Michigan Veterans Property Tax Exemption: Form 5107 and Filing

Michigan’s disabled veterans property tax exemption wipes out 100% of the property tax on the home of a qualifying veteran or their unremarried surviving spouse. It is set out in Michigan Compiled Laws Section 211.7b, and since January 1, 2025, once your exemption is approved it stays in place automatically without an annual refiling.¹²

Who Qualifies

You need to be a Michigan resident who served in the U.S. Armed Forces, including reserve components, and received an honorable discharge. On top of that, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs must have placed you in one of three categories:²

Rated permanently and totally disabled from military service and entitled to benefits at the 100% rate.
Holding a VA certificate showing you received pecuniary assistance for specially adapted housing due to a service-connected disability. In practice, that means a Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) or Special Housing Adaptation (SHA) grant, not just any mobility- or vision-related rating.
Rated by the VA as individually unemployable because of service-connected conditions.

Legal title matters too. A veteran must hold title alone or jointly with a spouse. An unremarried surviving spouse must hold title alone. If the deed is in a child’s name or a trust, the property does not qualify.²

Surviving Spouses

When a qualifying veteran dies, the unremarried surviving spouse keeps the exemption. It applies to whatever homestead property the spouse owns and occupies, including a home purchased after the veteran’s death. Remarriage ends the eligibility permanently.²

Which Property the Exemption Covers

The exemption applies to real property you own and occupy as your homestead. One home, the one you actually live in. Vacation homes, rentals, and investment properties are excluded.²

One boundary to keep in mind: the exemption removes your property from the tax rolls under the General Property Tax Act, but special assessments your local government levies for specific improvements like sidewalks or sewers operate under separate authority. Those can still apply.

How to Apply

You file one form with one attachment, and you file it locally.

Form 5107

The State Tax Commission Affidavit for Disabled Veterans Exemption (Form 5107) asks for your name, contact information, the parcel identification number, the date you acquired the property, and your local school district. You check a box for which of the three disability criteria you meet and sign an acknowledgment that you are a Michigan resident and that the property is your homestead. A social security number is not required. If someone other than the veteran is submitting the affidavit, a legal designee section handles that.³

VA Documentation

Attach a VA letter or certificate that matches the box you checked. For the 100% rating, a VA letter confirming you are permanently and totally disabled at the 100% rate. For individual unemployability, a VA letter stating that rating. For the housing pathway, the VA certificate for the SAH or SHA program. You can download your VA Benefit Summary Letter through the VA website.⁴ Make sure the letter spells out your disability percentage or unemployability status. A generic benefits letter that leaves those details out will not clear the assessor’s review.⁵

Where to File

Send Form 5107 and the VA documentation to the assessor in the city or township where the property sits. Not the Michigan Department of Treasury. Not the State Tax Commission. Your local assessor handles the initial review.³

When the Exemption Takes Effect

Your affidavit goes to the local Board of Review, which meets three times a year: in March, in July, and in December.⁶ You can file at any point, but the exemption is not active until the next Board meeting acts on it. Once approved, you get a written decision, and any property taxes you already paid for the eligible portion of the year may be refunded by your local treasurer.

Proration When You Buy Mid-Year

Buying a home partway through the tax year gives you a partial exemption for that year, not a full one. The statute lets the local treasurer calculate the prorated amount from your closing documents if you provide them, or from a daily calculation based on the number of days you owned and occupied the home as your homestead. If an exemption is being removed mid-year because a home was sold, the same daily method applies from the conveyance date.²

Proration only touches the current year. You will not be refunded for taxes from years before you owned the home. Attaching your closing documents to Form 5107 gives the treasurer the cleanest basis for the math, so include them even though the form does not strictly require it.

You No Longer Refile Every Year

Public Acts 150, 151, and 152 of 2023 ended annual refiling. Starting January 1, 2025, an approved exemption stays in effect automatically as long as you continue to own and occupy the home and your qualifying circumstances have not changed.¹

One thing you still owe the assessor: notice of any change. If your VA disability rating drops below the qualifying threshold, or you are no longer rated individually unemployable, you need to tell your local assessor. Leaving the exemption in place after you no longer qualify can create back taxes and interest you will owe later.

If You Sell, Move, or Change How You Use the Home

If you sell the property, stop living in it as your primary residence, or convert it to a rental or commercial use, you have 45 days to file Form 6054 (Request to Rescind Disabled Veterans Exemption) with the assessor where the property is located.⁵ Miss the deadline and the local government can pursue the taxes that should have been collected, along with penalties.

Moving to another Michigan home is straightforward. File a new Form 5107 with the assessor in the new city or township. The exemption on the old property ends, and the new one is prorated from the date you acquired and began occupying the new home.

Appealing a Denial

If the Board of Review denies your exemption, you can appeal to the Michigan Tax Tribunal. For decisions from the July or December Board of Review, you have 35 days from the date of the written decision to file. The March Board of Review follows the same appeal path with its own deadline running from its written decision.

The assessor and the Board are not permitted to independently evaluate your medical condition or second-guess the VA’s disability determination. Their review is limited to whether your VA documentation matches the statutory criteria. If you had the right VA letter and were still denied, the problem is usually administrative, and an appeal is worth filing.⁵

1
Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency. Michigan Public Acts Benefiting Disabled Veterans and Surviving Spouses Head to State Tax Commission
2
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Code 211.7b – Exemption of Real Property Used and Owned as Homestead by Disabled Veteran or Surviving Spouse
3
Michigan Department of Treasury. State Tax Commission Affidavit for Disabled Veterans Exemption (Form 5107)
4
Veterans Affairs. Download VA Benefit Letters
5
Michigan State Tax Commission. Disabled Veterans Exemption Frequently Asked Questions
6
Michigan Department of Treasury. 2026 Boards of Review