In the everyday sense yes, because the commissions appear on the settlement statement and are paid out of the proceeds on the day everything else is paid; in the sense a lender means, no, because agent compensation is not a loan, title or prepaid cost and the closing disclosure gives it lines of its own.
Two groups use the phrase and mean different lists. A lender quoting closing costs means the charges that come with the loan and the transfer of title, which is the number on the loan estimate. Everyone at the table means everything that gets paid that day, commissions included, which is the number on the settlement statement. Both are correct within their own document, and the confusion is worth clearing up because the two lists behave differently: one can be covered by a lender credit, the other cannot.
Where commissions sit on the paperwork
The buyer's closing disclosure organises loan costs into sections A through C and other costs into D through H. Real estate commissions land in section H, other, on their own named lines, rather than being folded in with origination, title or prepaids. The settlement statement, which both sides see and which is the fuller document, lists them alongside every other debit and credit.
That placement is not cosmetic. It is why a lender quoting two to five percent for closing costs is not including the commission, and why a seller told their costs are eight to ten percent is: the seller's total is mostly commission and the buyer's total mostly is not.
What the 2024 settlement changed about who pays
Since August 2024, a multiple listing service may not carry an offer of compensation to a buyer's agent, and an agent working with a buyer must have a written agreement in place before touring a home, with the compensation stated in it. The listing agreement still sets what the seller pays their own agent. What the buyer's agent is paid is now set in the buyer's own agreement.
So whether the seller pays anything toward the buyer's agent is a negotiated term of the purchase contract, in the same category as any other concession, rather than something advertised with the listing. When the seller does pay it, the agencies have confirmed that customary seller-paid buyer-agent compensation is not counted against the interested party contribution cap, so it does not consume the allowance a buyer might otherwise use for closing costs.
Rates, and why no number belongs here
Commission is a percentage of the price, or occasionally a flat fee, and it is set in each agreement. There is no standard rate, none is set by law, and quoting a typical one is part of what the settlement was about. The only reliable figures for a given transaction are in the listing agreement and the buyer agreement, and both are readable before anything is signed.
The practical consequence for a buyer is a cash question. A commission the seller pays comes out of the seller's proceeds and never touches the buyer's cash to close. A commission the buyer owes under their own agreement is cash at closing, generally not financeable into the loan amount, and covered only by whatever the contract negotiated the seller into paying.
Reading the two documents against each other
A buyer receives the closing disclosure at least three business days before consummation, which is time enough to check section H against the buyer agreement and every other section against the last loan estimate. A seller receives a seller closing disclosure or a settlement statement with the commission lines and the payoff on it.
The check worth doing is narrow: does each commission line match the agreement that created it, and does any seller contribution match the contract. Those two documents are the only authority for those numbers, and the closing table is a poor place to discover a difference.
Questions people ask
Does the buyer pay the real estate agent commission?
It depends on what two agreements say. The buyer's written agreement sets what their agent is owed, and the purchase contract sets how much of that, if any, the seller covers. Historically the seller paid both sides out of the proceeds, and since 2024 it is negotiated case by case.
Are realtor fees included in the closing costs on a loan estimate?
No. The loan estimate covers loan costs and the other costs tied to transferring title and setting up escrow. Agent compensation is not a loan cost and appears on the closing disclosure in section H rather than in the estimate's totals.
Can realtor fees be rolled into a mortgage?
Not into the loan amount, which is limited by the price and the appraisal. A buyer-paid agent fee is cash at closing unless the seller agrees in the contract to cover some of it, or a lender credit frees up other cash by taking a higher rate.