Tennessee taxes this deed on what the property is worth, not on what you wrote on it.

What the Deed Into Your LLC Costs in Tennessee

The base is the thing to understand, because it's what makes Tennessee different from the states where a related-party deed is cheap by default. The Department of Revenue's Realty Transfer and Recordation Tax Manual states that the tax is imposed “for the privilege of publicly recording documents evidencing all transfers of realty, whether by deed, court deed, decree, partition deed, or other instrument evidencing transfer of any interest in real estate,” and that it “is generally based on the greater of consideration paid or the value of the property.”

For a freehold estate the base “is the greater of: The consideration for the transfer; or The value of the property at the time of transfer,” where “[t]he value of the property is the amount that the property transferred would command at a fair and voluntary sale.” The mortgage question that dominates this topic in other states is largely beside the point here. Whether the LLC assumes the loan or leaves it in place, the base is already the whole property.

The exemption list is where most readers arrive expecting relief, and it's worth naming what is actually in it, because a transfer to an LLC is close to several things that are exempt without being any of them. Section 67-4-409(a)(3) exempts a leasehold estate, the creation or dissolution of a tenancy by the entirety between spouses, deeds of division of realty formerly held by tenants in common, release of a life estate to the remainder beneficiaries, executor deeds implementing a testamentary devise, domestic settlement decrees and divorce property adjustments, transfers by a transferor to a revocable living trust created by that transferor or the transferor's spouse and transfers back out again, and trustee deeds implementing a devise or distributing to a beneficiary. A transfer to an LLC, a partnership or a corporation owned by the transferor isn't among them, and there's no residual exemption for transfers without consideration.

There's one rule that genuinely changes the number, and it's a measurement rule rather than an exemption. The manual states that “[t]he tax base for a quitclaim deed is the consideration given,” where the deed “contains language substantially similar to the form for quitclaim deeds in Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-5-103(2), and only conveys the grantor's interest to the grantee,” while “[t]ax is due on the fair market value of the property when the language in the deed shows intent to convey the property itself (‘in fee’) including warranty.” So the drafting of the instrument decides the base.

The trade-off isn't a tax one: a quitclaim conveys only whatever interest the grantor happens to have and carries no warranty of title, which is why title insurers and lenders treat the two instruments differently and why this is a conversation with a title company rather than a formatting choice.

One consequence of the same deed sits outside the transfer tax altogether, and it doesn't stop after the recording. The Department's short-term rental manual states that “Individuals aren't subject to franchise and excise tax,” and continues: “However, if an individual places the short-term rental unit into a type of entity that offers limited liability protection, such as a corporation, limited liability company, or a limited partnership, the entity will be subject to excise tax based on its net earnings and franchise tax based on its net worth.”

On what the franchise base contains, the manual states that it “includes the book value of the short-term rental unit less any associated liabilities.” So the deed that triggers the one-off tax at the register also brings the property inside an annual entity-level tax that the individual owner wasn't in. A comparison built only around the cost of recording leaves out the recurring half. Tennessee's franchise and excise regime does carry exemptions, the family-owned non-corporate entity (FONCE) exemption and the obligated member entity election are the two a rental owner meets by name, and whether any particular company reaches either of them turns on that company's own ownership, income and filings, which isn't something this page can determine for you.

Finally, who pays and how the figure gets on the record. “The grantee or transferee of the interest in real estate, as shown on the instrument evidencing the transfer of such interest, is responsible for paying realty transfer tax”, the LLC, not you. And the grantee must “state under oath upon the face of the instrument offered for record in the presence of the register the actual consideration or value, whichever is greater,” with false statements “punishable as perjury.” That's an unusual amount of personal exposure attached to a valuation, and it's why a defensible basis for the number matters more here than in states where nobody is asked.

Authority: Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-409(a)(3). tn.gov

Does the Transfer Reset Your Property Tax in Tennessee?

No. Tennessee does not cap a property’s assessed value at what you paid for it, assessments track market value on the assessor’s own cycle regardless of who holds title. A deed from you to an LLC you own does not change the assessment, because there was never an acquisition-date value locked in to lose. This is the part of the California story that gets copied onto pages about states where it simply does not apply.

Tennessee reappraises on a countywide cycle and nothing about your deed accelerates it. Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-5-1601(a) provides that “Reappraisal shall be accomplished in each county by a continuous six-year cycle comprised of an on-site review or photo of each parcel of real property over a five-year period, or, upon approval of the state board of equalization, by a continuous four-year cycle comprised of an on-site review or photo of each parcel of real property over a three-year period, followed by revaluation of all such property in the year following completion of the review period.” The Comptroller of the Treasury publishes each county's cycle under § 67-5-1601(a)(1) and (a)(3). Neither a sale nor a deed into the owner's own LLC appears in the statute as a trigger for repricing a parcel. Values move when the cycle reaches the county.

That produces a shape worth naming, because it's the mirror image of the states people compare Tennessee to. Here the conveyance costs real money and the assessment doesn't move. Elsewhere the conveyance is free and the assessment resets. Both cost something; they just present the bill at different moments, and only one of them is a number you can calculate before you act.

On relief programmes, Tennessee has no general homestead exemption or owner-occupancy credit available to all homeowners, so for most landlords there's nothing here to lose. What it does have is a targeted property tax relief programme, and that one is keyed to the claimant's own ownership and occupancy: Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-5-702 ties relief to “the property that the taxpayer owned and used as the taxpayer's residence.” Property titled in an LLC isn't owned by the taxpayer, and a rental isn't used as the taxpayer's residence, so relief fails on both limbs.

Where our confidence stops, and why the confidence marker on this block isn't the highest. Tennessee doesn't publish the current Tennessee Code Annotated on a state host, tn.gov points to a commercial portal that serves a JavaScript-only shell to an automated reader. The § 67-5-702 language above rests on a code mirror alone, because every Comptroller tax-relief URL we tried returned a 404. The Comptroller's reappraisal-schedule page is an official source, but it publishes a county-by-county table and cites § 67-5-1601(a)(1) and (a)(3) rather than restating the cycle rule in prose, so it corroborates the citation rather than the sentence. The core finding (market value, fixed county cycle, no reappraisal on transfer), is well supported. The relief-programme detail is the part carrying the mirror-only risk.

Separately, and this catches people converting a former home into a rental: the benefits that turn on owning and occupying the property as your residence, a homestead exemption, an owner-occupancy credit, a residential assessment rate, are not things an LLC occupies a home to earn. Where the property still carries one, the deed puts it at risk, and the bill goes up whether or not the assessment itself moves. Which benefit is at stake, and on what terms, is a question for the assessor in the county the property sits in.

Authority: Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-5-1601, comptroller.tn.gov

Moving a Property You Already Own Into the LLC in Tennessee

1. 1

   Decide the form of the deed first, because it sets the base

   A deed showing intent to convey the property in fee, including warranty, is taxed on fair market value. A quitclaim substantially in the form at Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-5-103(2), conveying only the grantor's interest, is taxed on the consideration given. That's a measurement rule, not an exemption, and the difference between the two instruments is a title question with real consequences, take it to a title company before you take it to the register.

2. 2

   Establish a defensible value figure before anything is signed

   The grantee has to state the actual consideration or value, whichever is greater, under oath on the face of the instrument, in the presence of the register, and a false statement is punishable as perjury. Whatever number goes on the deed needs a basis you could show someone. This isn't a formality in Tennessee the way it's in states that ask for no oath at all.

3. 3

   Ask the servicer for written consent

   The Garn-St Germain protections at 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d) cover a transfer into an inter vivos trust where the borrower remains a beneficiary; they don't list a limited liability company. A quitclaim is still a transfer of title for that purpose. Get the answer in writing before the instrument is on the public record.

4. 4

   Record with the county register and expect the LLC to pay

   The tax falls on the grantee or transferee as shown on the instrument, so the money comes out of the LLC rather than out of your pocket personally, which matters for how the entity is capitalised and for what its books show. Budget the tax as part of the cost of the restructure rather than as a filing fee.

5. 5

   If you're using series, put the notice in the articles and stop there

   Tennessee requires notice of the series liability limitation in the articles of the LLC and separate, distinct records for each series, but no filing for the individual series. An existing LLC without the articles notice needs an amendment. Whether a series can take title to a deed in its own name is the open question flagged above, and it should be answered before you plan a portfolio around it.

6. 6

   Split your short-term compliance by booking channel

   Platform bookings are handled by the marketplace for sales tax and, since January 2021, for the occupancy tax. Direct bookings are yours. Then check each stay against both clocks, because the sales tax and the local occupancy tax measure the length of stay differently. On agreements entered into, renewed or amended on or after July 1, 2025, occupancy tax charged on days 1-30 is no longer refundable or creditable once the stay runs past day 30.

One LLC Per Property, or One for the Portfolio?

Tennessee authorises series LLCs, so one filing can hold several properties in separate series.

Tennessee's series are the cheap, invisible kind. Tenn. Code Ann. § 48-249-309(a) lets the LLC documents establish “one (1) or more designated series of members, holders, managers, directors, membership interests or financial rights having separate rights, powers or duties, with respect to specified property or obligations of the LLC,” and subsection (b)(1) gives each series a shield against the debts of the LLC generally and of every other series.

The conditions are three: that the LLC documents establish or provide for series; that “[s]eparate and distinct records are maintained for any such series, and the assets associated with any such series are reflected and held in such separate and distinct records … and accounted for … separately from the other assets of the LLC and the assets of any other series”; and that notice of the limitation is set forth in the articles of the LLC.

What Tennessee doesn't require is a filing per series. Subsection (b)(2) says so directly: notice in the articles “shall be sufficient for all purposes of this chapter, whether or not the LLC has established any series … and there shall be no requirement that any specific series of the LLC be referenced in such notice.” One notice, in the articles, covering series you've not created yet. That's genuinely inexpensive compared with states that charge per series, and it means nothing on the public record identifies which of your properties sits in which series.

The only evidence of the separation is the records you keep yourself, which is exactly what condition (b)(1)(B) is about, and it's a permanent obligation rather than a formation step. Note also that the notice has to be in the articles, so an existing Tennessee LLC without it needs an amendment before any of this is available.

And here is the open question, which happens to be the one a landlord would ask first. The current codified text includes a subsection (j) providing that a series may in its own name contract, hold title to assets, and sue and be sued. Whether a Tennessee series can take title to a deed in its own name is the whole practical question for a property portfolio.

We could only find subsection (j) in a code mirror: it postdates Public Chapter 286 of the 2005 Public Acts, which is the enacted act we read from the General Assembly's own host and against which we checked subsections (a) through (i) line by line, and we couldn't identify the amending public chapter from a state source. So we haven't relied on (j) for anything recorded here. If your plan depends on a deed naming a series as grantee, that's a question for a Tennessee attorney and for the title company, and it's not one this page can settle.

capitol.tn.gov

What Creditors Can Reach, What the Tennessee Statute Says

The reason to hold a rental in an LLC is usually to keep a claim arising at the property from reaching everything else you own. The reverse question matters just as much and gets far less attention: if someone wins a judgment against you personally, can they reach the rental inside the LLC? That is what a state’s charging-order provision decides.

Tennessee's LLC act makes the charging order the exclusive remedy, but does not address the single-member case one way or the other.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 48-249-509 (“Rights of Judgment Creditor”) is a single undivided paragraph, and it's short enough to read in full rather than in summary. “On application to a court of competent jurisdiction by any judgment creditor of a member or holder of financial rights, the court may charge such person's financial rights with payment of the unsatisfied amount of the judgment with interest. To the extent so charged, the judgment creditor has only the rights of a transferee of such person's financial rights under § 48-249-507. This section doesn't deprive any member, holder or transferee of financial rights of the benefit of any exemption laws applicable to the membership interest or financial rights. This section is the sole and exclusive remedy of a judgment creditor with respect to the judgment debtor's membership interest or financial rights.”

The fourth sentence is the exclusivity provision, and it's unqualified. What the section doesn't contain is equally definite: no reference to foreclosure or sale of the charged interest, in either direction, and no reference to a single-member LLC. Tennessee neither authorises foreclosure the way some states expressly do, nor bars it the way others expressly do. It's silent, and silence is what the statutory record actually offers here. The same goes for the single-member case: the structure most rental owners use isn't mentioned, so nothing in the text distinguishes it from a multi-member company.

On how much weight the text can bear: § 48-249-509 as it appears in the code mirror we read is word for word identical to § 509 as enacted by Public Chapter 286 of the 2005 Public Acts, which we read as a PDF on the General Assembly's own host. That's affirmative evidence the section hasn't been amended since enactment. It's not the same as reading the official current codified statute on a state server, which Tennessee doesn't publish. The code is distributed through a commercial portal. We would rather tell you that than imply a level of verification we didn't reach.

We are reporting what the section says, not what a court would do with your facts. Outcomes turn on how the LLC was capitalised, how it has been operated and what the creditor is owed, and none of that is something a page can assess. If the answer above is load-bearing for you, it is a question for a Tennessee attorney.

Authority: Tenn. Code Ann. § 48-249-509, capitol.tn.gov

Three Problems No State Transfer Rule Solves

These land the same way in Tennessee as everywhere else. One because it is federal law, two because they are contracts you signed. Which is exactly why they get left off state pages. They are also the three most likely to actually cost a landlord money, so they are here rather than buried.

The due-on-sale point is the one that generates the most bad advice. The Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act, at 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d), bars a lender from enforcing a due-on-sale clause on nine categories of transfer of residential property of fewer than five dwelling units. The one people cite is the eighth: a transfer into an inter vivos trust in which the borrower is and remains a beneficiary and which does not relate to a transfer of rights of occupancy in the property. Neither that paragraph nor any of the other eight names a transfer to a limited liability company. The protection quoted for an LLC transfer is written for trusts, and the occupancy qualifier is the limb that matters most to a landlord, because a rental is occupied by someone else.

One honest caveat on that list. The ninth category is open-ended. It reaches any other transfer described in regulations issued under the Act, at 12 C.F.R. § 591.5(b), so it is a list that can be extended by regulation rather than a closed set fixed by the statute. We have not read those regulations end to end, and say so rather than describing the statute as more settled than we checked.

In practice lenders often do not call a loan when payments keep arriving, and that is genuinely what usually happens, but “usually not enforced” is a different thing from “not permitted,” and only one of them is a plan. The way to find out is to ask your servicer for written consent before you record, not after.

Which deed you use is a decision, not a formality. A quitclaim deed transfers whatever interest you happen to have and warrants nothing, which is why it is the cheap default for a transfer between yourself and your own company, and why title professionals warn against it. It can leave a gap in the chain of title that surfaces years later when you sell or refinance, and because it warrants nothing it gives the LLC no recourse against you if a defect turns up. A warranty deed carries the covenants across. Which one is appropriate depends on how the property was acquired and what your title history looks like, and it is a question worth asking before the deed is drafted rather than after it is recorded.

Tell your title insurer before you record. An owner’s title policy insures the person named in it. Convey the property to an LLC and the insured owner and the record owner are no longer the same. Which is the fact pattern in which coverage gets argued about at the worst possible moment, when a claim is already live. Some insurers will endorse an existing policy across to the entity, sometimes for a modest fee; some will not, and a new policy means a new premium on the current value. Either way it is a phone call before the deed rather than a discovery afterwards, and it belongs in the same budget as the tax above.

On the fourth thing people ask about: beneficial ownership reporting. Under 31 C.F.R. § 1010.380, a “reporting company” is an entity formed outside the United States and registered to do business in a State, and paragraph (c)(2)(xxiv) separately exempts any entity created by filing with a Secretary of State. A rental LLC you form in Tennessee is therefore exempt and files no beneficial ownership report. Pages telling you to file within 30 days of formation are describing the rule as it stood before March 2025. The exception runs the other way: an LLC formed in another country and registered to do business in Tennessee does still report. More on what compliance actually requires →

Does Tennessee Make You Register the Rental?

Not at the state level. Tennessee runs no statewide rental registry, so registration is a municipal question, and what a municipality may require varies, in some states a city can impose an annual licence with an inspection, and in others state law caps or forbids local registries outright. The LLC does not change the answer either way: the duty attaches to the rental unit, not to the form of the owner. Check with the city or county the property sits in.

Tennessee licenses a great many occupations and landlords aren't among them. The Department of Commerce and Insurance's Division of Regulatory Boards is the agency that does the licensing, and its programmes run to accountancy, alarm system contractors, architects and engineers and land surveyors, the athletic commission, auctioneers, bondsmen, collections, contractors and home improvement, cosmetology and barbering, court reporters, debt management, funeral directors, geologists, home inspectors, the motor vehicle commission, private investigation, private probation services, private protective services, real estate appraisers, the real estate commission and scrap metals. Twenty-one programmes, and none of them reaches a rental dwelling, a landlord or a short-term rental operator.

The only state-level registration a Tennessee landlord actually encounters is with the Department of Revenue, and only for short-term lodging, the short-term rental manual's instruction that “[a]ny person who is required to collect and remit sales tax … must register with the Department” creates a tax account, not a rental license. Cities and counties impose their own short-term rental permits and their own occupancy taxes, and those are the rules most likely to affect you.

One limit on the negative: we didn't read T.C.A. 66-28, the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, directly, because Tennessee publishes its code through a commercial portal rather than on a state host. Nothing on this page characterises that chapter's scope or its duties. The absence of a landlord license is established from the licensing agency's own enumeration of what it licenses, which is good evidence for that specific question and not for anything else.

tn.gov

If You Rent Short-Term in Tennessee

A short-term let is a different tax animal from a twelve-month tenancy, and the LLC has nothing to do with it. The lodging tax follows the stay, not the owner.

Tennessee runs two clocks that stop on different days, and only one of them is the 90 above. The state sales tax comes off after the continuous-occupancy period, but the Department's June 2025 manual states that for rental agreements entered into, renewed or amended on or after 1 July 2025, local occupancy tax collected on days 1 to 30 may no longer be refunded or credited and those days are taxable regardless of the length of stay. A host who reads one number and stops has under-collected.

Tennessee runs two clocks, and they're not the same length. For sales tax the Department of Revenue states that “[c]harges for the use of lodging or accommodations furnished for periods of less than 90 continuous days are subject to sales tax. However, the tax doesn't apply to lodging or accommodations furnished to the same person for 90 or more continuous days.” That's the threshold shown in the table above, and it's the state tax. The local occupancy tax runs on a different clock entirely: “The local occupancy tax only applies to short-term rental units, which are units rented for 30 days or less. It doesn't apply starting on rental day 31.”

The manual doesn't stop at that sentence, and the one after it reverses what a reader would otherwise take from it: “For rental agreements entered into, renewed, or amended on or after July 1, 2025, local occupancy tax collected on days 1-30 may no longer be refunded or credited. Those days are subject to local occupancy tax regardless of the length of stay.” So a mid-length let (a two-month corporate tenant, say), doesn't take the first thirty days back out of the occupancy tax on an agreement dated on or after that day.

The tax stops applying from day 31 forward; the days before it stay taxed, and there's no refund or credit route back. The state sales tax meanwhile runs on its own, much longer, continuous-occupancy clock. Anyone who has internalised a single “short-term means under 30 days” rule will get one of the two returns wrong.

On platforms, the Department's position is that a marketplace facilitator “is considered the seller” for sales tax, so “the property owner isn't responsible for paying sales tax that's collected from customers on bookings made through that platform.” For the occupancy tax there's a separate and more recent obligation: effective January 1, 2021, short-term rental unit marketplaces offering units for rent for less than 30 continuous days must remit the occupancy tax to the Department. Both of those attach to the platform's bookings, and only to those.

The Department is blunt about the rest: “Property owners that rent property directly outside of an online platform … must collect and remit sales tax on these bookings.” A property that fills through a platform in season and through direct enquiries the rest of the year has two compliance postures, not one, and the direct half is the half that gets forgotten.

A platform collecting the state tax does not always cover every local tax on the same booking, and it never covers a booking taken directly. If you take reservations off-platform as well, that is where the exposure sits.

Authority: Tenn. Dep't of Revenue, Taxation of Short-Term Rental Units (June 2025); Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 7, ch. 4 and tit. 67, ch. 4, pt. 14 (local occupancy taxes), tn.gov

Who to Ask in Tennessee

The county register is where this transaction happens: the deed is recorded there, the tax is paid on recording, and the oath as to actual consideration or value is sworn in the register's presence. That's the office to call before you draft, not after. The Tennessee Department of Revenue publishes the two manuals this page is built on, the Realty Transfer and Recordation Tax Manual and Taxation of Short-Term Rental Units, and both are more useful than any summary of them, including this one.

The Comptroller of the Treasury publishes each county's reappraisal schedule, which tells you when your assessment will actually move. Your county property assessor holds the parcel itself. And the Department of Commerce and Insurance's Division of Regulatory Boards is the agency that confirms what Tennessee does and doesn't license, which is how the no-landlord-license answer on this page was established. One practical warning for anyone checking our citations: Tennessee doesn't host its own code, so a search for a TCA section will land you on a commercial portal or a mirror rather than on a state server.

Forming the LLC Itself

Nothing about the formation process changes because the LLC will hold rental property, the articles, the registered agent requirement and the annual filing are the same as for any other Tennessee LLC. The walkthrough lives in the formation guide rather than being repeated here.

How to start an LLC in Tennessee →

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