1031 exchange deadline calculator

The two deadlines

• 45 days to identify replacement property, in a written document you sign and deliver to your qualified intermediary or the seller of the replacement property. The description must be specific, such as a street address or legal description.
• 180 days to receive the replacement property, or the due date of your tax return for the year of the sale including extensions, whichever comes first. If you sell late in the year, the April due date can come before day 180 unless you file an extension.

Both periods run at the same time. The 45 days are part of the 180, not added to them.

What qualifies

Since 2018, only real property qualifies. Both the property you sell and the one you buy must be held for investment or for use in a business. A rental house, a condo you rent out, land and commercial buildings are all like-kind to each other. Your home, a property bought to flip, and property outside the United States do not qualify.

Qualified intermediary

You cannot touch the sale proceeds. A qualified intermediary (QI) holds the money between the sale and the purchase. The QI has to be in place before the sale closes, and it cannot be anyone who has acted as your agent, attorney, accountant or real estate broker in the past two years, other than for the exchange itself. Tell your closing agent at the start so the contract and closing documents are set up as an exchange.

How many properties you can identify

• Three-property rule: up to three properties of any value.
• 200% rule: any number of properties, as long as their total value is no more than twice the value of what you sold.
• If you identify more than that, the exchange still works only if you actually buy at least 95% of the total value you identified.

For a Florida buyer, keep in mind that the replacement property is a new purchase: the assessed value resets, and a rental gets no homestead exemption.