How to Lower Your Property Taxes in California (2026)

In California your assessed value is not a fresh market appraisal every year, so the useful question is whether your home's market value has fallen below the number on your roll. There are three ways to lower the bill. One has a hard deadline coming up in most counties.

We are a research tool, not attorneys or a tax firm, and this is not legal advice. You file everything yourself.

1. Ask for a decline-in-value review (Proposition 8)

The Board of Equalization (BOE) says the assessor must "annually enroll the lesser of a property's Proposition 13 factored base year value or its market value." If homes like yours sold for less than your assessed value around January 1, you can ask the assessor to lower it.

How it works, per the BOE:

• Most counties review a possible decline in value on request. Depending on the county, that is an informal talk with assessor staff or a request form. Call or check your assessor's site for the process.
• Bring comparable sales that sold "close to January 1 but no later than March 31."
• Reviews are generally on request. The BOE page does not say every property is checked each year.

(BOE, Decline in Value: how it works)

If you disagree with the assessor's answer, the formal appeal below is your next step.

2. File a formal assessment appeal

The BOE's 2026 letter to county assessors says the regular appeals filing period in every county begins July 2, 2026. It ends September 15, 2026 where the assessor mailed assessment notices to all secured-roll taxpayers by August 1, and November 30, 2026 where it did not. (BOE letter lta26023)

Per that county table:

• September 15 (already closed for 2026): Alameda, Alpine, Inyo, Kings, Mono, Placer, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Sierra, Ventura.
• November 30, 2026: most other counties listed, including Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Contra Costa, Fresno, Kern, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Sonoma and Yolo.

The table is longer than what we list here. Check your county in the BOE letter, and confirm the exact date and form with your county's clerk of the assessment appeals board. A decline-in-value appeal must be filed in this same county filing period, per the BOE: it "must be filed during the county assessment filing period." (BOE, Decline in Value)

If you are in a November 30 county, that is about a month away from this post's date.

3. Claim the homeowners' exemption

If you own and live in the home, the homeowners' exemption takes $7,000 off the taxable value. You file once with the county assessor on form BOE-266. File by February 15 to get the full exemption for that year. (BOE, Homeowners' Exemption)

Check your tax bill first. Many owners already have it, and it is a small amount compared with a successful appeal.

A made-up example

This is an illustration, not real data. Say your roll value is $620,000. Three similar homes on your street sold between January and March 2026 for $560,000, $575,000 and $585,000. That is a market value near $573,000, about $47,000 below the roll. Those sales are the core of a decline-in-value request or an appeal. Your county's rate decides what that is worth on the bill.

Where to start

1. Look up your county in the BOE table above and write down your deadline.
2. Pull 3 sales of similar homes near January 1 to March 31, 2026.
3. Compare them to your assessed value. Our free check does this for your address in a couple of minutes.

More background: how to appeal a property tax assessment, what evidence wins, and the California county guides.