Selling a home · United States
Seller Net Proceeds Calculator
Work out the cash you actually receive at closing — after commission, taxes, fees and paying off your loan.
The short answer
Net proceeds is your sale price minus every cost of selling minus your mortgage payoff. Costs of sale commonly run around 8–10% of the price, though the range is wide and driven mainly by your state. Net proceeds is cash in hand, not taxable gain — that depends on what you originally paid.
Your figures
- Sale price
- —
- Agent commission
- —
- Transfer / excise tax
- —
- Other selling costs
- —
- Total cost of sale
- —
- Mortgage payoff
- —
The cash you receive at closing. This is not your profit — profit depends on what you originally paid.
Share this scenario
Send these figures to your agent, your servicer or whoever is doing the math with you.
Your figures travel in the link itself — they are never sent to us or stored anywhere.
This is an estimate
Closing costs vary by state, county and even by contract. The defaults above are national ballparks — replace them with figures from your listing agreement, payoff quote and settlement statement for a real number. Nothing here is financial, tax or legal advice.
The detail
What are net proceeds on a home sale?
Net proceeds is the money that lands in your account after your home sale closes. It is the sale price minus every cost of selling, minus whatever you still owe on the home. It is the number that matters when you are working out what you can afford next.
It is not your profit. Profit — the figure the IRS cares about — compares your sale price against your cost basis: what you originally paid, plus capital improvements, minus depreciation you may have claimed. Two sellers can receive identical net proceeds and have wildly different taxable gains. Conflating the two is the single most common mistake in home-sale math, and it is why a calculator that labels this output "profit" is quietly misleading you.
Three worked examples
What sellers actually keep, in dollars
Three sales, run through the same arithmetic as the Tool above. The last column is the one worth remembering: the share of the sale price that reaches you varies far more with your payoff than with your costs of sale.
| Scenario | Sale price | Cost of sale | Payoff | Net proceeds | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typical sale, mortgage outstandingSold at $450,000, $250,000 payoff, 5% commission | $450,000 | −$29,050 | −$250,000 | $170,950 | 38% |
| Low equity, with concessionsSold at $320,000, $290,000 payoff, $6,000 in concessions | $320,000 | −$27,200 | −$290,000 | $2,800 | 1% |
| Paid-off Home, no debt to clearSold at $600,000, no payoff, 4% commission | $600,000 | −$33,900 | $0 | $566,100 | 94% |
"You keep" is net proceeds as a share of the sale price — not a margin, and not a return on what you paid. Costs of sale across these three run 5.7% to 8.5% of the price, once commission, transfer tax, title work and prorated tax are added together. Your own figures belong in the calculator above; see how we calculate this.
Line by line
What costs come out of your sale price?
How much are closing costs for a seller?
Commission is the largest piece, and the rest — transfer tax, title and escrow work, attorney fees where the state requires one, and your prorated share of the property tax — is what people mean by seller closing costs. Added together they commonly land between 6% and 9% of the sale price, though the spread is wide and driven mainly by your state and by what you negotiated on commission. Your mortgage payoff sits outside that figure entirely: it is debt being cleared, not a cost of selling.
How much is agent commission when you sell a home?
Historically the seller paid a single commission — commonly around 5–6% — which was split between the listing agent and the buyer’s agent. Following the 2024 National Association of Realtors settlement, buyer-agent compensation is no longer advertised on the MLS and is negotiated separately. In practice this means the total you pay is more variable and more negotiable than older guidance suggests. Use the figure in your actual listing agreement rather than a rule of thumb.
What is a transfer tax, and who pays it?
Most states levy a tax when a deed changes hands, and counties or cities often add their own on top. The spread is enormous: several states charge nothing at all, while some metros reach into the low single-digit percentages of the sale price. Because this is one of the largest and most location-dependent line items, it is worth confirming your specific county rate rather than accepting any default.
What do title, escrow and attorney fees cost?
How your closing is handled depends on where you are. Much of the country closes through a title or escrow company; a number of states conduct closings through a real estate attorney. Which model applies changes both who does the work and what it costs. Owner’s title insurance is customarily paid by the seller in some markets and by the buyer in others — local custom, not law, usually decides.
How are property taxes prorated at closing?
Property taxes are settled up at closing. You are responsible for the portion of the tax year during which you owned the home, and that amount is deducted from your proceeds. Whether your jurisdiction bills in arrears or in advance determines whether this shows up as a debit or a credit — another reason the settlement statement is the only authoritative source.
Do seller concessions come out of your proceeds?
Buyers frequently ask for a credit toward their closing costs or an interest-rate buy-down, and inspection negotiations often produce repair credits. These reduce your proceeds just as surely as a fee does, even though they never appear as a "cost" in the listing conversation. When rates are high, concessions tend to grow — they are often the mechanism by which a headline sale price is preserved.
Why is your mortgage payoff higher than your balance?
Your payoff amount is not the balance shown on your last statement. It includes interest accrued to the closing date, and may include a recording or payoff-processing fee. Request a formal payoff quote from your servicer — it is valid only through a stated date, which is why sellers who close late occasionally find themselves a few hundred dollars short.
Also asked
Common questions about home sale proceeds
How much do you lose when selling a home?
Total cost of sale commonly lands somewhere in the region of 8–10% of the sale price once commission, transfer taxes, title and escrow fees, prorated tax and any concessions are counted — but the range around that is very wide, and it is driven mostly by where the home is rather than by what it sold for. A sale in a state with no transfer tax and a buyer-paid title policy costs a fraction of one in a high-transfer-tax metro. The itemized total above is worth far more than any national average, including that one.
Do you pay taxes on the proceeds from selling a home?
Not on the proceeds. Tax applies to the gain, which is a different figure entirely — sale price less selling costs less your cost basis. Most sellers of a principal residence owe nothing, because Section 121 excludes up to $250,000 of gain for a single filer and up to $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly, subject to an ownership and use test. Because the exclusion is measured against gain and not against cash, it is entirely possible to receive a large check and owe no tax, or a small one and owe some.
When do you actually receive the money?
Usually within one to three business days of closing, by wire or check, once the closing agent has disbursed. Some states are "wet funding" states where disbursement happens at the table; others are "dry funding" states where the paperwork is reviewed first. Ask your closing agent which applies, particularly if you are relying on those funds to close a purchase on the same day.
Can you reduce what a sale costs you?
The two negotiable lines are commission and concessions, and they are much larger than everything else combined. Commission has been genuinely more negotiable since the 2024 NAR settlement changed how buyer-agent compensation is arranged. Transfer taxes and recording fees are set by the jurisdiction and are not negotiable at all. Cutting a $2,500 title fee is a rounding error next to half a point of commission — put the effort where the money is.
Before you list
Run it again once you have real numbers
The estimate is only as good as what you put in. Once you have a signed listing agreement, a payoff quote from your servicer and a closing date, come back and replace the defaults — that version is the one worth planning around. Free, no account, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Keep going
Other numbers worth knowing
- Capital Gains on a Home SaleHow much of your gain is actually taxable after basis and the exclusion.Open →
- Buyer Cash to CloseWhat you actually wire on closing day, and how much of it is not a cost.Open →
- Extra Mortgage PaymentsWhat paying more each month does to your payoff date — and what waiting a year costs.Open →
- Mortgage RecastWhat a lump sum does to your monthly payment — and what it costs you.Open →
- RemodelAI: see a room redesignedWondering whether to update a room before you sell? Upload a photo and see it redesigned before you spend anything on it.First render free →
- GlossaryEvery term on this page, defined — including the ones that get mistaken for each other.Open →
- How we calculateThe arithmetic behind this number, written out so you can check it.Open →