Seller closing costs in Maryland: what comes out of your check, county by county

Sellers ask us what they will actually net, and the honest answer starts with a settlement sheet, not a sale price. Maryland sellers pay four kinds of costs at closing: taxes that go to the state and county when the deed records, the commission if an agent is involved, the title company’s fees, and payoffs for anything attached to the house. The tax lines are set by law and vary by county. The rest is negotiable. This is the seller side of a Maryland settlement statement, line by line, with the 2026 rates for the counties we buy in.

Transfer and recordation tax, by county

Every Maryland sale carries a 0.5% state transfer tax. On top of that each county sets its own transfer tax and its own recordation tax, and the spread is wide: Carroll County charges no county transfer tax at all, Baltimore City charges 1.5% plus the highest recordation rate in the state. The table shows the rates as of September 2026. Counties change these on July 1 more often than people expect, so confirm with your title company before you rely on a number.

Who pays it is a contract term, not a law. The Maryland custom is a 50/50 split between buyer and seller, and most retail contracts are written that way. Two exceptions matter. If the buyer is a first-time Maryland homebuyer, state law cuts the state transfer tax to 0.25% and puts that whole amount on the seller, and it bars the seller from passing the buyer’s share of county taxes back. And a cash buyer like us pays the standard closing costs, all of them, as part of the offer, so the line on your side of the sheet reads zero.

Commission

A listing agreement in Maryland typically sets the listing broker’s fee at 5 to 6 percent of the price, and since the 2024 changes to how buyer agents are paid, the seller is asked separately whether to offer anything toward the buyer’s agent. On a $350,000 house that is $17,500 to $21,000 if you cover both sides. It is the largest seller cost by far, and it is the one a cash sale removes entirely.

Settlement and title fees

The title company charges a settlement or closing fee, usually a few hundred dollars per side, plus deed preparation, a release fee for each mortgage or lien it pays off, and courier and recording fees. Sellers rarely pay for the title insurance policy in Maryland; the buyer buys the owner’s policy and the lender’s policy. Budget $500 to $1,200 for the seller side on a normal file, more if there are several liens to release.

Payoffs and prorations

Whatever is attached to the house gets paid out of your proceeds at the table: the mortgage balance and any second lien, unpaid property taxes, a delinquent water bill, HOA or condo dues, a ground rent arrearage, a Columbia Association or other community assessment, and any judgment lien recorded against you. Property taxes are prorated to the closing date, so a seller who closes in October after paying the full July bill gets a credit back. These are not costs of selling so much as debts you already owed, but they are the reason a sale price and a net check are different numbers.

The nonresident withholding

This is the one that surprises people. If you no longer live in Maryland when you sell, the title company must withhold 8.75% of the total payment to an individual seller (8.25% for an entity) and send it to the Comptroller at closing, unless you qualify for an exemption or get a certificate of partial exemption approved ahead of time. The rate went up from 8% in 2026. It is a prepayment of income tax, not a separate tax, and you recover any excess when you file a Maryland nonresident return, but the cash comes out of your check on the day. A seller who inherited a Baltimore rowhome and lives in North Carolina should plan for it.

Repairs, credits, and the retail costs nobody lists

After the inspection, a financed buyer asks for repairs or a credit. In this market that request is routinely $3,000 to $15,000 on an older house, and sometimes the appraisal comes in low and the price moves again. Add two to four months of mortgage, taxes, insurance and utilities while the house is listed and under contract, and the cleanout and staging before the first showing. None of it appears on the settlement sheet, and all of it comes out of what you keep.

What the cash-sale version looks like

When you sell to us the seller side of the sheet has no commission, no transfer or recordation tax, no settlement fee and no repair credit, because we pay the standard closing costs and buy the house as it stands. What you still pay are your own debts on the house: the mortgage payoff, back taxes, water bills and liens, all handled by the title company out of proceeds. The trade is price. Our offers land below full retail, and our costs page shows the side-by-side math honestly. For a house that would need work, credits and months of carrying costs to sell retail, the net is often closer than the headline price suggests. For a clean house in a hot neighborhood, listing wins, and we will say so.