HELENA — Montanans are soon going to find out how their property values have changed over the last two years, and how that could affect their taxes.
The Montana Department of Revenue announced Monday that they are now mailing notices with updated market and taxable values for residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural properties. Leaders say the notices will account for the changes lawmakers made to taxable values during this year’s Montana legislative session.
Local authorities will use the updated assessments to determine how much owners will pay in property taxes for 2025 and 2026. This year’s property tax bills will go out this fall.
If you want to challenge the state’s determination of your property value, you should submit a request for review within 30 days of the date printed on your notice.
“It’s important that Montana property owners review this information,” said Revenue Department Director Brendan Beatty in a statement. “If property owners wait until property tax bills are sent in November, it will be too late for the department to correct property characteristics and make adjustments that may impact the value of the property for Tax Year 2025. We ask Montanans to review the notice as soon as possible and contact us if you have questions.”
The state reassesses property values every two years. In 2023, the mailing of the last round of assessment notices sparked statewide concerns about spiking property taxes.
This time around, the notices will be in a slightly different form. The Department of Revenue removed one section, which showed “estimated taxes” for the coming year. Leaders argued during the last cycle that those estimated numbers were misleading, because they showed how much a property owner would pay if local governments charged the same number of mills as the previous year. In fact, many governments “floated down” their mills – lowering the number of mills they charged because the amount they collected from each mill had increased.
