Does capital gains include my original down payment?

[Jack B.]

I put 100K down on the 500K house. I sold the house for 700K. My proceeds are 300K (rough numbers here), but 100K of it is my original down payment. Am I over the 250K capital gains exclusion as a non married guy? I don't think so since I don't think the down payment counts, but I am not sure.

[Ryan D.]

How you acquired the property (ex financing, down payment, etc) isn’t relevant in calculating the capital gain. Your capital gain is what you sold for, minus what you bought for. If you have deprecated the property (& the IRS requires investment properties to be depreciated), then your “bought for” price is lowered by the amount your depreciated (this is called your Tax Basis).
For example, if you bought the house for $500k, held it for several years over which you depreciated the property by $50k, & then sold for $700k, your Capital Gain (for tax purposes) is:
$700k - ($500k - $50k) = $250k.

It makes no difference what your original down payment was.