exemption is claimed on the transfer tax declaration, not in the deed. The statute says that if the transfer is exempt, the reason for the exemption must be stated on the declaration of value, and Revenue Services' bulletin says it must be claimed and specifically identified there. On Form RETTD that is line 6: enter the price, zero for a gift; enter the adjusted assessed value; check the full-exemption box, or the partial-exemption box if only one party is exempt; and enter the code. The register checks the code against the deed before recording.

The declaration is required even though no tax is due. The statute excuses only six instruments from the declaration itself, and among the family transfers only the correction deed is on that list. Our Maine transfer tax declaration page goes through the form line by line.

What the Tax Comes To

Where no exemption applies, the arithmetic is $4.40 for each $1,000 of value, rounded up to the next $500, split in two:

• $100,000 of value: $440, or $220 each side
• $250,000 of value: $1,100, or $550 each
• $400,000 of value: $1,760, or $880 each
• $1,500,000 of value: $10,400, or $5,200 each, with the higher rate on the last $500,000

The recording fee is separate and is paid on every deed, exempt or not: $35 per instrument, plus the $5 records preservation surcharge each register may collect, since January 1, 2026.

Maine Real Estate Transfer Tax Exemptions — Common Questions

Official Sources

Maine's laws are collected in the Maine Revised Statutes, and a citation such as 36 M.R.S. § 4641-C 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-C — the twenty-three exemptions.
• 36 M.R.S. § 4641 and § 4641-A — the definitions of deed, consideration and value, including the 20 percent test for nominal consideration; the rate, the $1 million tier, and the half-and-half liability.
• 36 M.R.S. § 4641-B and § 4641-D — the register's collection, and the declaration on which the exemption is stated.
• 33 M.R.S. § 751 and § 752 — the recording fee and surcharge.
• Maine Revenue Services — Property Tax Bulletin No. 31 — the Department's reading of each exemption, with its examples, including stepchildren and the living trust.
• Maine Revenue Services — Form RETTD — the declaration and the exemption codes in its instructions.

Tax and fee amounts checked against the Maine Revised Statutes on September 3, 2026.