Closing Costs & Buying Process in the Dominican Republic

Foreign buyers closing on a property in the Dominican Republic should budget roughly 4% to 5% of the purchase price for closing costs — led by a 3% property transfer tax confirmed directly by the country's tax authority, the DGII. Just as important, and far less well known: there is no US-style regulated escrow industry here, so the choice of attorney, not a neutral title company, is what actually protects your deposit between contract and closing.

The Real Cost of Closing

The property transfer tax is the biggest line item by far. Per the DGII (Dirección General de Impuestos Internos), the Dominican Republic's tax authority, the Impuesto de Transferencia Inmobiliaria is 3% of the higher of the declared sale price or the government's cadastral value for the property. On a RD$17,700,000 ($300,000) purchase, that's RD$531,000 ($9,000). On a RD$59,000,000 ($1,000,000) purchase, it's RD$1,770,000 ($30,000).

Two costs are easy to forget and catch buyers off guard. The annual IPI property tax — 1% on the portion of an individually-owned property's value above the current exempt threshold — starts accruing from the date of registration. And any condo/HOA dues in arrears on the unit typically need to be cleared before or at closing; your attorney should confirm both are current as part of due diligence rather than assume they are.

Buyers purchasing new construction inside a CONFOTUR-approved tourism development may be exempt from the transfer tax and the first years of IPI, which meaningfully changes this math. That exemption applies to the specific declared development, not to every property in a given town, so it needs to be verified project-by-project rather than assumed.

What Actually Happens Between Offer and Closing

A typical purchase moves through four stages, and experienced buyers treat "signed" and "closed" as two different milestones rather than one.

Because registration can lag the signing by several weeks, experienced buyers plan their move-in or rental-listing timeline around the registration date, not the signing date.

Due Diligence Before You Sign Anything

A promesa de venta is legally binding once signed, so due diligence has to happen before you sign it, not after. None of this is unusually burdensome, but it requires an attorney who is actually doing the legwork rather than treating the closing as a formality.

How Money Actually Moves: Wire Transfers and the Escrow Question

This is where the Dominican process differs most from what US and Canadian buyers expect. There is no single, government-regulated, industry-standard escrow system here comparable to US title-company escrow. In practice, deposit and closing funds are most commonly held in an independent attorney's trust account, or wired directly at signing once all parties are present. That makes the choice of attorney one of the most consequential decisions in the entire transaction, since you're trusting that person, not a neutral third-party institution, to hold and disburse your funds correctly.

International wire transfer is the standard way to move funds. Both sending and receiving banks apply routine anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer checks on international real estate transfers, so build a few extra business days into your timeline rather than wiring funds the day before a scheduled signing. Treat wiring instructions the same way you would anywhere else in the world: confirm the receiving account verbally, by phone, with your attorney directly — never solely by email. Wire-fraud schemes that intercept email threads and swap in fraudulent account numbers target real estate closings specifically, in the Dominican Republic and everywhere else.

Notario Público vs. Your Own Attorney

A Dominican notario público's role is narrower than what "notary" implies in a US context, and narrower still than a US real estate attorney's role. The notario authenticates that the signatures on the deed were made by the people they claim to be, in their presence — that's the core function. A notario does not, as a rule, represent your interests, negotiate terms on your behalf, or independently investigate the title's history for problems.

For that reason, hiring your own independent attorney — separate from any attorney the seller or the developer is using — is standard and strongly advisable practice for foreign buyers. Your attorney is the one who runs the title search, reviews the promesa de venta before you sign it, confirms taxes and HOA dues are current, and manages the funds transfer. Skipping this step to save the 1% to 1.5% legal fee is, by a wide margin, the most common regret buyers report after a Dominican Republic closing goes wrong.

Realistic Timeline From Offer to Keys

For a straightforward cash purchase with clean title, 30 to 60 days from signed promesa de venta to registered Certificado de Título is a realistic range. Add time if the property is being purchased with financing (Dominican mortgage underwriting and international mortgage products both add weeks); the title has an incomplete deslinde that needs to be finalized first; the property is inherited or held by multiple heirs, which can require additional documentation; or the buyer is forming a Dominican corporation to hold the property, which is common for investment purchases but adds its own registration steps.

Buyers who go in expecting a 30-day US-style close, and who don't build in flexibility, are the ones most likely to feel like something has gone wrong when, in fact, the timeline is simply normal for this market.