What Your Michigan Property Taxes Become After Buying

If you are comparing Michigan listings, the property tax on the listing page is the seller's tax, and it is often much lower than the one you will pay. Michigan is one of the few states where a sale changes the taxable value, so the current bill is a poor guide to the next one.

General information about how Michigan property tax works, not tax or legal advice. Rates, exemptions and the rules for what counts as a transfer change; confirm the figures for a specific parcel with the local assessor.

Three numbers on a Michigan assessment

State Equalized Value (SEV). The Michigan Constitution sets assessments at 50% of true cash value, roughly market value. A home worth $300,000 has an SEV near $150,000.
Taxable value. The number the tax rate is actually applied to. Since Proposal A (1994), while the same owner holds a home, its taxable value can rise each year by no more than the lesser of 5% or inflation, even if the market value rises faster. Taxable value can never exceed SEV.
The millage rate. Taxes are quoted in mills: dollars per $1,000 of taxable value. The bill is taxable value ÷ 1,000 × the mills.

What a sale does

When a home sells (a "transfer of ownership"), the cap resets: taxable value goes back up to the SEV. The reset applies from the tax year after the sale, so the first bill you receive can still be the seller's, and the one after it is not. Some transfers, such as between spouses, are not treated as a sale for this purpose; ask the assessor about yours.

That makes the gap between taxable value and SEV the number to look for. A family that bought in 2005 and has held the home ever since may have a taxable value far below half of today's market value; the bill you inherit is on the new, higher figure.

Worked example

Take a $300,000 purchase, SEV $150,000, in Warren (Macomb County). The Treasury's published 2025 rates for the city of Warren run from 51.20 to 62.25 mills for an owner-occupied home depending on the school district, with a median of 53.07:

Taxable value after the sale: $150,000.
Bill at the median rate: $150,000 ÷ 1,000 × 53.07 = about $7,960 a year.
If the seller's taxable value had been capped at, say, $90,000, the seller's bill at the same rate was about $4,780. The buyer's bill is about two-thirds higher with no change in the tax rate.

The $90,000 is an illustration. Look up the parcel's actual taxable value and SEV from the assessor's record, or run an address through the analyzer, which projects the post-sale bill from them.

Owner-occupied versus everything else

A home that is your principal residence can claim the Principal Residence Exemption, which removes most of the school operating tax (up to 18 mills). Michigan's published rate tables list the two separately, called the homestead and non-homestead rate. In Warren the median non-homestead rate is 70.58 mills against 53.07 for an owner-occupant, about a third higher. A landlord, a second-home buyer or an investor pays the higher figure, and an owner must file for the exemption with the local assessor; it does not apply automatically.

Where to look

City pages list the published rate range for the city across its school districts: see Michigan city property data, for example Warren, Troy and Detroit.
County pages put every city, village and township in a county side by side: Oakland County, Macomb County and Wayne County.
Calculator: the Michigan tax-after-sale calculator does the arithmetic above for your numbers.

What can still change the number

Millage rates change every year with voter-approved levies. Some places have additional special assessments that are not in the millage table. Disability, veteran and other exemptions belong to the current owner. The figures here are estimates for planning, and the assessor's current record is the source for any particular parcel.

Sources: Michigan Constitution art. IX, sec. 3 (assessment at 50% of true cash value); Proposal A (1994) and the transfer-of-ownership rule in the General Property Tax Act; the Michigan Department of Treasury's "Total Property Tax Rates in Michigan" report (2025), the table behind every rate quoted here.