State Guide

How to Appeal Your Property Taxes in Georgia (2026 Guide)

Published July 12, 2026

If you own a home in Georgia, your county Board of Tax Assessors sets a fair market value for it every year — what the county thinks it would sell for — and that number drives your tax bill. You get a statutory window to challenge it, and in Georgia that window is short: 45 days from the date on your assessment notice.

The Georgia deadline: 45 days from your notice

Georgia does not use a single statewide deadline. Instead, you must file your appeal within 45 days of the date printed on your annual Notice of Assessment — O.C.G.A. §48-5-311(e)(2). Counties mail those notices on their own schedules, generally from spring into early summer, so the exact due date is different in every county and every year. The one rule that never changes: count 45 days from the date on your notice, and don't wait on a calendar date you saw somewhere else.

You file with the county Board of Tax Assessors, and you choose one of three routes on the form: the county Board of Equalization (the standard, no-cost first rung), a hearing officer, or arbitration. If that decision doesn't go your way, the next rung is a de novo appeal to Superior Court, where the value is heard fresh.

How Georgia assesses your home

Georgia taxes your home on 40% of its fair market value, not the full value — O.C.G.A. §48-5-7(a). A home the county values at $400,000 carries a $160,000 assessed value, and your millage rate is applied to that $160,000. Your notice shows both numbers. That fraction changes how you read the notice, but not how you win: your appeal contests the fair market value — the 100% figure — and if you get it lowered, your 40% assessed value drops right along with it.

Category	Georgia
Assessment basis	Assessed value = 40% of fair market value (§48-5-7)
Appeal deadline	45 days from the date on your assessment notice (§48-5-311(e))
Where you file	County Board of Tax Assessors → Board of Equalization, hearing officer, or arbitration
Can the board raise your value?	No — value can be lowered but not increased on appeal (§48-5-311(e)(9))
Bonus after a win	The reduced value is frozen for two more years (§48-5-299(c))

The appeal only cuts one way

Georgia is one of the safest states in the country to appeal. For any appeal filed on or after January 1, 2016, the value being appealed "may be lowered ... but cannot be increased" above the county's number, whether the decision comes from the Board of Equalization, a hearing officer, an arbitrator, or Superior Court (O.C.G.A. §48-5-311(e)(9)). There's no downside risk of the board using your own appeal to bump you up.

It gets better if you win. Under O.C.G.A. §48-5-299(c), a value established by an appeal decision generally "may not be increased by the board of tax assessors during the next two successive years." So a successful appeal doesn't just cut this year's bill — it locks in the lower value for a total of about three years.

The HB 581 homestead cap — check your county

Starting in 2025, Georgia added a statewide floating homestead exemption under HB 581 (O.C.G.A. §48-5-44.2). For a qualifying homestead, it caps how much your taxable value can grow each year to the rate of inflation (a CPI-based index), measured from a 2024 base year. But the law let each county, city, and school district opt out by filing a resolution by March 1, 2025, and many jurisdictions did — including several of the largest counties' school systems. Because it applies levy by levy, the cap may be in effect for one piece of your bill and not another. Don't assume it's holding your value down: confirm whether your specific county, city, and school district kept it. Where the cap doesn't apply, a lower appraised value flows straight through to savings; where it does, a comparable-sales win still protects your future baseline.

Building your case

Because the whole question is your home's fair market value, the winning evidence is recent, nearby comparable sales — homes like yours that actually closed, similar in size, age, and condition — not listing prices or online "Zestimate"-style guesses. Three or four clean comps with clear adjustments are far harder for a Board of Equalization to wave off than a complaint that the number simply "feels high." And because the board can't raise you, there's no reason not to bring your strongest set.

Filing at the county level

Georgia's appeals run through your county Board of Tax Assessors, and the mechanics — the exact notice-mail date, how your county accepts the appeal form, and the Board of Equalization's hearing schedule — vary across all 159 counties. We're building out county-specific guides with the exact filing office and local notes for each. In the meantime, use PROppeal to pull licensed comparable sales for your address and confirm the logistics with your county assessor's office.

Get your case built

You don't need to wait on a county-specific guide to get started. PROppeal pulls licensed comparable sales for your address, applies Georgia's 40%-of-market rule, flags whether the HB 581 cap changes your savings, and gives you a straight answer on whether your assessment is out of line — well inside the 45-day window on your notice.

Property tax rules and deadlines vary by jurisdiction and can change — verify with your county before relying on this.