Shreveport apartment property taxes start with a simple rule: under the Louisiana Constitution, the land and the residential improvements of an apartment building are each assessed at 10% of fair market value, and that assessed value is multiplied by the millage rates of every taxing body that covers the property. What makes the bill move from year to year is how the Caddo Parish Assessor sets market value, how often the parish reappraises, and whether local taxing bodies roll their millage forward after a reappraisal.
This guide walks through each of those steps for owners of rental buildings inside Shreveport, using the state constitution, Louisiana Tax Commission rules, the Caddo Parish Assessor and the Caddo Parish Sheriff as sources. It also covers two changes that many owners have not caught up with: Louisiana’s switch from tax sales to tax lien auctions, and a 2026 bill that would stretch the reappraisal cycle.
Shreveport at a glance: who rents and who sends the bill
Shreveport is the seat of Caddo Parish and the largest city in northwest Louisiana. The Census Bureau’s QuickFacts profile for Shreveport shows 187,593 residents in the 2020 Census and an estimated 175,902 on July 1, 2025, so the city has lost population since the last count. In the 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey period, the owner-occupied housing rate was 53.3%, which means a little under half of the city’s households rent. Median gross rent over the same period was $987.
Those numbers matter for taxes in an indirect way. In a city where rents are moderate and population is not growing, property taxes are one of the largest controllable lines in an apartment budget, and an increase is harder to pass through to tenants than it would be in a fast-growing market. Understanding exactly how the bill is built is the first step to keeping it accurate.
One practical detail surprises new owners: a Shreveport apartment building usually receives two tax bills. The Caddo Parish Sheriff, acting as the parish tax collector, collects the parish-wide taxes, while the City of Shreveport’s Finance Department bills and collects city taxes and, for downtown properties, the Downtown Development Authority tax. Both are based on the same assessed value set by the assessor.
How Louisiana assessment ratios apply to apartment buildings
Article VII, Section 18 of the Louisiana Constitution fixes the assessment ratios statewide. Land is assessed at 10% of fair market value. Improvements for residential purposes are assessed at 10%. Other property, which includes commercial improvements and business personal property, is assessed at 15%. Public service property is assessed at 25%.
The key question for apartment owners is whether a multifamily building counts as a residential improvement or a commercial one. The Caddo Parish Assessor’s FAQ answers it directly: it lists “residential improvements (including apartments)” at 10%, and commercial improvements and business movable property at 15%. So for a typical Shreveport apartment complex, both the land and the buildings sit in the 10% class.
Furniture, fixtures and equipment
The 15% class still reaches apartment owners through business movable property. Items such as furniture in furnished units, leasing-office equipment, laundry machines the owner operates and maintenance equipment are the kind of movables that fall in the business personal property category. Owners who report movables should keep a clean fixed-asset list so that items are not double counted as part of the building and as separate movables.
Why the ratio matters less than the value
Because the ratio is fixed by the constitution, it is not negotiable. A $1,000,000 market value always becomes a $100,000 assessed value for land and residential improvements. The variable that owners can actually influence is the market value the assessor assigns, which is why the rest of this guide spends more time on valuation and appeals than on the ratio itself.
How the Caddo assessor values income-producing property
Louisiana assessors are required to value property at fair market value, and the Caddo Parish Assessor’s FAQ explains that rental and income-producing property is valued partly by the income approach. In the assessor’s own words, the office “must consider operating expenses, taxes, insurance, maintenance costs.” In practice that means net operating income and a capitalization rate drive the value of an apartment building more than the cost of the bricks.
Two timing rules are worth knowing:
- Improvements are valued on the condition of things existing on January 1 of each year, according to Louisiana Tax Commission rules (LAC 61:V.303). A building that was half-renovated on January 1 is valued in that state for the year.
- In a reappraisal cycle, values are fixed to a single date. For the current cycle, the commission’s rule states that beginning in tax year 2024, all real property is valued as of January 1, 2023.
The second point is useful for owners who bought after early 2023. A purchase price agreed in 2025 or 2026 is not automatically the assessed market value, because the assessor is supposed to be measuring value as of the January 1, 2023 reappraisal date until the next cycle.
A separate rule for rent-restricted housing
The same Tax Commission rule includes a section for affordable rental housing whose rents are limited by recorded covenants, such as tax credit properties. For those buildings, the rule says the income approach “is recommended,” and that where another method produces a value that differs from the income approach by more than 10%, the income approach is “strongly recommended.” Owners of restricted properties must supply audited financial statements to the assessor by June 15 each year. This rule applies to restricted affordable housing, not to market-rate apartments, but it shows how central income is to Louisiana’s approach to rental property.
The four-year reappraisal cycle and what 2028 could bring
Article VII, Section 18 requires every parish to reappraise all property “at intervals of not more than four years.” Caddo Parish reappraised in 2020 and again in 2024, and the next reappraisal is scheduled for 2028, according to former Assessor Charles Henington’s comments to the Shreveport-Bossier Advocate in September 2024.
In that same interview, Henington said values “went up across the board” in Caddo in 2024, with downtown the exception. For apartment owners, that pattern means most buildings outside the central business district saw higher assessed values in the 2024 cycle, while downtown owners may have seen flat or lower values.
The parish now has a new assessor. Dr. Regina Webb took office in January 2025, becoming the first Black assessor in Caddo Parish, as KSLA reported. The 2028 reappraisal will be the first full cycle under her administration.
A proposed change to the cycle
During the 2026 legislative session, House Bill 340 proposed stretching Louisiana’s reappraisal cycle from four years to five. The Caddo Parish Commission adopted Resolution 25 of 2026 opposing the bill. The legislature’s bill record shows it was considered in the House Ways and Means Committee on March 17, 2026. Owners planning around the 2028 date should keep an eye on whether any version of this change moves forward in future sessions, because a longer cycle would lengthen the time values stay fixed between reappraisals.
Millage: turning assessed value into Shreveport apartment property taxes
Once the assessor sets an assessed value, the tax is calculated by applying millage. One mill equals $1 of tax for every $1,000 of assessed value. A Shreveport apartment building is subject to millage from several taxing bodies at once, including the parish-wide school tax, the sheriff’s law enforcement district, the parish library, public works, jail facilities, courthouse maintenance, the Caddo-Bossier Port Commission, the Red River Waterway, public health, juvenile court, the biomedical district and the assessment district, along with the City of Shreveport itself.
The Caddo Parish Assessor publishes each year’s schedule on its millage rates page. For 2025, the schedule lists the City of Shreveport at 28.318 mills and the Downtown Development District at 9.040 mills, the latter applying only to properties inside that district. Owners should read the full current-year schedule for their exact tax district rather than relying on a single headline rate, since the parish-wide components are added to the city rate.
A worked example
Take a hypothetical building with a market value of $1,000,000. At the 10% ratio its assessed value is $100,000. Every 10 mills applied to that assessed value produces $1,000 of tax. The City of Shreveport’s 2025 rate of 28.318 mills alone would therefore produce $2,831.80 on that building, and the parish-wide millages are added on top. The arithmetic is simple, which is why an error in market value flows straight through to the bill.
Rollbacks, roll-forwards and the 2024 votes
Louisiana’s constitution includes a guard against reappraisal windfalls. Under Article VII, Section 23, after a reappraisal each taxing body must adjust its millage so that total collections do not rise simply because values went up. That is the rollback.
A taxing body can then roll forward, raising millage back up to no more than its prior maximum, but only by a two-thirds vote of its members after a public hearing and published notice. Because each body votes separately, the outcome after any reappraisal depends on a series of local decisions.
After the 2024 reappraisal, those decisions went the owners’ way. The Shreveport-Bossier Advocate reported in September 2024 that the City of Shreveport, the Caddo school board and the Downtown Development Authority did not roll forward. On November 12, 2024, the Caddo Parish Commission adopted adjusted rates after a roll-forward motion received six votes, short of the eight required.
For apartment owners, this has a direct consequence. A higher 2024 assessed value did not necessarily mean a proportionally higher tax bill, because millage was rolled back. Anyone comparing a building’s tax history across 2023 and 2024 should look at both the value change and the millage change before concluding whether the property is over-assessed.
The open roll and the appeal ladder
Louisiana gives owners a short window each year to review assessments. Under Louisiana Tax Commission rules (LAC 61:V.3101), each parish must open its assessment lists for public inspection for 15 days during the period between August 15 and September 15. The Caddo Parish Assessor’s FAQ describes its open-roll period as falling in the last part of August and the first part of September, and notes that a protest cannot be filed once the December tax bill arrives.
In 2025, Caddo’s published notice required written appeals by 5:00 p.m. on September 5, 2025, for a Board of Review hearing on September 12, 2025, with value evidence due to the assessor before the filing deadline. The dates change each year, so owners should check the notice when it is published.
The appeal path runs in order:
- First, an informal review with the assessor’s office during the open-roll period, where an owner can present rent rolls, operating statements and comparable sales.
- Second, a written appeal to the Board of Review, which in Caddo is the Parish Commission sitting in that role.
- Third, an appeal to the Louisiana Tax Commission, which must be filed within 30 calendar days of the Board of Review’s written decision under LAC 61:V.3103.
- Finally, a suit in district court within thirty days of the Tax Commission’s final decision, with the taxes paid under protest as required by R.S. 47:1998.
The most effective evidence for an apartment building is usually the same evidence a buyer would use: trailing operating statements, a current rent roll, vacancy history and documented capital needs. Because the assessor considers expenses, insurance and maintenance under the income approach, an owner whose actual numbers diverge from market assumptions has a concrete case to make.
Bills, deadlines and the new tax lien system
The Caddo Parish Sheriff’s property tax FAQ states that “The Sheriff is responsible for the collection of Caddo Parish property taxes.” Notices are mailed in mid to late November, and taxes are due on or before December 31. After that date the sheriff charges interest of 1% per month plus a 10% collection fee. City of Shreveport taxes follow the city’s own billing through its Finance Department.
The bigger change is what happens when taxes go unpaid. On December 7, 2024, Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment, Amendment 4, by 54.59% to 45.41%, reworking tax sales. Under the new system that took effect in 2026, what is auctioned is the tax lien, not the property itself, and the owner keeps a redemption period to pay off the debt. Caddo’s online tax lien auction was scheduled for June 30, 2026, and liens that receive no bid go to the parish.
Owners who learned the old tax sale and adjudication rules should treat that knowledge as outdated. For buyers, the change also means title work on a Shreveport building should look for any recorded tax liens and their redemption status, not just for past tax sales.
A broader overhaul of Louisiana’s tax system did not happen. On March 29, 2025, voters rejected all four constitutional amendments on that ballot, including the governor’s tax and budget package, so the assessment rules described here for apartments were not changed.
Exemptions rental owners do not get
Louisiana’s best-known property tax break, the homestead exemption, does not apply to apartment buildings. Article VII, Section 20 exempts $7,500 of assessed value on a “bona fide homestead” that is owned and occupied by the owner, and the exemption does not apply to municipal taxes outside Orleans Parish. The Caddo assessor states plainly that “you must own and occupy your residence.” A rental apartment building does not qualify.
The practical effect is that rental property in Shreveport carries the full assessed value into every millage, while many owner-occupied homes nearby pay on a reduced base. That is one reason the effective tax rate on an apartment building can be higher than on a neighboring owner-occupied home of similar value.
What this means for Shreveport owners
The mechanics above translate into a short list of habits that keep an apartment tax bill accurate:
- Read the assessment notice and the open-roll dates every August. Once the December bill arrives, the chance to protest that year’s value is gone.
- Keep operating statements organized by calendar year and ready to share. The income approach rewards owners who can document real expenses, insurance costs and vacancy.
- When underwriting a purchase, model taxes on the assessor’s likely market value rather than the seller’s current bill, and remember that the next reappraisal is scheduled for 2028.
- Check both bills. Parish taxes come from the sheriff, city taxes from the City of Shreveport, and downtown properties carry the Downtown Development District millage as well.
- Watch roll-forward votes after each reappraisal. A rollback can offset a value increase, but only if each taxing body declines to roll forward.
- Confirm there are no outstanding tax liens under the post-2026 auction system before closing on any building.
Taxes are one input in a building’s net operating income, and small errors in the assessed value compound when a building is valued on that income. For a comparison of how Louisiana’s rules stack up against other states, see our state-by-state rent control and property tax guide. Owners weighing a sale can review our Shreveport market page, and those comparing parishes can browse other Louisiana apartment markets.
