FIRPTA Withholding Tax Calculator
Your full deal price and the foreign sellers' confirmed share are all it takes to estimate standard FIRPTA withholding on a U.S. real estate sale.
What This Calculator Does
Before a Florida closing, you'll see roughly what the buyer must hold back under standard FIRPTA withholding. Why hold anything back? When a seller who counts as a foreign person sells U.S. real estate, FIRPTA generally makes the buyer keep part of the amount realized. The math keeps the cents, which matters right at $300,000 and $1,000,000. The whole deal and the foreign sellers' allocated base appear side by side, never merged. Got a tax professional's estimate? Add it for a comparison, or skip it.
Who Is This For
Who uses this? Sellers whom U.S. tax rules count as foreign persons. Buyers figuring out what they'll have to withhold. Agents working with either side ahead of a Florida closing. Citizenship alone doesn't settle whether you're foreign for FIRPTA; the tax rules settle it, and a U.S. tax professional should confirm where you stand.
How It Works
Type the gross price of the whole deal. Next comes the percentage confirmed as the foreign sellers' part. The residence-use box? Leave it empty unless an individual buyer genuinely intends to meet the two-year occupancy conditions. From there, the whole-deal figure chooses the rate, and that rate lands on the foreign sellers' allocated amount. Add a tax estimate and you get a comparison. Final tax isn't part of the output.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the withheld money settle what the seller owes under FIRPTA?
No. What the buyer holds back under FIRPTA and what the seller finally owes are separate numbers. The withholding runs on the gross amount realized by the foreign sellers, with nothing taken off for profit. Their actual federal income tax gets worked out on its own, from their own situation. Withheld more than your estimate? Don't count that difference as a refund, because nobody has approved or guaranteed it.
What FIRPTA withholding rate hits my sale: 0%, 10% or 15%?
Start with residence use. No residence use? Then it's the standard 15%, whatever the price. If the use qualifies, meaning an individual buyer or the other people the IRS counts for this FIRPTA rule will live there, the full price decides: up to $300,000, nothing is withheld; above $300,000 through $1,000,000, it's 10%; above $1,000,000, it's 15%. Mind the edges, since going a cent past a cutoff can move you up.
Is a vacation place you visit sometimes treated as a residence?
Not if that's all it is. Here's what the rule asks instead. Under the IRS definition for this FIRPTA residence-use rule, the buyer has to be an individual, and that buyer must have definite plans: in each of the first two 12-month periods, the buyer or the qualifying occupants live in the home at least 50% of the days it is occupied. Vacant days are excluded, so an empty month changes nothing. Before you rely on it, walk through the facts with your closing agent and a U.S. tax professional; signing a statement does not create eligibility.
Some sellers are foreign under FIRPTA and some aren't: what then?
Run it this way. A $600,000 sale with residence use falls in the 10% band, because the band comes from the whole price. If 50% of the deal belongs to foreign sellers, that rate applies to $300,000, and the result is $30,000. Plugging in $300,000 as the deal price would be wrong. Married sellers get special handling, but only in a narrow setup: the property is held by two spouses and nobody else, a U.S. person and a foreign person. Then the IRS splits it 50% each, no matter whose name holds more, so check the setup before ticking the spouses box, which fixes the foreign share there. Any other owner involved? The box stays off, and you use an allocation a professional has confirmed for every foreign seller.
Can I subtract my mortgage payoff or selling costs?
They don't. The base starts from the gross amount realized, which covers what the seller receives: cash, the fair market value of any other property passed to the seller, and any debt the buyer assumes. Your loan balance and your selling costs stay in, with no deduction for either. Watch for this. A debt already inside the price gets counted once, not added on top, and the same goes for every item.
If I have a withholding certificate or a special exemption, does the result reflect it?
No, the result ignores both. That matters, because the IRS can issue a withholding certificate that lowers what must be withheld, sometimes to zero. Filing the application approves nothing. Certificates, transfers by entities, distributions and special exemptions belong with a professional, not with this calculator.