Senior Property Tax Exemption Lookup: The Age and Income Bars in All 51

Updated September 8, 2026. Quick answer: the age you have been told to wait for is wrong in 9 of the 51 jurisdictions, and in most of them age is not the test that decides anything. Across the 100 senior property-tax programmes on this site, 81 publish an age bar and 54 publish an income ceiling – and the ceiling is what turns people away. Kansas at 55, Washington at 60, California at 62, Georgia at 62, Michigan at 62, Missouri at 62, Montana at 62, Oregon at 62 and Wisconsin at 62 all open below 65. Nevada and Vermont run no age-keyed property-tax programme at all. And in 12 jurisdictions there is no statewide income line to clear, because each county or town sets its own. The lookup below reads your state’s own published bars and tells you which programmes you clear, one programme at a time.

The lookup

Enter your age and your household income for the year the programme measures. Every bar below is the bar your own state publishes; nothing here is a national rule.

What this lookup will not do, and why. It does not estimate your tax bill or your saving in dollars. None of the 51 state pages behind it publishes a millage rate – the rate is set locally, by every taxing district you live in – and the exemption amounts that do exist are quoted on four different bases (assessed value, taxable value, true value, market value) that cannot be compared without your own county’s assessment ratio. A dollar figure here would be invented, so there is none. That is also why it does not ask what your home is worth: the answer would not change.

The age is not 65 in 9 jurisdictions

Kansas opens at 55, Washington opens at 60, California opens at 62, Georgia opens at 62, Michigan opens at 62, Missouri opens at 62, Montana opens at 62, Oregon opens at 62 and Wisconsin opens at 62. The published age bars across all 100 programmes are 55, 60, 61, 62, 65, 67 and 70. The three programmes that open at 70 are the ones people are least likely to be told about: Iowa’s calculation changes completely at 70, South Dakota’s two deferral programmes start there, and Massachusetts’ Clause 41C exemption sets 70 as the statutory age a town may vote down to 65.

Nevada and Vermont are the two honest noes. Nevada is the honest no on this list. There is no senior property-tax programme in Vermont to look up..

Income is the gate that turns people away

34 of the 51 publish at least one income ceiling this lookup can test you against. The lowest bar a state sets runs from $3,751 (Arizona) to $172,475 (New Jersey), and the median state’s lowest bar is $40,730 – low enough that a couple on two Social Security cheques and a small pension is often over it. At the other end, New Jersey reaches $200,000 and District of Columbia $163,500, which are not poverty programmes at all.

In 12 jurisdictions there is no statewide line to clear. Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming each leave the income limit to the county, city or town, so the only figure that binds you is the one your own assessor publishes. The lookup says so rather than guessing at a number.

17 publish no income ceiling this lookup can test at all: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming. For some that is because the programme genuinely has no income test – Kentucky’s says so in terms. For others it is an honest gap, and the lookup shows the clause instead of a number.

Where a deferral becomes a debt against the house

A deferral is the programme most likely to be described as relief and least likely to behave like it. 19 of the 51 record a deferral that creates a lien: California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 27 record no lien. Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Tennessee carry an answer that is neither, and the lookup prints their own words instead of a yes or a no.

Michigan is the exception worth knowing: its deferment is a due-date extension, not a charge on the home. Everywhere else on the Yes list, the tax accrues, and the heirs inherit the debt with the property. How deferral liens work sets out the mechanics.

Every jurisdiction, without the lookup

The same rows the lookup reads. Lowest age bar is the youngest age any of that jurisdiction’s programmes opens at; lowest income ceiling is the lowest single figure it publishes, and a dash means there is no statewide figure to clear.

Where every figure comes from

Each row is read from that jurisdiction’s own page on this site, which cites the state revenue department, comptroller, constitution or statute it was taken from and the date it was read. The lookup carries both links for every state: the page, and the state’s own source. 33 of the 51 rows carry a machine-readable age and income clause; the other 18 were read one at a time from the state’s own page and quote it word for word. Nothing here was summarised into a cell: every clause the lookup shows you is the clause the page itself publishes.

Thresholds move every year. Each figure carries the year its state published it. Confirm the current one with your county or your state before you budget around it. This is general information, not tax advice.

Compare all states in one table: property-tax relief for seniors by state. What the programme types mean: freeze vs exemption vs circuit-breaker. The question this lookup answers the long way: at what age do you stop paying property taxes. And if the bill itself looks wrong: property tax appeal deadlines.