State Guide

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

Published July 11, 2026

If you own a home in Mississippi, your county assessor sets a true value — what the county thinks your property would sell for — and a fraction of that number becomes the assessed value your tax bill is built on. Every year you have a narrow, meeting-driven window to challenge it before it's locked in, and in Mississippi that window opens the first Monday of August.

The Mississippi deadline: the first Monday of August

Mississippi doesn't run on a rolling "X days after your notice" clock — it runs on a meeting. Your county Board of Supervisors sits as the Board of Equalization at its August meeting, which convenes on the first Monday of August — August 3 in 2026 — under Miss. Code §27-35-89. To contest your value, you must file a written objection at that meeting (§27-35-93). Miss it and the statute is blunt: failing to object concludes your assessment for the year.

Because the trigger is a board meeting rather than a mailed-notice date, the single most important thing you can do is confirm your own county's exact equalization meeting date — boards set their own calendars once the August session opens. If the board's decision doesn't go your way, the next rung is an appeal to Circuit Court within 10 days of the board's adjournment, where the case is tried de novo (§11-51-77).

How Mississippi assesses your home

Mississippi does not tax your home at 100% of its value. It assesses a class-based fraction of true (market) value — Miss. Code §27-35-4, under the classification scheme in Miss. Const. §112:

Category	Mississippi
Assessment basis	Fraction of true (market) value (§27-35-4, §27-35-50)
Class I (single-family, owner-occupied homestead)	Assessed at 10% of true value
Class II (rentals, second homes, other real property)	Assessed at 15% of true value
Appeal deadline	First Monday of August — Aug 3, 2026 (§27-35-89/93)
Where you file	County Board of Supervisors (as Board of Equalization)
Assessment cap	None
Can the board raise your value?	Yes, after 10–15 days' notice (§27-35-89/131)

So a single-family home you occupy as your homestead, with a true value of $200,000, carries a $20,000 assessed value (10%), and your millage is applied to that $20,000. A rental or second home at the same true value carries $30,000 (15%). That fraction changes how you read your notice — but not how you win. Your appeal contests the true value — the 100% figure (§27-35-50) — and if you get it lowered, your 10% (or 15%) assessed value falls right along with it.

One Mississippi wrinkle worth knowing: the 10%-vs-15% split tracks the homestead exemption. Homes with a filed homestead exemption are treated as Class I at 10%; property without one is Class II at 15%. The homestead exemption itself (Miss. Code §27-33-1 — a regular credit, expanded for owners 65+ or disabled) is a flow-through credit that reduces your bill, not your assessed basis, so it doesn't change what your appeal contests.

There is no assessment cap in Mississippi — no acquisition-value freeze and no annual limit on how much your assessed value can rise. A stale or inflated true value can compound year to year, which makes the August appeal one of the only direct levers you have to correct it.

Building your case

Because the whole question is your home's true (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 solid comps with clear adjustments are far harder for a board to wave off than a complaint that the number "feels high."

Two Mississippi-specific cautions. First, on your own objection the Board of Equalization can increase or diminish your value (§27-35-89) — it must give 10–15 days' written notice before any increase (§27-35-131), and Circuit Court hears the case fresh — so file only when your comps clearly support a lower value and bring your strongest, cleanest set. Second, Mississippi is a non-disclosure state: sale prices aren't filed in a public registry, so the raw "what sold for what" data is harder to assemble than it is in disclosure states — which is exactly why leaning on licensed comparable-sales data and the assessor's own true-value records matters.

Filing at the county level

Mississippi's appeals run through your county Board of Supervisors, and the mechanics — the exact meeting date, whether the board takes your written objection by letter or in person, and its hearing schedule — vary across all 82 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 meeting logistics directly with your county'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 Mississippi's class-based 10%/15% rule, confirms there's no cap muddying your savings, and gives you a straight answer on whether your assessment is out of line — before the first Monday of August arrives.

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