Home / Missouri
Missouri works in four jurisdictions and nowhere else.
Works for some owners here, not all. The state is non-disclosure, so sale prices are private, except that St. Louis County, St. Louis City, St. Charles County and Jackson County have local disclosure ordinances. Those four are the workable market. Demand there’s real: Jackson County drew more than 50,000 appeals in 2023, 8,400 were still unresolved a year later, and the state auditor found the process violated law.
So Missouri 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.
County boards close in July. The State Tax Commission accepts appeals to September 30.
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 website shows your home's market value, and Missouri taxes homes at 19 percent of it. Counties reassess in odd-numbered years, so you'll usually get a notice in the spring of 2027, 2029 and so on.
Next, know where to file. Start with an informal meeting with your assessor, where a lot of disagreements get settled. The formal appeal goes to your county Board of Equalization by the second Monday in July. If you lose there, you can appeal to the State Tax Commission by September 30 or within 30 days of the board's decision, whichever's later. The Commission accepts filings online.
Then bring the evidence that wins here. Missouri decides these on market value. Sale prices are private in most of the state, but St. Louis County, St. Louis City, St. Charles County and Jackson County publish them, so it's much easier to build a case there.
Also, check your exemptions. Missouri doesn't have a general homestead exemption, but it's worth knowing that if you're 65 or older, or disabled, and under the income limit, the state's property tax credit can give some of your taxes back. Some counties also offer a senior tax freeze.
We only turn a state on once we've read its appeal rules and its actual board decisions, because that's how we make sure what we tell you is right and not generic. It takes a few days per state, and honestly it's the reason our answers are worth anything.
In the meantime our free check runs in parts of Illinois, Washington, Ohio, Georgia, Colorado, North Carolina and Oregon, and in every town in New Jersey. If you leave your email on the check page, we'll write to you the day Missouri goes live, and we won't email you before that.
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.