1031 Exchange Calculator

What selling costs you in tax, what exchanging defers, and every deadline on your clock — federal capital gains, 25% depreciation recapture, NIIT, and state tax, computed the way your CPA would.

Your property

Taxes

Federal LTCG bracket
Tax deferred by exchanging
$213,350
Total gain on sale$825,000
Federal capital gains tax$97,000
Depreciation recapture (25%)$85,000
Net investment income tax (3.8%)$31,350
State tax$0
Tax deferred by exchanging$213,350
Equity you keep if you sell and pay$796,650
Equity that stays invested if you exchange$1,010,000

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Educational and illustrative only — not tax, legal, or investment advice, and not an offer of any security. Assumptions are visible above and editable; verify every number with your own CPA before acting.

Worked example

A $1.5M sale after a 15-year hold

Say you sell a small commercial building for $1,500,000 that you bought for $850,000, put $75,000 of improvements into, and depreciated by $340,000 over the hold. After $90,000 of selling costs, your adjusted basis is $585,000 and your total gain is $825,000.

Selling outright, the tax bill stacks four ways: $85,000 of depreciation recapture (the $340,000 taxed at 25%), $97,000 of federal capital gains tax (the remaining $485,000 of gain at 20%), and $31,350 of net investment income tax at 3.8% — $213,350 in total before state tax, in a no-income-tax state like Texas. A California seller would add roughly $109,725 more.

A 1031 exchange defers the entire amount. The difference in working capital is direct: sell and pay, and $796,650 of equity is left to reinvest; exchange, and the full $1,010,000 stays invested. That gap — not the tax rate — is what compounds over the next hold.

Questions

1031 rules people get burned by

What if my 45th day falls on a weekend?

It still counts. The identification and completion deadlines run in calendar days and do not extend for weekends or holidays. Identify before the deadline, in writing, to your qualified intermediary.

Does the 180-day period ever end early?

Yes — it ends at your tax-return due date for the year of sale if that comes first. A November or December closing usually requires filing an extension to keep the full 180 days.

Does boot always trigger tax?

Cash you take off the table, and debt you don't replace, are taxable to the extent of your gain. The Boot & Partial mode of the calculator quantifies it.

For publishers & professionals

Embed the deadline calculator on your site

CPAs, attorneys, and brokers: the 45/180-day widget is free to embed — paste this where your clients will use it. No tracking beyond standard analytics; attribution link included.

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