How to Complete New York Form RP-467: Eligibility, Income Limits, and Filing

New York Form RP-467 is the application homeowners age 65 and older use to claim a partial property tax exemption on their primary residence. File it with your local city, town, or village assessor by the taxable status date (March 1 in most towns), and you can reduce your home’s assessed value by up to 50 percent for county, city, town, village, and school district taxes.¹ The exemption is a local-option program. Each taxing jurisdiction sets its own income ceiling and decides which add-ons to adopt, so the size of your benefit depends on where you live.

Who Can File

Every owner on the deed must be at least 65, with two exceptions. For property owned by a married couple or by siblings, only one owner needs to be 65. And if one spouse was 65 when the exemption was first granted but has since died, the surviving spouse keeps the benefit at age 62 or older.²

At least one owner must have held title for 12 consecutive months before filing.³ If you sold a qualifying home and bought a replacement within a year, and both properties are in New York, the ownership periods count as consecutive.²

The property must be your legal primary residence. If a portion is used commercially, the form asks you to disclose that, and the exemption may cover only the residential part. An owner who has moved to a nursing home or residential health care facility still qualifies, provided no one other than a spouse or co-owner lives in the home during that absence.³

Life tenants count as owners. So do trust beneficiaries, as long as all trustees or beneficiaries meet the age and income tests. Municipalities may extend the exemption to residential co-op shareholders; when they do, the savings appear as a reduction in monthly maintenance rather than a direct tax bill credit.⁴

How Income Is Figured

The income used on RP-467 is not simply your federal adjusted gross income. It starts there, then gets adjusted. Two items are added to FAGI:³

Social Security benefits not already included in FAGI, unless your locality has opted to exclude them
Tax-exempt interest and dividends, including municipal bond income

Two items can reduce it:

IRA and individual retirement annuity distributions that are already in FAGI come back out, unless your locality has opted to count them. This matters a lot to anyone drawing down retirement savings.
Unreimbursed medical and prescription drug expenses can be deducted, but only if your municipality has adopted that option.

Losses reported on federal Schedules C, D, E, and F are capped: no single category above $3,000, and no more than $15,000 total.³ If an owner is in a residential health care facility, the amount that owner or their spouse paid for that care is also deducted.

Because so many adjustments are local options, two seniors with identical finances can end up with different results based on where they live. Your assessor produces the final figure after applying whatever your jurisdictions have adopted.¹

Income Limits and How Much You Save

Each county, city, town, village, and school district sets its own maximum income limit. State law allows any figure between $3,000 and $50,000.² Meet or fall below the limit and you get the full 50 percent reduction from that jurisdiction.

Jurisdictions can also adopt up to three sliding-scale tiers that give partial exemptions to seniors whose income runs over the base. Using “M” for whatever maximum a jurisdiction has set:³

Option 1 steps the exemption down through 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, and 20 percent across brackets running up to M + $5,700.
Option 2 adds 15 and 10 percent brackets, extending eligibility to M + $7,500.
Option 3 adds a 5 percent bracket reaching M + $8,400.

A jurisdiction using the $50,000 base with all three options would still grant a 5 percent exemption at income up to $58,400.⁵ Not every taxing jurisdiction on your bill will have adopted the same options, so you may receive different percentages from different levies on the same property.

Filling Out the Form

RP-467 is three pages. Page one covers ownership and residency, page two collects income, and page three is the certification you sign under penalty of perjury.¹

Page One

Enter the names of all owners as they appear on the deed, your mailing address, the property street address if different, your school district, and the tax map number (section/block/lot) from your most recent tax bill or assessment roll. Below that, list any non-owner spouses whose address is not the property.

The numbered questions cover the eligibility factors:

Question 1: check which proof-of-age document you’re attaching (driver’s license, birth certificate, or other).
Question 2: enter the date you acquired ownership, so the assessor can verify the 12-month requirement.
Question 3: indicate whether proof of ownership is a deed or another document.
Question 4: confirm that all owners occupy the property as their primary residence. If someone is absent because of a health care facility, divorce, or separation, answer sub-questions 4a through 4c.
Question 5: disclose any non-residential use.
Question 6: state whether the owner or spouse filed a federal income tax return for the applicable tax year.

Page Two

Line 7 asks for the FAGI of each owner and each owner’s spouse for the applicable tax year, one person per row, with column totals. If you did not file a federal return, the assessor may accept W-2s, 1099s, SSA-1099s, bank statements showing pension deposits, or an IRS Verification of Non-Filing Letter, which confirms the IRS has no record of a processed return for that year.⁶

Line 8 captures additional income from Form RP-467-Wkst, a worksheet the assessor provides when needed. Line 9 is for unreimbursed medical and prescription drug expenses, and it applies only if at least one of your taxing jurisdictions has adopted that deduction. Ask the assessor before filling it in if you’re unsure. Line 10 asks how much of your reported income went toward care in a residential health care facility.

Question 11 asks whether any children living on the property attend a public school in grades Pre-K through 12. If yes, name the schools and state whether the child was brought into the residence primarily to attend a particular school. This affects the school-district portion of the exemption.

Page Three

Every owner (or an authorized representative) signs and dates the form, certifying the information is true. A willful false statement disqualifies you from the exemption for five years and carries a fine.⁷

What to Attach

Gather these before you sit down with the form:

Proof of age for each owner who must meet the age requirement: a driver’s license, birth certificate, or baptismal certificate.
Proof of ownership: a certified copy of the deed, mortgage, or other instrument.⁴
Proof of residency: utility bills, voter registration, or other mail at the property address.
Federal Form 1040 for the applicable tax year with all schedules. If you didn’t file, bring W-2s, 1099s, SSA-1099s, bank statements showing pension deposits, and consider an IRS Verification of Non-Filing Letter.
Medical expense records if your municipality allows the deduction: receipts, pharmacy statements, and insurer explanations of benefits showing what you paid out of pocket.
Your most recent tax bill or assessment notice, for the tax map number.

Where and When to File

File the completed RP-467 and all attachments with your local city, town, or village assessor. Do not send it to the state Office of Real Property Tax Services; the form itself warns against this.¹ The deadline is the taxable status date, which varies:⁸

Most towns: March 1.⁹
Nassau County: January 2, though the county may set a later filing date. Contact the county assessor.
Westchester County towns: May 1 or June 1 depending on the town.
New York City: taxable status date is January 5, but applications may be filed through March 15.
Most villages that assess: January 1. Confirm with the village clerk.

If you mail the application, use certified mail so you have proof it arrived by the deadline. You can download the form from the Department of Taxation and Finance website or pick up a paper copy at your assessor’s office.¹

Renewing Each Year

The exemption is not permanent. You file Form RP-467-Rnw with the same assessor by the same taxable status date every year. The renewal is shorter than the original; you don’t re-prove age or ownership. Instead, you report changes since last year in four areas and recalculate income:⁷

Changes in title, such as an owner’s death or a name added or removed
Changes in residency or occupancy, such as nursing home admission, divorce, or separation
Any new non-residential use of the property
Children of owners or tenants now attending public school from the property

Miss the renewal deadline and the exemption drops off your next tax bill. There is no statutory grace period.

Enhanced STAR Is a Separate Program

Qualifying for the senior citizens exemption does not enroll you in Enhanced STAR, and Enhanced STAR does not replace RP-467. You can receive both. If you already have Basic STAR on the property, you may upgrade to Enhanced STAR once you turn 65 and meet its income test. If you have no STAR benefit, you can register for the Enhanced STAR credit, which the state pays directly to you.⁴ When you register for the STAR credit, the state checks whether you qualify for Basic or Enhanced automatically.

If the Assessor Denies Your Application

The assessor must notify you by first-class mail and explain your appeal rights.⁸ To contest the decision, file Form RP-524 (Complaint on Real Property Assessment) with the Board of Assessment Review. In most communities the deadline is Grievance Day, the fourth Tuesday in May. Cities, Nassau County, Suffolk County, and Westchester County have their own dates.¹⁰

If the board rules against you, owners of one-, two-, or three-family homes can file a Small Claims Assessment Review for a $30 fee. Alternatively, you can start a tax certiorari proceeding in New York State Supreme Court under Article 7 of the Real Property Tax Law. Either route must be initiated within 30 days of the filing of the final assessment roll or notice of that filing, whichever comes later.¹⁰

1
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Application for Senior Citizens Exemption
2
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Tax Law 467 – Persons Sixty-Five Years of Age or Over
3
Department of Taxation and Finance. Assessor Manuals, Exemption Administration: RPTL Section 467
4
Department of Taxation and Finance. Senior Citizens Exemption
5
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Instructions for Forms RP-467 and RP-467-Rnw Application and Renewal Application for Senior Citizens Exemption
6
Internal Revenue Service. Transcript Types for Individuals and Ways to Order Them
7
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Renewal Application for Senior Citizens Exemption
8
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Instructions for Form RP-467 Application for Partial Tax Exemption for Real Property of Senior Citizens
9
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Tax Law 302 – Taxable Status Date
10
Department of Taxation and Finance. Grievance Procedures