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In Arizona you can only appeal a value your tax isn’t calculated on.
An appeal cannot realistically help most owners here. Arizona taxes the limited property value, which climbs on its own schedule, while the appeal process targets the full cash value. Winning on the number you’re allowed to appeal doesn’t move the number you’re billed on.
So Arizona decides these on market value, which means the evidence is recent sales of genuinely comparable homes. What really matters is whether that whole set of sales sits below your assessed value. If they bracket your assessment instead of falling under it, boards usually side with the assessor, because nothing's been clearly disproved.
Now a few things lose almost everywhere. Comparing your assessment to a neighbor's assessment usually doesn't count where the argument's market value. One sale on its own can pretty easily be dismissed as an outlier. And the size of your increase, or the size of your bill, isn't really evidence about what your home's worth.
60 days from the notice, usually late February to April. Tax Court fallback runs to December 15.
Miss it and you generally wait a year, so honestly the date matters more than the paperwork does.
And wherever you are, the single most useful thing you can actually do today is go find your assessment notice and read the date printed on it. That's what starts your clock, it's usually a much shorter window than people expect, and there's no getting it back once it's gone.
First, look up your own record. Your county assessor's Notice of Valuation shows two values. Full cash value is what they think your home's worth. Limited property value is what you're actually taxed on, and it can only rise 5 percent a year, so for most homes it's well below the full cash value.
Next, know where to file. You file a petition for review with the county assessor within 60 days of the date on your notice. If the assessor says no, you can appeal to the County Board of Equalization or to Tax Court within the deadline printed on the assessor's decision.
Then bring the evidence that wins here. Honestly, here's the catch. An appeal lowers your full cash value, but your bill's calculated on the limited value, so unless the market value falls below the limited value, winning doesn't change your bill.
Also, check your exemptions. If you're 65 or older and under the income limit, the senior valuation protection option freezes your home's limited value for three years at a time. It doesn't freeze tax rates, and you apply with your county assessor, usually by September 1.
Honestly, probably nothing. We'd rather tell you that than sell you a packet that can't work. If you want to be certain, pull your own assessment notice and look at whether the value you're taxed on is anywhere close to what your home would actually sell for. Where the two are far apart because of a cap, an appeal on the market value doesn't reach your bill.
But if the rules in Arizona change we'll notice, because we re-screen the states we've turned down.
Here's the check you can run yourself in about five minutes, and it works anywhere. Pull your assessment notice and find two numbers on it. One is the market value the assessor believes your home is worth. The other is the value your tax bill is actually calculated on. In a state with a cap, those two drift apart over the years, and that gap is exactly why an appeal against the first number never reaches the second one.
If the two numbers are the same, or close to it, then a cap is not your problem and our answer here may be wrong for your situation. Please write and tell us if so, because we would rather fix a page than keep telling somebody the wrong thing.
We've screened all fifty states and DC on the same two questions. Does winning a lower market value actually lower your bill, or is there a cap sitting in between? And can you even put the evidence together from public records?
This comes from our own fifty-state screen, where we checked each state's cap, whether sale prices are public, whether there's an argument based on assessed values, and how many appeals actually get filed. Where we've quoted an appeal count, it's from the state or county that published it. If you spot an error, please write to hello@propertytaxbuddy.com and we'll correct it and say what changed.