When are property taxes due in Salt Lake County?

Property taxes in Salt Lake County are due November 30. The notice showing what you owe arrives around the third week of October (Utah State Tax Commission; Salt Lake County Treasurer, checked October 21, 2026). If the thirtieth falls on a weekend, payment moves to the next business day.

The more useful thing to know is that by the time the bill lands, the part you could have argued with is already closed. Those are two different deadlines, months apart, and almost everyone learns that in the wrong order.

The Utah property tax year, in order

When	What happens
January 1	The lien date. Your home is valued as of this day, not as of today. Construction in progress is valued at its stage of completion on January 1
By about July 22	Valuation notices are mailed. This is the one that tells you what the county thinks your house is worth
August	Truth in Taxation hearings, where an entity proposing to collect more total revenue than last year has to say so publicly
September 15, or 45 days after the notice was mailed, whichever is later	The deadline to appeal your valuation to the county Board of Equalization
About the third week of October	Tax notices mailed. This is the bill
November 30	Payment due

Source for the calendar: Utah State Tax Commission, with county dates from the Salt Lake County Treasurer and Assessor, checked October 21, 2026.

Read the July and September rows together. The valuation notice in summer is the document that decides your bill, and the appeal window closes in September. The October bill is just arithmetic applied to a number that was settled weeks earlier.

What you can and cannot appeal

You can appeal the market value the county assigned to your home. You cannot appeal the rate. Rates are set by the taxing entities through their own public process, which is what the August Truth in Taxation hearings are for.

So the question at appeal is narrow and factual: was the county’s value of your home, as of January 1, accurate. Evidence is comparable sales from around that date, not from today, and not from the peak of whatever the market did since.

There is a limited late-appeal path for hardship, generally running to March 31, but treat it as an exception rather than a plan.

How to appeal your valuation in Salt Lake County walks through the mechanics if you want to be ready for next summer.

The exemption that quietly doubles a bill

Utah gives owner-occupied homes a primary residential exemption of 45 percent, which means you are taxed on 55 percent of market value rather than all of it (Utah Code 59-2-103). A primary residence is one occupied for at least 183 consecutive days in the year.

Here is where new owners get caught. In Salt Lake County, when a property changes hands the new owner receives a residential declaration, the PT-19A. If it is not completed within 30 days of mailing, the county removes the exemption. Getting it back requires reapplying with evidence, such as a driver license or voter registration. The county accepts the filing online through the assessor’s office.

What I actually see is a buyer who closed in spring, never opened an official-looking envelope in a stack of moving paperwork, and gets a bill in October that is far larger than the figure they budgeted from the seller’s old taxes. That is not a mistake in the bill. That is a missing exemption.

If you bought this year, check that form before November 30 rather than after.

Why your bill is not the seller’s old bill

Three reasons people are surprised, and none of them is an error.

The value resets every year. Utah has no equivalent of a cap that freezes your assessment at what you paid. Every home is valued at market value each January 1.

The exemption may have lapsed, as above.

The entities changed their rates or passed a bond. That is decided locally and publicly, and August is when it happens. Why a Herriman property tax bill goes up covers the local version of this in more detail.

I will not quote a rate or a dollar figure here, because they vary by entity and by parcel and anything I wrote would be wrong for most readers. Your notice carries your own numbers, and the county is the authority on them.

If you pay through escrow

Most owners with a mortgage never see November 30 as a deadline, because the servicer pays it from escrow. Two things still matter.

Your escrow account is funded from an estimate. When your valuation rises, or an exemption lapses, the escrow shortfall shows up as a payment increase the following year, usually with a catch-up amount attached. That is the single most common reason a mortgage payment jumps without the rate changing.

And the servicer paying it does not mean the servicer checked it. The exemption is your responsibility, not theirs.

Paying it, and what happens if you do not

Salt Lake County takes payment online, by mail and in person, and the postmark rules matter if you are mailing it close to the deadline. Pay early enough that you are not relying on one.

A late payment accrues a penalty, and the penalty is applied to the unpaid balance rather than being a flat administrative fee. Past a certain point unpaid taxes become a lien that follows the property, which is one of the reasons a title company checks them before any sale closes. In practice that means an unpaid tax bill surfaces at the least convenient moment, usually when you are trying to sell.

If the amount is genuinely unaffordable in a given year, call the Treasurer rather than ignoring the notice. There are hardship and deferral programs, and seniors in particular have options worth asking about. None of them apply automatically and all of them have their own deadlines.

What to do next

Three things, in order of how much they save you.

1. If you bought this year, confirm your primary residential exemption is on the parcel. Call the Salt Lake County Assessor or check online. This is worth more than anything else on this page.
2. Open the October notice when it arrives and read the value, not just the amount due.
3. Put a reminder in July, when the valuation notice comes, because that is when you can actually do something about the number.

I am Kelsey Earl, a Realtor with Keller Williams South Valley and this is one of the few pieces of homeowner housekeeping that is genuinely worth a phone call. If you bought recently and are not sure where you stand, send me the address and I will tell you what to check.

Note: Dates and exemption rules here come from the Utah State Tax Commission, Utah Code 59-2-103, and Salt Lake County, checked October 21, 2026. Deadlines and county procedures change. Confirm with the county before relying on any of it, and talk to a tax professional about your own situation.