A Montpelier apartment property tax bill is the product of two separate systems: the City of Montpelier sets the assessed value and the municipal rate, while the State of Vermont sets the education tax that makes up more than half of the bill. Because rental apartments are classified as nonhomestead property, they pay the state’s nonhomestead education rate, adjusted for how closely Montpelier’s assessments track market value, plus the city’s own municipal and benefit charges.
Montpelier is Vermont’s capital and the county seat of Washington County, but county government plays almost no role in property taxation here. Vermont has no county assessor. Each city and town lists property itself, and the state handles the education side. The rates and dates below are for fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2027, which in Montpelier runs from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027. They change every year, so treat them as a snapshot rather than a permanent figure.
Who values an apartment building in Montpelier
Under Vermont law, real estate is listed by the town or city in which it sits. Title 32, section 3651 of the Vermont Statutes, says taxable real estate is set in the list to its owner or possessor on April 1 of each year. In Montpelier, that work is done by the City Assessor’s office, which maintains the grand list, the official roll of every taxable parcel and its listed value.
Two consequences follow for apartment owners:
- The April 1 status of a building drives the whole year’s bill. A building that changes hands in May is still billed on the value and classification set as of April 1.
- Listed value is supposed to reflect fair market value, but between full reappraisals it drifts. That drift is what the state’s equalization study measures, and it feeds directly into the education rate described below.
For an apartment building, the assessor typically relies on sales of comparable multifamily properties, physical characteristics such as unit count, square footage, condition and lot size, and, where data supports it, income. Owners who keep good records of rents and expenses are in a much stronger position if they ever need to challenge a value.
Why rental units are nonhomestead
Vermont splits property into homestead and nonhomestead categories for the education tax. A homestead is the principal dwelling an owner lives in and declares each year. Everything else, including second homes, commercial property and rental housing, is nonhomestead.
The Vermont Department of Taxes is explicit about mixed-use buildings. On its guidance on types of property use, the department says that if any part of the dwelling is a rental, the percentage that is rented must be reported, that there is no 25% allowance for rentals, and that the rented portion is treated as nonhomestead. In practice:
- A five-unit building with no owner in residence is 100% nonhomestead.
- An owner who lives in one unit of a duplex can declare that unit as homestead, while the rented unit is nonhomestead.
- An owner who lives in one unit of a triplex or fourplex reports the rented share, and that share pays the nonhomestead rate.
Because the nonhomestead rate is higher than the homestead rate in Montpelier, the declared split has a direct effect on the bill.
How Vermont’s education rate reaches a Montpelier bill
The education portion starts with a single statewide nonhomestead rate set by the Legislature. For fiscal year 2026, Act 24 of 2025 set it at $1.703 per $100 of equalized education property value. For fiscal year 2027, Act 169 of 2026 lowered the statewide nonhomestead rate to $1.643 per $100.
That statewide figure is then adjusted for each municipality’s common level of appraisal, or CLA. The CLA compares a town’s listed values with what properties actually sell for. A CLA below 100% means listed values are below market, so the rate is increased to compensate. A CLA above 100% means values are listed high, so the rate is reduced.
Since the 2025–26 tax year, Vermont has added a second factor. Act 183 of 2024 created a Statewide Adjustment, which the Department of Taxes describes on its explanation of the CLA and Statewide Adjustment as the average level of appraisal across the whole state. A town’s rate is now based on its CLA divided by the Statewide Adjustment, so towns are compared with the state average rather than with a fixed 100%.
Montpelier’s FY2027 education numbers
The Department of Taxes’ education property tax rate table for fiscal year 2027 lists, for Montpelier:
- A CLA of 85.99%.
- A Statewide Adjustment of 70.33%.
- A CLA-to-adjustment ratio of 1.2227.
- A nonhomestead education rate of $1.3437 per $100 of assessed value.
- A homestead education rate of $1.2385 per $100.
The arithmetic checks out: $1.643 multiplied by 0.7033 and divided by 0.8599 gives roughly $1.3437. Montpelier’s listed values sit closer to market than the state average does, so its local education rate is lower than the headline statewide figure.
The full Montpelier apartment property tax rate stack
The city publishes a comparison of each component of the bill. Its FY27 tax rate comparison shows the following per $100 of assessed value:
- Municipal, county and veterans rate: $0.9788 in FY26, rising to $1.0522 in FY27.
- Nonhomestead education rate: $1.3334 in FY26 and $1.3437 in FY27.
- Benefit charges for water and sewer infrastructure ($0.02) and the combined sewer overflow project ($0.07): $0.09 in both years.
- Total nonhomestead rate: $2.402 in FY26 and $2.486 in FY27.
- Total nonhomestead rate inside the Downtown Improvement District, which adds $0.0515: $2.4537 in FY26 and $2.5374 in FY27.
- For comparison, the total homestead rate: $2.330 in FY26 and $2.381 in FY27.
Local reporting in the Times Argus in July 2026 put the change in the nonhomestead rate at 8.4 cents, or about 3.5%, year over year. Most of that increase came from the municipal side rather than education.
A worked example
Consider a 10-unit building on the grand list at $1,000,000, outside the Downtown Improvement District:
- FY26 bill: $1,000,000 ÷ 100 × $2.402 = $24,020.
- FY27 bill: $1,000,000 ÷ 100 × $2.486 = $24,860, an increase of $840.
- That works out to about $2,486 per unit per year, or a little over $207 per unit per month.
- The same building inside the Downtown Improvement District would pay $25,374 in FY27.
Because Montpelier bills quarterly, the FY27 bill on that building would be four installments of $6,215. Owners modelling a purchase can run these figures through our NOI calculator to see how property tax compares with other expense lines.
The 2023 reappraisal and what comes next
Montpelier completed a citywide reappraisal for the 2023 grand list, the first full revaluation since 2010, carried out by New England Municipal Consultants after the city’s CLA fell out of range. The reset had a dramatic effect on rates. The city’s own comparison shows the total nonhomestead rate falling from $3.165 in FY23 to $2.208 in FY24, because listed values rose to meet the market and the rate needed to raise the same revenue fell accordingly.
That episode is a useful reminder that a falling rate does not mean a falling bill. When values jump in a reappraisal, an apartment building whose value rose faster than the city average can see a higher bill even at a much lower rate. Buildings that had been under-assessed relative to their income tend to feel this most.
Vermont is tightening the reappraisal schedule. Under Act 68, as described in the Department of Taxes’ 2026 Property Valuation and Review annual report, full reappraisals are required every six years starting January 1, 2025, and a town must keep its coefficient of dispersion, a measure of how uniform assessments are, at or below 20%. On a six-year cycle, a city last reappraised for the 2023 grand list would be due again around 2029, though Montpelier has not published a firm date and Act 73 may change who does the work.
Act 73 and future property classes
Act 73 of 2025, Vermont’s education finance overhaul, adds further change. According to the legislative summary of Act 73, it creates a contingent nonhomestead residential class effective July 1, 2028, which is repealed if the Legislature has not set a rate multiplier by then. It also shifts full reappraisals to regional assessment districts as of January 1, 2029, again on a contingent basis. A Department of Taxes presentation to the Senate Finance Committee in January 2026 said long-term rentals are intended to be excluded from the nonhomestead residential class and would sit in the nonresidential class. Owners should watch how those classes are finalized, because the multiplier attached to each class will determine whether apartment buildings pay more or less relative to second homes.
The Montpelier tax calendar
Timing matters as much as the rate. According to the city’s property tax information page:
- Installments are due quarterly on August 15, November 15, February 15 and May 15.
- A 5% penalty applies to payments made within five business days after a due date, rising to 8% after that.
- Interest runs at 1% per month for the first three months and 1.5% per month after that.
The city charter requires the Treasurer to mail tax bills at least 30 days before the first installment is due.
On the assessment side, the state’s default schedule in 32 V.S.A. § 4111 and § 4151 runs roughly as follows: the abstract of the grand list is lodged on or before May 5, change-of-appraisal notices go out at least 14 days before the grievance hearing, grievance hearings are held on or before May 20 unless the date is extended, and the final grand list is lodged on or before June 25. Montpelier can and sometimes does use extended dates, so owners should read the date on their change-of-appraisal notice rather than relying on the default calendar.
How to challenge an assessment
Vermont gives owners a three-step appeal path, each with a short deadline:
- Grievance with the assessor or listers. A written grievance must be filed at or before the time set for the grievance hearing, under 32 V.S.A. § 4222.
- Board of Civil Authority. If the owner disagrees with the assessor’s decision, the appeal goes to the city’s Board of Civil Authority within 14 days after notice of the decision, under 32 V.S.A. § 4404.
- State appraiser or Superior Court. A further appeal can go to the Director of Property Valuation and Review, whose hearing officer acts as the state appraiser, or to Superior Court, within 30 days after the Board’s decision, under § 4461.
For an apartment building, the most persuasive evidence is usually recent sales of comparable multifamily properties in Montpelier and nearby towns, together with actual rent rolls and operating statements. Missing the first grievance deadline generally closes the door for that year, so the change-of-appraisal notice is worth opening the day it arrives.
Landlord filings and other local taxes
Two state requirements sit alongside the property tax bill for Montpelier landlords.
First, the Landlord Certificate. According to the Department of Taxes’ landlord page, owners must file Form LRC-140 with the department by January 31 each year for each property with one or more rented units. Landlords with more than five tenants must file electronically through myVTax, and the department notes that non-filers may be fined, with interest. Tenants no longer need a paper copy. The certificate supports Vermont’s renter credit, which Act 169 of 2026 raised to a maximum of $3,250 for claim year 2027. That credit offsets part of the property tax embedded in rent for lower- and moderate-income tenants, which indirectly supports rent collections in older buildings.
Second, local option taxes. Montpelier levies 1% local option taxes on meals, rooms and alcohol, in place since October 2016, and a 1% local option sales tax that took effect in July 2025. These do not appear on a property tax bill, but they raise revenue for the city that would otherwise have to come from property owners.
The 2023 flood and abatements
The July 2023 flood hit downtown Montpelier hard. In February 2024, Vermont enacted S.160, which allowed towns to be reimbursed for education taxes they abated on property damaged by the July 1 to October 15, 2023 flooding, provided the damage met one of several tests, such as at least a 50% loss of value, 60 or more days without use or utilities, or condemnation. Owners of affected buildings in the flood zone should keep in mind that abatement is a separate, application-based process run through the city’s Board of Abatement, not an automatic adjustment.
What this means for Montpelier apartment owners
For someone holding or underwriting an apartment building in the capital, a few practical points stand out:
- Model the nonhomestead rate, not the homestead rate. In FY27 the difference is about 10.5 cents per $100, or $1,050 a year on a $1,000,000 building.
- Watch both the municipal rate and the education rate. In FY27 the municipal side rose about 7.3 cents while the education side rose about 1 cent.
- Track the CLA. A drop in Montpelier’s CLA pushes the local education rate up even if the statewide rate falls.
- Plan for the next reappraisal. A revaluation can shift the burden between property types, and buildings that were under-assessed relative to their income are most exposed.
- Diary the deadlines. Quarterly due dates carry a 5% penalty almost immediately, and the grievance window after a change-of-appraisal notice is short.
- File the Landlord Certificate by January 31 for every rental property to avoid fines.
Owners thinking about their longer-term plans can find local context on our Montpelier market page and statewide coverage on the Vermont markets page. However the next reappraisal and the Act 73 classes play out, the core of the bill will still be the same: Montpelier’s listed value multiplied by a municipal rate plus a state education rate that moves with the CLA.
