The Mobile County tax map is an interactive parcel record maintained by the Revenue Commissioner’s office, and you can reach it two ways: the property search portal at esearch.mobilecopropertytax.com for record lookups, and the GIS mapping interface at gis.bisclient.com/alabama/mobilecad/ for the visual map itself.1Mobile County Revenue Commission. Mobile County Revenue Commission The property search is the faster route when you already have an identifier in hand. The GIS map is where you go to see a parcel in context, with its boundaries drawn against roads, neighboring lots, and overlays like flood zones.
How to Pull Up a Parcel
Have at least one of these ready before you open either tool:
- The Parcel Identification Number (PIN), a numeric string assigned to every tract in the county. It appears on your annual tax bill and valuation notice.
- The owner name, spelled exactly as it reads on the deed. A small mismatch will return nothing.
- The property address, entered as a house number and street name. Skip punctuation and abbreviations the database may not recognize.
The property search portal also lets you filter by tax year, with records going back to 2008 and running through 2025.2Mobile County Property Search. Mobile County Property Search That range is useful if you need to trace how an assessed value has shifted or confirm who owned the parcel in a prior year.
What the Parcel Record Shows
Once you’ve opened a parcel, the record linked to the map carries more than a shape on a screen. You’ll see acreage, lot dimensions, the current assessed value, and the zoning classification. Zoning explains what the land can be used for, and it’s often why one parcel is valued very differently from the one next to it.
The GIS portal layers additional geographic data on top of that core record. You can switch between street view and aerial photography, pull in topographic detail to read elevation, and turn on FEMA flood zone designations.3Federal Emergency Management Agency. Flood Data Viewers and Geospatial Data Flood zones matter in Mobile County, where coastal and low-lying parcels carry real risk that drives both insurance premiums and resale value.
One thing the map will not do is flag parcels with active tax liens or pending tax sales. That list is published separately on the Revenue Commissioner’s website rather than drawn on the map.1Mobile County Revenue Commission. Mobile County Revenue Commission If lien status matters to your search, pull that list in a separate tab and cross-reference by PIN.
Using the GIS Portal
The GIS portal is built on older web technology and can be picky. It may throw errors on some mobile browsers and on outdated desktop browsers; current versions of Chrome or Firefox are recommended.4Mobile County Revenue Commission. Mobile County Revenue Commission GIS Portal There is no dedicated mobile app, so if you’re on a phone, switch your browser to desktop mode before loading the map.
The Identify tool is the one you’ll use most. Click a highlighted parcel and a pop-up shows the summary record: owner name, assessed value, and acreage. The legend panel has checkboxes that toggle data layers on and off. Start with everything off and add only the layer you need. Stacking several at once slows the map and clutters the view.
Reading the Assessed Value
The “assessed value” on your parcel record is not the market value of the property. Alabama uses a classified property system that assesses each type of property at a fixed percentage of its fair market value.5Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 40-8-1 – Classification of Property The four classes:
- Class I, utilities, at 30% of market value.
- Class II, commercial and industrial, at 20%.
- Class III, residential, agricultural, forest, and historic, at 10%.
- Class IV, personal-use vehicles, at 15%.
Most homeowners fall in Class III. A home the county values at $200,000 shows an assessed value of $20,000 on the parcel record. The tax bill is that assessed value multiplied by the local millage rate, which depends on whether the parcel sits inside a municipality. In unincorporated Mobile County the combined rate runs around 48.5 mills, or roughly $4.85 per $100 of assessed value, so a home assessed at $20,000 would owe about $970 before any exemptions.
Reading the parcel record with the classification in mind is what keeps the number from looking alarming or impossibly low. A commercial lot and a house of the same market value will carry very different assessed values on the map, and that is the system working as intended, not a map error.
If the Information Is Wrong
There are two different problems to separate before you file anything. A dispute over the assessed value goes to the Mobile County Board of Equalization. A factual error on the map itself, like a wrong owner name, incorrect boundary lines, or an outdated legal description, goes to the Revenue Commissioner’s mapping division. Filing the wrong one wastes the clock.
For a value dispute, the 2026 deadline to appeal is May 19, 2026.6Mobile County, Alabama. Mobile County Board of Equalization More generally, appeals must be received by the Board, or postmarked through USPS, within 30 days of the date printed on your assessment notice. That is the notice date, not the day the envelope arrived, so don’t wait on it.
For a map correction, contact the mapping division directly through the Revenue Commissioner’s office, online, by mail, or in person. These corrections need documentation: a recorded deed for an ownership change, a certified survey for a boundary adjustment, or a court order where the fix comes out of a legal proceeding. Map corrections usually don’t change the tax bill unless the acreage was wrong, in which case the corrected map triggers a reassessment.
Checking a Parcel Before You Buy
If you’re using the tax map to vet a property you don’t yet own, the same tools work, but you’re reading them differently. Pull the parcel by address, confirm the owner name matches the person offering to sell, and check the acreage and lot dimensions against what the listing claims. Switch on the FEMA flood layer before anything else; a parcel in a flood zone carries insurance costs that can change whether the purchase makes sense. Note the zoning classification on the record, since that controls what you can build or operate there. And remember that the map will not warn you about an active tax lien on the parcel. For that, pull the Revenue Commissioner’s delinquent list and search for the PIN directly.