State Guide

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

Published July 13, 2026

If you own a home in Michigan, your local assessor sets a State Equalized Value (SEV) and a Taxable Value, and those numbers drive your tax bill. Every year you have a window to challenge them — but unlike states with a single statewide deadline, Michigan's process starts locally at your March Board of Review and, for a home, ends at the Michigan Tax Tribunal. Knowing that two-step path is the whole game.

The Michigan deadline: March Board of Review, then July 31

Michigan does not have one fixed statewide filing date. Your first — and mandatory — stop is your local Board of Review, which begins meeting the second Monday in March under Mich. Comp. Laws §211.30. Your city or township sets the exact hours and any alternate March dates, so read the Notice of Assessment that arrives in February for your local schedule. For residential property, you generally must protest to the March Board of Review first — it's a jurisdictional prerequisite to any further appeal (Mich. Comp. Laws §205.735a).

If the Board of Review doesn't fix your value, the next rung for a home is the Michigan Tax Tribunal, and here there is a firm date: a residential petition must be filed on or before July 31 of the tax year (§205.735a). Miss the March Board of Review and you generally lose the year, so calendar the local March dates off your notice and treat July 31 as your Tribunal backstop.

How Michigan assesses your home

Michigan taxes you on two numbers, and confusing them is the most common mistake:

Category	Michigan
Assessment basis	State Equalized Value = 50% of true cash value (Mich. Const. Art. IX §3)
What you're taxed on	Taxable Value — the lower, Proposal A–capped figure
Assessment cap	Proposal A: Taxable Value rises by the lesser of 5% or inflation each year, until you sell (Art. IX §3; §211.27a)
First appeal	Local March Board of Review (§211.30)
Home appeal deadline	Petition the Michigan Tax Tribunal by July 31 (§205.735a)
Can your value be raised?	The Board of Review is lower-risk; the real risk is the de novo Tribunal on escalation (§205.735a; §205.737)

Your SEV is pegged to 50% of true cash value — the Michigan Constitution bars assessing above 50% (Mich. Const. Art. IX §3), so a home worth $300,000 carries an SEV near $150,000. But your bill is figured on your Taxable Value, which Proposal A caps: it can rise each year by only the lesser of 5% or the rate of inflation, until ownership is transferred — at which point the property "uncaps" and is reassessed at the applicable proportion of current true cash value (Art. IX §3; §211.27a). If you've owned your home for years, that cap may already hold your Taxable Value well below market, so a comparable-sales win cuts this year's bill only when your proven value drops your SEV low enough to pull Taxable Value down with it; otherwise the win mainly protects your future baseline. If you bought recently, your value uncapped at the purchase — so a lower true cash value can help you right away.

Building your case

Because the underlying question is your home's true cash value, the winning evidence is recent, nearby comparable sales — homes like yours in size, age, and condition that actually closed — not asking prices or online estimates. Three or four clean comps with clear adjustments are far harder for a Board of Review to dismiss than a claim that the number "feels high." One Michigan caution worth taking seriously: the Board of Review can technically correct your value upward if it finds sufficient cause (§211.30), but the bigger risk is escalation — a Tax Tribunal appeal is heard de novo, and the Tribunal makes its own independent determination of true cash value and is not bound by the assessor's figure (§205.735a; §205.737), so the value can move in either direction there. File only when your comps clearly support a lower value, and bring your strongest set.

Filing at the local level

Michigan's first appeal runs through your local Board of Review, and the mechanics — where to submit your protest, whether your township accepts a letter from a nonresident owner, and the exact March hours — are set city by city and township by township. Use PROppeal to pull licensed comparable sales for your address, apply Michigan's 50%-of-value rule, and get a straight read on whether your assessment is out of line — before your March Board of Review meets.

Get your case built

You don't have to untangle SEV, Taxable Value, and the Proposal A cap on your own. PROppeal pulls licensed comparable sales for your address, works in Michigan's two-number system, factors in whether the Proposal A cap changes your savings, and tells you plainly whether your home is over-assessed — in time to protest at the March Board of Review and, if needed, petition the Tax Tribunal by July 31.

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