Property Tax Breaks for Seniors in Wyoming (2026)

Updated August 12, 2026. Quick answer: Wyoming’s one genuinely age-keyed property-tax break is a two-year programme. The long-term homeowner exemption — 50% of fair market value for an owner (or spouse) 65 or older who has paid Wyoming residential property tax for 25 years or more — is described by the Department of Revenue’s own current programme summary as effective for tax years 2025 and 2026 and repealed for the 2027 tax year, and the statute carries the same repeal note. Both of its 2026 claim dates have already passed. What remains for a Wyoming senior is not keyed to age at all: an income-and-asset-tested refund, a 25% exemption every owner-occupier gets, and a deferral that exactly one county runs.

What Wyoming offers

• The 50% long-term homeowner exemption — and the date it ends — W.S. 39-11-105(a)(xlv): if the owner or their spouse is 65 or older and the owner or spouse has paid residential property tax in Wyoming for 25 years or more on any residential property, the exemption is 50% of the fair market value of the residential real property, applied to the first $3,000,000 of value and to associated land up to 35 acres. The home must be where you actually live for at least 8 months of the year. A surviving spouse who would not otherwise qualify keeps it. One exemption per owner per year, and a false claim is punishable under W.S. 6-5-303. The statute’s own note says the paragraph is repealed effective 7/1/2027; the Department of Revenue’s programme summary, last revised February 2026, puts it the same way — effective January 1, 2025 for tax years 2025 and 2026, “repealed for the 2027 tax year”.
• Its two deadlines disagree, and the earlier one is the one to work to — The statute is specific: the owner “shall submit a claim to the county assessor not later than March 1 each year” (subparagraph (B)), and in later years stays qualified by contacting the assessor’s office by telephone, mail or otherwise on or before March 1 to confirm continued eligibility (subparagraph (D)). The Department of Revenue’s February 2026 summary of the same programme gives the deadline as the fourth Monday in May. We are publishing both because they genuinely differ in the two current official documents; work to March 1, which is the date in the statute and the earlier of the two, and ring your county assessor if you are between them.
• You cannot have it and the 25% exemption in the same year — and the gap is the whole point — W.S. 39-11-105(a)(xlvi) gives every owner-occupier a 25% exemption on the first $1,000,000 of fair market value of a single-family residence and its improved land. It is explicitly unavailable to anyone who claimed the long-term homeowner exemption on the same property in the same tax year, so the senior exemption is worth the difference, not the whole 50%. On a $400,000 home that is $200,000 of exempt value against $100,000 — $100,000 more. On a $1,200,000 home, where the 25% version stops at the first $1,000,000, it is $600,000 against $250,000 — $350,000 more. From tax year 2026 the 25% version also requires you to reside there at least 8 months a year, with a carve-out where active-duty service in the armed forces is the reason you cannot; the Department set a March 1, 2026 notification deadline for the 2026 tax year, after which the notification stands in perpetuity.
• The refund programme is the one that survives — and it has no age test — W.S. 39-13-109(c)(v). You qualify on income: household income at or below 145% of the median household income for your county or for the state, whichever is greater. And on assets: no more than $169,866 per adult household member on the current application, excluding the home you are claiming for, one vehicle per adult, household furnishings and personal property, IRA and other bona fide pension assets, life insurance cash value and medical savings accounts — and the asset test does not apply at all if your tax bill is more than 10% of your household income. You must also have been a Wyoming resident for 5 years, have occupied the home for at least 9 months of the tax year, and have paid the tax on time with a receipt. The refund is up to 75% of last year’s tax, capped at half the median residential property tax for your county: you get 100% of that maximum at or below 125% of the applicable median income and 65% of it at or below 145%. Applications go to the county treasurer, the Department, or WPTRS.wyo.gov by the first Monday in June — for tax year 2025 that was June 1, 2026, with refunds mailed by September 30, 2026.
• The income line in your county, as the Department publishes it — These are the 145%-of-median figures on the Department’s current refund brochure. In 15 of Wyoming’s 23 counties the county median is lower than the state’s, so the statewide figure of $114,043 applies instead — which is the “whichever is greater” rule doing real work. The spread is wide: Teton’s line, $203,754, is $89,711 above the statewide floor. A row below showing $114,043 is a county sitting on that floor; any other figure is that county’s own median. Working backwards from the published figures, the statewide median household income the Department used is about $78,650, and Teton’s about $140,520.

  County	Income line for a refund
  Albany	$114,043
  Big Horn	$114,043
  Campbell	$135,459
  Carbon	$114,043
  Converse	$124,280
  Crook	$125,483
  Fremont	$114,043
  Goshen	$114,043
  Hot Springs	$114,043
  Johnson	$114,043
  Laramie	$122,888
  Lincoln	$141,100
  Natrona	$114,043
  Niobrara	$114,043
  Park	$114,043
  Platte	$114,043
  Sheridan	$114,043
  Sublette	$130,869
  Sweetwater	$114,043
  Teton	$203,754
  Uinta	$120,350
  Washakie	$114,043
  Weston	$114,043

• The deferral exists in the statute and in exactly one county — W.S. 39-13-107(b)(iii) lets a county defer up to half your property tax on a principal residence sitting on no more than 40 acres. You qualify if you have limited income (defined as gross monthly household income at or below 250% of the federal poverty level for a household of four, adjusted for your county’s cost of living), or are over 62, or have a disability as determined by the Social Security Administration, or bought the property at least 10 years before the tax year. Apply to the board of county commissioners by November 10. But the programme is county-optional and unavailable in any county that has not adopted rules for it — and the Department of Revenue’s February 2026 summary says only Teton County currently authorises it. Everywhere else in Wyoming this is a statute, not a programme.
• What the deferral costs, where the two official documents disagree — Read this before signing anything. The statute, W.S. 39-13-107(b)(iii)(D), says interest accrues on a deferral at a compounded 4% a year — except for someone qualifying solely by disability, where the rate is the three-year average yield on ten-year US Treasury bonds plus 1.5%. The Department’s February 2026 programme summary says “Interest does not accrue on deferred taxes.” The statute is the law; get the county’s rate in writing before you apply. What is not in dispute: the deferral is a perpetual tax lien with priority over any other lien (subparagraph (B)); it falls due on a significant change in your finances, abandonment, a failure to file the annual affidavit, your death, or a sale, whichever comes first; the commissioners may call the whole balance in if deferred taxes exceed half the property’s value; a mortgage holder who escrows your taxes must co-sign; a renter whose lease makes them pay the tax may apply with the owner co-signing; and it can be prepaid at any time without penalty. See what a deferral really is.
• Two Wyoming programmes that sound like relief and currently pay nothing — The Department lists both under inactive programs, and both are still described as live on plenty of older pages. The Homeowner’s Tax Credit (W.S. 39-13-109(d)), worth $40 to $100, “is active ONLY if funds are appropriated” and is currently unfunded with no application form available. The Tax Rebate to Elderly and Disabled programme run by the Department of Health — 12 months of Wyoming domicile, age 65 or totally disabled, household assets under $30,279 per adult, postmarked by August 31, worth $100 to $800 single or $900 married — has been unfunded since 2016. Neither is worth a trip to a senior centre until the legislature funds it.
• The veterans exemption, and the growth cap that applies to everyone — W.S. 39-13-105 exempts $6,000 of assessed value for a qualifying veteran or surviving spouse who has lived in Wyoming for 3 years, applied either to the primary residence or to motor vehicle registration, claimed by the fourth Monday in May — and the assessor must be contacted annually. Gold star parents became eligible on July 1, 2025. Separately, W.S. 39-11-105(a)(xliii) and (xliv) cap the growth in a residence’s taxable assessed value: anything above last year’s assessed value (less last year’s exemption) plus 4% is exempt, with no application required — but it does not apply if you acquired the property in the prior calendar year, or to new construction or an addition.

The catch is that Wyoming’s senior break is the one with an end date

Everything else on this page survives 2026. The 50% exemption — the only item keyed to your age — does not, unless the legislature renews it. That inverts the usual planning advice. In most states the sensible move at 65 is to claim the senior exemption and stop worrying; in Wyoming the sensible move is to check whether the refund programme, which has no age test and no expiry, will take you.

The refund and the exemption are not alternatives you must choose between on the same form, but the refund application does ask whether you have applied for or received the W.S. 39-13-105 veterans exemption, the W.S. 39-13-109(c)(v) refund or the W.S. 39-13-109(d) credit for the same calendar year — so answer it accurately, and expect the programmes to be reconciled against each other.

How to apply

• Exemptions (long-term homeowner, veterans, and the 25% owner-occupier notification) go to your county assessor. Work to March 1 for the long-term homeowner claim and its annual confirmation; the Department’s summary says fourth Monday in May, and the veterans exemption is on the fourth Monday in May.
• The refund goes to your county treasurer, the Department of Revenue in Cheyenne, or WPTRS.wyo.gov, by the first Monday in June. Keep the receipt showing you paid the prior year’s tax on time — it is a condition, not paperwork.
• The deferral, in a county that runs one, goes to the board of county commissioners by November 10, with an affidavit filed every year.
• Some counties run their own additional refund, under W.S. 39-13-109(c)(vi), with limits the county sets and a second Monday in October deadline. Ask your treasurer whether yours does.

Two things to check before you count on it

• Thresholds move. Age and income limits are reset by legislatures and are frequently indexed. Every figure above carries the year we confirmed it; confirm the current one before you budget around it.
• Your county or town may add its own. Statewide programmes are the floor. Counties and municipalities frequently run additional exemptions, and those are where a lot of real money sits.

Sources: Wyoming Statutes Title 39, W.S. 39-11-105, 39-13-105, 39-13-107, 39-13-109 (Wyoming Legislature) · Wyoming Department of Revenue, Property Tax Refund Program and current relief/credit/deferral programme summary (revised February 2026). All read 2026-08-12.

Compare all states: property-tax relief for seniors by state. What the programme types mean: freeze vs exemption vs circuit-breaker. The rest of the picture in this state: Wyoming Retirement Taxes.

Program classifications and thresholds are read from each state’s own revenue department, legislature or statute, at the source linked on the state page. Dollar and income thresholds change most years and are labelled with the year we confirmed them — check the current figure with the state or your county before relying on it. General information, not tax advice.