Ohio Property Tax Cut: Homestead, Owner-Occupancy Credit, Appeals

The main ways to get an Ohio property tax cut are the homestead exemption, the 2.5 percent owner-occupancy credit, and a formal challenge to your county’s valuation. Each works differently: exemptions and credits shrink what you owe on the value the county has already assigned, while a valuation complaint attacks that value itself. A fourth reduction, the non-business credit, is being phased out for residential property starting in 2026, so the overall picture is shifting and worth understanding before your next bill arrives.

The Homestead Exemption

The homestead exemption is the single largest targeted reduction available to individual Ohio homeowners. It removes a set dollar amount of your home’s market value before taxes are calculated, which shrinks the taxable base the county uses to compute your bill.¹

Who Qualifies

You may be eligible if you fall into one of these categories:

Age 65 or older, owning and living in the home as your primary residence.
Permanently and totally disabled, with certification from a licensed physician.
A surviving spouse of someone who was receiving the exemption, as long as you still own and occupy the home.²
A totally disabled veteran, or the surviving spouse of one, who qualifies for a larger exemption. A letter from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs confirming the disability is required.³

How Much It Takes Off

For the 2026 tax year, the homestead exemption shields $29,000 of your home’s market value from taxation. Disabled veterans and qualifying surviving spouses of public service officers killed in the line of duty receive a larger exemption of $58,000.⁴ These figures adjust annually for inflation from a statutory base of $25,000 and $50,000.¹

Eligibility also depends on income. For the 2026 real property tax year, the Ohio adjusted gross income threshold is $41,000.² If your income exceeds this limit, you will not qualify regardless of your age or disability status. The state uses prior-year income, so your 2025 income determines your eligibility for the 2026 tax year.

Applying

File DTE Form 105A with your county auditor. You will need proof of age (a state-issued ID showing your date of birth) or a physician’s certificate of permanent disability, plus your property parcel number and your Ohio adjusted gross income from the relevant year.⁵ Disabled veterans attach the VA letter. The deadline is December 31 of the tax year for which you want the reduction; buy a home in June 2026 and want the exemption on your 2026 taxes, and you need to file by December 31, 2026.

Once approved, you do not need to reapply each year. The county auditor’s office sends a continuing application annually, and you only return it if your eligibility has changed, such as no longer occupying the home or exceeding the income limit.²

The 2.5 Percent Owner-Occupancy Credit

If you own and live in your home as your primary residence, you can receive a 2.5 percent credit that reduces the taxes charged on qualifying levies. There is no age, disability, or income test. The only requirement is that the property be your principal place of residence as of January 1 of the tax year.⁶

The credit applies only to qualifying levies, which the statute defines as levies approved by voters before September 29, 2013, levies within the 10-mill limitation, and renewals of those levies.⁷ Any levy first approved after that date does not receive the reduction. The credit therefore covers a smaller share of your bill in districts where voters have passed new levies since late 2013.

Convert the home to a rental or otherwise stop using it as your principal residence and you lose the credit. To claim it, file DTE Form 105C with your county auditor by December 31 of the tax year.⁸

The Non-Business Credit Is Being Phased Out

The non-business credit has historically been a 10 percent reduction on taxes charged by qualifying levies against property not used for commercial or industrial purposes. It applied automatically to residential and agricultural parcels with no application required.⁹

Under the amended version of Ohio Revised Code 319.302, effective March 20, 2026, the credit for residential property phases out over three years:⁷

2026: drops from 10 percent to 7.5 percent.
2027: drops to 5 percent.
2028: drops to 2.5 percent.
2029 and after: zero for residential property.

Property used primarily for farming keeps the full 10 percent credit with no phase-out.⁷ For a typical homeowner, the elimination gradually increases tax bills by roughly the equivalent of what the credit used to subtract. Like the owner-occupancy credit, it only ever applied to qualifying levies approved before September 29, 2013, plus renewals.

Challenging Your Property Valuation

If you believe your county’s assessed value is too high, you can file a formal complaint to get it lowered. This is separate from the credits above. It targets the valuation itself rather than applying a percentage discount, and for a homeowner who saw a large jump after a reappraisal, a successful challenge can produce savings that dwarf any credit.

How to File

You challenge your valuation by filing a Complaint Against Valuation with your county auditor, who forwards it to the county Board of Revision. The deadline is March 31 of the year following the tax year in question, or the date the first-half tax collection closes, whichever is later. The statute allows complaints based on the total valuation of a parcel, the classification of property, or the determination of agricultural land value. Property owners, their spouses, and authorized professionals such as licensed appraisers, real estate brokers, and public accountants can file on the owner’s behalf.¹⁰

What Evidence Works

The strongest evidence is recent comparable sales: homes similar to yours in size, age, condition, and location that sold for less than your assessed value. A professional appraisal from a licensed appraiser carries significant weight, though it typically costs $300 to $1,500 depending on the property. Photos documenting deferred maintenance, structural issues, or neighborhood conditions that the county’s mass appraisal may have missed also help.

Board of Revision hearings are relatively brief. If the Board rules against you, you can appeal to either the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals or your county’s Court of Common Pleas.¹⁰ A complaint can also result in an increase if the Board determines the property is undervalued, so be confident in your evidence before filing.

What Already Happens Automatically

Before chasing credits, know what Ohio law does on its own. Under the mechanism commonly called House Bill 920, voted tax levies are required to produce roughly the same dollar amount of revenue each year regardless of what happens to property values. When a countywide reappraisal pushes assessed values higher, the county auditor reduces the effective millage rate on each voted levy so the levy collects the same total revenue it did before.¹¹

The practical effect: a countywide value increase of 20 percent does not translate into a 20 percent jump in your tax bill. The levies that are not adjusted are unvoted “inside” millage (the base 10-mill limit) and any newly approved levies collecting for the first time. Most of your bill comes from voted levies for schools, fire, and library services, all of which get the HB 920 rate reduction. You do not need to apply for this adjustment, and you do not need to apply for the non-business credit while it still exists. The county auditor calculates both automatically.

Recent legislation under House Bill 187 also requires the Tax Commissioner to weigh the prior three years of a county’s sales data when setting values during triennial updates and sexennial reappraisals, rather than relying on a single year that may reflect a market peak.¹² The same package raised the homestead exemption amounts cited above and set in motion the non-business credit phase-out.¹³

If You Have a Mortgage Escrow

A successful tax reduction does not put money back in your pocket right away if your mortgage includes an escrow account for property taxes. Your lender collects a monthly escrow payment based on its estimate of your annual tax bill, and a reduction means the account will accumulate a surplus over the year.

Federal law requires your mortgage servicer to conduct an escrow account analysis at least once per year. If that analysis reveals a surplus of $50 or more, the servicer must refund the excess to you within 30 days. A surplus under $50 can either be refunded or credited toward the next year’s escrow payments.¹⁴ Your monthly payment should also drop going forward once the servicer adjusts to the lower tax bill. If your escrow payment has not changed a full year after your reduction, contact your servicer and request an updated analysis.

1
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 323.152 – Reductions in Taxable Value
2
Cuyahoga County. Homestead Exemption
3
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 323.153 – Application for Reduction in Real Property Taxes
4
Department of Taxation. Real Property Tax – Homestead Means Testing
5
Ohio Department of Taxation. DTE 105A – Homestead Exemption Application for Senior Citizens, Disabled Persons and Surviving Spouses
6
Ohio Department of Taxation. DTE 105C – Application for Owner-Occupancy Tax Reduction
7
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 319.302 – Reduction of Remaining Taxes
8
Ohio Department of Taxation. Application for Owner-Occupancy Tax Reduction
9
Department of Taxation. Distributions – Real Property Tax Rollbacks – Overview
10
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 5715.19 – Complaints Against Valuations or Assessments
11
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 319.301 – Determination and Certification of Tax Reduction Percentages
12
The Ohio House of Representatives. Ohio House Passes Legislation to Protect Ohioans From Rising Property Taxes
13
Ohio Legislature. Ohio House Bill 187
14
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 1024.17 Escrow Accounts