Michigan
Property tax terms
What the property tax words on this site mean in Michigan, in plain terms, each with the law or report it rests on.
The terms, in the order they build on each other
- Mill
- One dollar of tax for every $1,000 of taxable value. A total of 30 mills on a taxable value of $150,000 is $4,500 a year. Kent County prints its rates per $1,000 of taxable value.
- Source: 2025 Certified Property Tax Rates
- Levy (millage)
- One property tax charged by one public body, in mills: the State, the county, a school district, a city or township, a library and so on. A tax area's total rate is the sum of every levy charged in it.
- Source: 2025 Certified Property Tax Rates
- Tax area
- The site's name for one city, village or township together with one school district: everywhere in it pays the same total rate. A township that lies in two school districts has two tax areas; a village also pays its township's levies.
- Source: 2025 Certified Property Tax Rates
- True cash value
- What a property would usually sell for: in the law's words, its usual selling price at private sale.
- Source: MCL 211.27: true cash value
- Assessed value and state equalized value (SEV)
- Michigan assesses property at half its true cash value. The state equalized value is that assessment, and so is also meant to be half of what the property would sell for.
- Source: MCL 211.27a: assessment at 50% of true cash value, taxable value, and transfer of ownership
- Taxable value
- The value the mills are charged on. Each year it is the lesser of last year's taxable value raised by 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less (plus any additions), and the current state equalized value. So it can fall well below half the market value when a home is held for years.
- Source: MCL 211.27a: assessment at 50% of true cash value, taxable value, and transfer of ownership
- Uncapping
- In the year after a property sells, its taxable value resets to its state equalized value. The site's new-buyer estimate rests on this.
- Source: MCL 211.27a: assessment at 50% of true cash value, taxable value, and transfer of ownership
- Principal residence exemption (homestead)
- A home its owner lives in is exempt from the school operating tax if the owner claims the exemption. The site calls these primary homes.
- Source: MCL 211.7cc: principal residence exemption
- School operating tax
- Up to 18 mills a school district levies for operating costs. Primary homes, qualified farmland and forest land, supportive housing, property a charter school occupies and industrial equipment are exempt from it.
- Source: MCL 380.1211: school operating millage
- Homestead and non-homestead rates
- The homestead rate is a tax area's total without the school operating tax: primary homes and the other exempt property pay it. The non-homestead rate includes that tax: rentals, second homes and most businesses pay it.
- Source: MCL 380.1211: school operating millage
- Summer and winter bills
- Kent County's certified rates split each tax area's total between a summer tax bill and a winter tax bill. A government's page shows each area's split.
- Source: 2025 Certified Property Tax Rates