There is one line on a Currituck settlement statement that buyers relocating from almost anywhere else in North Carolina have never seen before, and it is a four-figure number.
What it is
North Carolina charges a statewide excise tax on deed transfers at $1 per $500 of value — 0.2%. That applies everywhere in the state and is customarily a seller cost.
Currituck is one of seven northeastern counties authorized by local acts of the General Assembly to levy an additional local land transfer tax of 1%. The county’s own tax office publishes it as “$1 per one-hundred dollars or fraction thereof.” The other six are Camden, Chowan, Dare, Pasquotank, Perquimans, and Washington.
What it looks like in dollars
| Purchase price | State excise at $1/$500 | Currituck local transfer at 1% | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| $350,000 | $700 | $3,500 | $4,200 |
| $500,000 | $1,000 | $5,000 | $6,000 |
| $750,000 | $1,500 | $7,500 | $9,000 |
| $1,000,000 | $2,000 | $10,000 | $12,000 |
That is arithmetic on published rates, not a quote. Your settlement statement is the authority.
The part that is actually negotiable
Who pays is a term of the contract. Local custom in this market puts transfer and excise taxes on the seller — but custom is not law, and a contract can allocate them differently. In a competitive offer situation, this is exactly the kind of four-figure item that gets moved around while everyone is focused on price and closing date.
Read the line. If you are writing an aggressive offer and looking for something to concede that costs you less than a price bump, this is a candidate. If you are the one being asked to take it on, know what you are agreeing to before you initial.
Two things this site will not tell you
First, the precise session law that authorized Currituck’s levy. The tax and the seven-county list are confirmed; the citation was not verified for publication here. If you need it for a legal purpose, get it from the county attorney or the General Assembly’s own records, not from a real-estate website.
Second, what the tax collects in a given year. Same reason.
What matters for your purchase is simpler: add 1% of your price to the cash-to-close arithmetic at pre-approval, and settle who pays it in the contract rather than at the closing table.