Most articles about buying property in Mexico will tell you to budget three or four percent for closing costs. I'd rather show you a real estimate.

This one came from a lawyer here in La Paz, dated June 2026, for a $500,000 purchase: a foreign buyer, coastal zone, setting up a new fideicomiso with a Mexican bank. The total came to $27,651 — 5.5% of the purchase price.

Here is every line on it.

Acquisition tax (ISAI): $15,863

The single biggest number on the page, and the one people underestimate least often. ISAI is the state acquisition tax, paid when title transfers. On this estimate it worked out to 3.2% of the purchase price.

This is the one cost that genuinely scales with the property. Double the price and you roughly double this line.

Notary, legal, appraisal and certificates: $7,400

This block is where the common “about 1%” figure falls apart. It's closer to 1.5%, and it breaks down into more pieces than most buyers expect:

  • Public notary fees — $4,569. In Mexico the notario público is not a notary in the American sense. They are a government-appointed attorney, and a property sale is not legally real until they have drafted and signed the deed.
  • Legal fees — $1,800. Your own lawyer, separate from the notario, who represents you rather than the transaction.
  • Appraisal — $846. Required, not optional. The tax is assessed against the higher of the purchase price or the appraised value, which is exactly why the appraisal exists.
  • Certificate of freedom of liens — $105. Proof that nobody else has a claim on the property.
  • Certificate of no property tax owed — $40, and certificate of no water owed — $40. Unpaid utilities and predial follow the property, not the seller. These two small documents are what stop somebody else's debt from becoming yours.

Setting up the fideicomiso: $2,339

This block applies to foreign buyers in the restricted zone only — within 50 kilometres of the coast, which covers essentially everything I sell.

  • Bank acceptance fee — $464. What the bank charges to take on the trust.
  • SRE permit — $1,353. The Foreign Affairs Ministry permit that authorises the purchase.
  • First annual trust fee — $522. The trust carries an annual fee for as long as you hold the property. The first year is paid at closing.

A Mexican citizen buying the same property skips this entire section. They take title directly by escritura pública, a regular deed, and no trust is involved. If you're buying with a spouse who holds Mexican citizenship, that's worth a conversation before you structure the purchase.

Registry and Catastro: $2,050

  • Registration fee — $2,000. Recording the trust with the public registry.
  • Manifest at Catastro — $50. Filing the change with the cadastral office so the tax rolls reflect the new owner.

Small-sounding lines that together come to more than a third of a percent.

Why a single percentage is never the answer

Here's the part that matters more than the total.

Most of those lines are flat fees. The SRE permit costs the same on a $200,000 lot as on a $2,000,000 house. So does the registration fee, the certificates, and largely the notario's work. Only the acquisition tax truly scales.

Which means the percentage moves in the opposite direction from the price. On a $250,000 property, those flat costs eat a noticeably bigger share. On a $1,000,000 property, a smaller one. Anyone quoting you one number for every purchase is quoting you a rule of thumb, not a cost.

What to do with this

Treat 5 to 6% as a planning figure for a foreign buyer in the coastal zone, and then get a real estimate.

On every deal I work, I ask the lawyer and the notario for a line-by-line estimate early — well before anyone is committed to anything. It takes a few days and it costs nothing, and it means the number you see at signing is the number you've been planning around for weeks.

If you're looking at a specific property in La Paz, La Ventana, Los Barriles or anywhere else along this coast, send it to me and I'll get you the real figure for that purchase.