This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.
2026 cost estimates for real estate closing in Montana, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a real estate closing in Montana costs on average $1,950, typically $1,350-$2,700 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $155 to $290 per hour. A moderate-complexity case typically takes 1-3 months to resolve. Common related costs include title search fee ($200-$400) and title insurance ($500-$2,000).
Data verified: June 29, 2026
| Complexity | Low | Median | High | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | $400 | $800 | $1,200 | 2-4 weeks |
| Moderate | $1,350 | $1,950 | $2,700 | 1-3 months |
| Complex | $2,400 | $3,600 | $5,600 | 3-6 months |
Last verified: June 2026
$155 – $290/ hour
Median: $220/hr
1-3 months
For moderate complexity cases
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</script>Real estate closing legal costs form mainly around whether the transaction is a standard residential purchase or one complicated by title problems, a short sale, new construction, or commercial elements. In a simple closing, the attorney's role is largely contract review, title coordination, and attending closing itself, which supports flat-fee pricing. Complications — a title defect that needs curing, a dispute between buyer and seller, or financing contingencies falling through — shift the engagement to hourly billing and add attorney hours.
Attorney fees are only one line item inside total closing costs. Title search and title insurance, appraisal, recording fees, and any survey costs are set largely by the transaction's price and the title company or county, not by which attorney is hired. Attorneys in some states are required participants at closing while in others their involvement is optional but still commonly used to review the purchase contract before signing.
Take a moderate-complexity real estate closing matter in Montana. The recorded median total is $1,950, with reported quotes clustering between $1,350 and $2,700. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $1,050–$3,350, which leaves roughly $0–$900 of the Montana median as professional time — the part that differs between quotes. One further recorded fee is not itemised above and is not in that total.
At $1,950, the median real estate closing cost in Montana runs 10% below the $2,155 national average across all 50 states and DC.
Montana carries 3 rows — simple, $400–$1,200 at $135–$245/hr over 2-4 weeks; moderate, $1,350–$2,700 at $155–$290/hr over 1-3 months; complex, $2,400–$5,600 at $200–$375/hr over 3-6 months — on 4 shared citations. They put it below the midpoint of the table without reaching the bottom quarter.
$1,950 is a median, not the middle of the band — $600 above the $1,350 floor, $750 under the $2,700 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 46.
Montana occupies the 30th row of 46 for a real estate closing. Its $1,950 median trails the $2,225 table midpoint by $275, which is 12% — close enough that a single firm's quote can straddle both figures.
Florida ($1,950) and North Dakota ($1,950) bracket Montana inside a $0 window — narrow enough that 30th is close to arbitrary.
6 tracked states — Florida, North Dakota, West Virginia, Georgia among them — record a median within three percent of Montana's $1,950. The figure sits in the densest part of the real estate closing distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.
Rate and total sit 1 place apart — 31st of 46 at $220 an hour against 30th on the real estate closing total — which is close enough to read as the same signal.
| Rank | State | Median | Against Montana |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | Texas | $2,200 | +$250 |
| 25 | Indiana | $2,150 | +$200 |
| 26 | Wyoming | $2,150 | +$200 |
| 27 | Tennessee | $2,100 | +$150 |
| 28 | Arizona | $2,050 | +$100 |
| 29 | Florida | $1,950 | −$0 |
| 30 | Montana | $1,950 | — |
| 31 | North Dakota | $1,950 | −$0 |
| 32 | West Virginia | $1,950 | −$0 |
| 33 | Georgia | $1,900 | −$50 |
| 34 | Mississippi | $1,900 | −$50 |
| 35 | Ohio | $1,900 | −$50 |
| 36 | North Carolina | $1,850 | −$100 |
The rows within ten percent are lopsided: 5 below Montana against 2 above. $0 up or $0 down moves Montana a row, so a downward revision would cost the state far more places than an equivalent upward one would gain — the 30th position is propped up by a thin real estate closing field above it and a crowded one beneath.
Climbing five places would mean passing Indiana, Wyoming, Tennessee, Arizona, Florida and adding $200 to the $1,950 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under North Dakota, West Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio: $50.
$1,250 short of Hawaii ($3,200), $500 clear of Kentucky ($1,450).
The $1,950 median covers only about 9 hours at the $220 median rate, which is short enough that flat-fee and limited-scope arrangements, rather than an hourly meter, tend to describe how the work is actually billed. That rounds to the same 9 hours as the peer median, so on workload Montana is indistinguishable from the middle of the table at this precision.
The escalation is comparatively shallow on hours. A complex real estate closing costs 4.5x a simple one in Montana, but the implied workload only rises 2.4x — 5 hours at $175 becomes 12 hours at $290 — meaning the senior-rate premium of 1.66x carries an unusually large share of the increase.
From $1,350 to $2,700 the moderate band is $1,350 wide, close to the $1,525 peer median. End to end that is 6 hours at $220.
The $1,950 median across 1-3 months is about $975 a month. A complex real estate closing costs more in total but less per month — roughly $800 across 3-6 months — because the additional cost arrives as a longer timeline rather than a heavier monthly burn.
A third ordering: by implied hours Montana is 20th of 46 at 9 hours, 10 places above its cost rank of 30th on cost — more work behind the same real estate closing money.
65% up the $1,350–$2,700 band sits the $2,225 table midpoint, buying 10 hours at $220 against the 9 the local real estate closing median implies — 1 hour apart.
| Measure | Montana | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $1,950 | 30th |
| Hourly median | $220 | 31st |
| Implied hours | 9 | 20th |
| Simple median | $800 | 40th |
| Complex median | $3,600 | 40th |
$220 an hour puts Montana between Indiana ($220) and Tennessee ($220) — not the real estate closing cost pairing.
Indiana, Tennessee record the same $220: rate cannot separate them, totals do.
$1,950 buys 11 hours at $175, 9 at $220, 7 at $290.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 29 | Wyoming | $230 |
| 30 | Indiana | $220 |
| 31 | Montana | $220 |
| 32 | Tennessee | $220 |
| 33 | Kansas | $210 |
The ranking barely moves across tiers — 40th at the simple tier, 30th at moderate, 40th at complex of 46 — so Montana keeps roughly the same relative position whether the real estate closing is straightforward or contested.
$800 is 40th of 46 on a straightforward real estate closing, under Mississippi ($800) and over Nebraska ($800), $200 under the $1,000 tier midpoint.
$3,600 is 40th of 46 once contested, between West Virginia ($3,650) and New Mexico ($3,550), $975 off the $4,575 tier midpoint.
$150 separates the simple ceiling of $1,200 from the moderate floor of $1,350, so the first escalation is a clean break, while the moderate and complex bands overlap from $2,400 upward. The expensive end of a routine real estate closing and the cheap end of a contested one are the same money in Montana.
| Tier | Montana | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $800 | 40th | $1,000 | 5 |
| moderate | $1,950 | 30th | $2,225 | 9 |
| complex | $3,600 | 40th | $4,575 | 12 |
$800 drops Montana to 40th of 46 on straightforward matters, 10 below its moderate position and $200 (20%) under the $1,000 tier midpoint.
5 implied hours at $175: 56% of the moderate tier's 9, over 2-4 weeks.
Mississippi ($800) and Nebraska ($800) bracket it — a $0 window.
6 states sit within three percent of the $800 here, against 6 at the moderate row.
$3,600 drops Montana to 40th of 46 on contested matters, 10 below its moderate position and $975 (21%) under the $4,575 tier midpoint.
12 implied hours at $290: 133% of the moderate tier's 9, over 3-6 months.
West Virginia ($3,650) and New Mexico ($3,550) bracket it — a $100 window.
3 states sit within three percent of the $3,600 here, against 6 at the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 38 | Kentucky | $800 |
| 39 | Mississippi | $800 |
| 40 | Montana | $800 |
| 41 | Nebraska | $800 |
| 42 | South Dakota | $800 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 38 | Wyoming | $3,800 |
| 39 | West Virginia | $3,650 |
| 40 | Montana | $3,600 |
| 41 | New Mexico | $3,550 |
| 42 | Oklahoma | $3,550 |
In Montana a real estate closing is 7th of 8 at $1,950, between Bankruptcy and Estate Planning / Probate. At 23% of Criminal Defense ($8,550).
The state does not rank uniformly. Montana is 27th of 46 for Immigration but 42nd for Divorce, a 15-place spread across the matter types tracked here, so its 30th on real estate closing says little about what the other lines cost.
Montana is not equally priced in every practice area. Measured against each matter's own midpoint, DUI / DWI runs 4% below its own midpoint while Personal Injury runs 19% below its own midpoint — a 15-point spread between the extremes.
The largest tracked median in Montana is 5x the smallest, effectively the 5.1x that the typical state records: the internal spread is ordinary even where the levels are not.
0 of 5 matter types rank Montana in the upper third, 2 in the lower, 3 between; real estate closing is 30th.
In percentile terms it sits at the 36th percentile of the 46 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $3,050 | $8,550 | $26,200 | 32 | 38th | −16% | North Carolina |
| Divorce | $2,750 | $7,350 | $20,350 | 28 | 42nd | −14% | Tennessee |
| DUI / DWI | $2,800 | $7,150 | $13,700 | 29 | 30th | −4% | Florida |
| Immigration | $1,800 | $4,500 | $9,300 | 18 | 27th | −5% | Tennessee |
| Personal Injury | $1,200 | $4,200 | $13,000 | — | — | −19% | — |
| Bankruptcy | $1,300 | $3,350 | $4,500 | 15 | — | −7% | — |
| Real Estate Closing | $800 | $1,950 | $3,600 | 9 | 30th | −12% | Florida |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $500 | $1,700 | $5,600 | 7 | — | −18% | — |
Simple tier. $800 ÷ $175 = about 5 hours — 4 fewer than the moderate tier's 9, and $1,150 less.
Work against price. $1,950 to $3,600 is a $1,650 step weighted toward price: 3 more hours at $220 is $660, but $290 across 12 hours adds $840 — 56% of it.
Borrowing the wrong row. North Dakota ($1,950) is $0 light, Florida ($1,950) is $0 heavy — but the $2,225 table midpoint is out by $275, 275x the neighbour error.
Both ends, in time. $1,350 is 6 hours at $220; $2,700 is 12. Over the 1-3 months recorded for a moderate real estate closing, that is 3 to 6 hours a month — the difference between an occasional file review and continuous work.
Contested against simple. At Montana's own recorded figures, $3,600 buys 4.5 matters at the $800 simple median — or, counted in time, 12 implied hours against 5, a factor of 2.4 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.
Verified June 2026. Filing fees change on the Montanacourt's own schedule; billing models are covered in the legal fees guide.
This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.