Real Estate Excise Tax

All transfers of property require a Real Estate Excise Tax Affidavit be completed and filed with the Treasurer's Office, along with payment of excise tax, prior to being recorded in the County Auditor's Office. Personal property or mobile homes, may require advance property taxes be paid at this time as well. We will not accept incomplete affidavit forms, nor can we provide legal advice as to how to complete them.

Excise is due 30 days from the date of the sale and is collected by the Treasurer's Office. Effective January 1st, 2020 the state rate for excise tax to be collected will be determined by the dollar amount of the sale. Below is the *graduated REET structure. In addition to the amount collected for the state, you will also be charged .25% of the property sale price that stays local, plus a $5.00 transaction processing fee. The Excise Tax and processing fee must be paid in full before your deed will be recorded by the Auditor's Office.

All Real Estate Excise Tax transactions processed by the Treasurer's Office are sent to and reviewed by the Washington State Department of Revenue.

You may obtain a copy of the Real Estate Excise Tax Affidavit (REETA), and all other REET forms, including Mobile Home, and Supplemental Statements by visiting www.dor.wa.gov/reet or by clicking one of the links at the bottom of this page. Please be careful that you don't reduce the print and/or form size when printing these documents from the Department of Revenue website. We will only accept completed affidavits that are legal size (8.5" x 14"). Attachments that may be necessary to complete your property transfer may be presented on standard letter size paper (8.5 x 11").

Gifting Property

There is a Real Estate Gift Supplemental Statement that must be signed by both parties and must accompany a completed Real Estate Excise Tax Affidavit. These documents are filed in the Treasurer's Office and are subject to a minimum filing fee if there are no taxes due.

Forms

Information needed to complete a Real Estate Excise Tax transaction:

*Starting Jan. 1, 2020, ESSB 5998 made changes to the real estate excise tax program. Some of these changes include:

• a graduated state REET rate structure for sales of real property
  • exception: agricultural land/timberland is excluded from the new rate structure and will continue to have a state REET rate of 1.28%

  Visit www.dor.wa.gov/reet to access the Predominant Use Calculator and Tax Calculator for state REET tax.

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