Stamp duty
A stamp duty (in Latvian: valsts nodeva) is a tax paid for certain services and operations provided by the government or government-licensed agents, e.g. notaries. It is particularly often paid for preparing documents and getting documents accepted by authorities. In transactions with real estate in Latvia, there is a number of stamp duties involved. The two most important are the notary fee and the Land Book stamp duty.
Notary fee
The notary fee is simply a payment for a notary's work. It is regulated by the ‘Rules on the stamp duty for notarial actions’ (in Latvian: Noteikumi par valsts nodevu par notariālo darbību izpildi). Below you can see a table of fees for various actions.
| Action | Fee |
|---|---|
| Notarial act preparation (a.k.a. document preparation) | 3.56 EUR |
| Receiving an extract from the notarial act registry or a document copy | 1.07 EUR |
| Signature verification | 0.71 EUR for each document |
| Translation verification | 0.71 EUR for each page |
| Document copy verification | 0.18 EUR for each page |
| Notification transfer from one person (legal or natural) to another | 1.42 EUR |
| Storing credit or other liability payments (as items or money) if they cannot be transferred to the creditor via normal means | 9.25 EUR |
| Other actions stipulated by law but not mentioned separately | 3.56 EUR |
Fee exemptions
The following groups of people are exempt from paying notary fees:
- natural persons performing actions with documents related to welfare, pensions, adoption, etc.
- retired persons receiving pensions, as well as Group 1 or Group 2 disabled persons for documents related to criminal proceedings
- politically repressed for documents related to political rehabilitation
- persons conducting land privatisation for documents related to the restoration or enactment of private land ownership rights
- building construction cooperatives for residential real estate privatisation documents
- natural and legal persons restoring property ownership rights via a premature, mutually-agreed termination of contract
- natural and legal persons who acquire property ownership rights via a lease, if the lessor is a credit institution registered in Latvia, or a commercial group, whose member is a credit institution registered in Latvia that owns at least 50% of shares in that commercial group
- persons who are verifying their signature as required by the the law ‘On referendums, law proposals an European Citizens' initiatives’ (in Latvian: Par tautas nobalsošanu, likumu ierosināšanu un Eiropas pilsoņu iniciatīvu)
Land Book stamp duty
When registering a new property owner or changing other information in a Land Book, the performer of this action must pay a stamp duty. Below you can see a table of these payments for certain actions.
| Action | Fee |
|---|---|
| Opening of a new Land Book section | 28.46 EUR |
| Registering new property rights | 14.23 EUR |
| Making changes existing property rights | 7.11 EUR |
| Mortgage registration | 14.23 EUR + 0.1% of the mortgage sum |
| Receiving a Land Book statement (excerpt) | 7.11 EUR |
| Printing out the decision of a Land Book judge | 4.27 EUR |
| Registering an ownership change (renting or buying) with an unrelated person | 2% of the cadastral value of the property |
| Registering an ownership change (renting or buying) with a blood relative (up to grandchildren and grandparents) or a spouse | 0.5% of the cadastral value of the property |
| Verification of a registration application | 8.58 EUR |
| Receiving written excerpts or any other information | 6.20 EUR for each document |
| Receiving information electronically or as an unverified printout | 2.52 EUR |
| Producing a copy, a scan or a printout of a document | 0.14 EUR for each page |
| Oversewing a document | 0.43 EUR for each document |
| Verifying a copy of a document | 2.85 EUR for each document |
Stamp duty exemptions
The following groups of people are exempt from paying Land book stamp duties:
- persons who receive land ownership rights as a result of privatisation procedures
- persons who divide property into parts as a result of agricultural and fishing kolkhoz privatisation
- persons who restore their ownership rights due to the premature mutually-agreed termination of a contract
- persons who receive and register ownership rights due to privatisation of various residential property types