Located about 2,000 miles away from the U.S. mainland, Hawaii has a few unique customs and requirements imposed upon residential real estate transactions in the way of closing fees.

Homeowner’s Exemption

With tourism as its top grossing industry, Hawaii does offer a homeowner’s exemption which may qualify the purchaser for discounted state deed tax rate.

Deed Transfer and Recording Fees

The deed transfer tax in Hawaii is imposed in a tiered amount, based upon the purchase price of the home. The lowest tier is the least expensive, and the tax increases correspondingly for higher purchase prices.  

The recording fees are also organized in tiers, based upon the size of the deed itself. While the typical mortgage document in other states tends to average 20 to 30 pages, Hawaii’s mortgage notes are usually closer to 50 pages. Its deeds are also larger. Accordingly, recording fee tiers are based on the size of the deed. For documents 50 pages or less, the rate is flat. However, for notes larger than 50 pages, the fee is higher. 

Last edited July 14, 2023

LodeStar Software Solutions prides itself on being the most accurate provider of the most up-to-date closing fees in the mortgage industry—so much so that we guarantee those rates. However, unlike the closing fee data we provide our clients through our product, LodeStar can only guarantee the accuracy of the content delivered through LE Challenges at the time of publication.LE Challenges is published solely for marketing and advertising purposes to provide an example of the depth and breadth of our commitment to providing accurate closing fees to its clients. While we do our best to update the content of LE Challenges as often as possible, the data shared here is in no way intended to serve as data to be relied upon in the generation of an actual Loan Estimate or any other element of a mortgage transaction.

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