Franklin County Property Taxes in 2026: What Changed for Commercial Multifamily

Posted by Davide Formica on October 21, 2026

Columbus, Commercial Real Estate, Multifamily, Real Estate

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Understanding property taxes can be complex and tedious for most people. Here I take a small dive into Franklin County property taxes and what changed in 2026. Values were updated countywide. The legislature rewrote parts of the system. And a sale can still pull a building’s value up to its purchase price.

When I underwrite a Columbus acquisition, I build year-one taxes from where values, rates, and the sale are heading, not from last year’s bill. Here is where each one stands, followed by how to run the number on your own building.

Values: the 2026 update

Ohio requires a countywide value update every three years, between full reappraisals. On the Franklin County Auditor’s preliminary figures, the 2026 update raised commercial values about 3.5% countywide and residential values about 10%.

You can look up your tentative property value at the Know Your Home Value Site

Apartment buildings with five or more units are taxed as commercial property in Ohio, in the same class as retail and office. For most investment multifamily, the commercial number is the one that matters, and individual parcels will land above or below the average.

The June values were tentative. The Ohio Department of Taxation reviews them, and final values are expected in December. Those final 2026 values drive the tax bills paid in 2027.

The next full reappraisal has been pushed back a year to 2030, as part of a statewide schedule change meant to spread reappraisals more evenly across counties.

The rules: what the 2025 reforms changed

At the end of 2025, Ohio passed a package of property tax bills, most of them effective March 2026. Most of the headline relief targets homeowners, and owners of 5+ unit buildings get none of the residential rollback credits. Two changes do reach commercial multifamily.

House Bill 186 adds an inflation-cap credit in school districts at the 20-mill floor. At the floor, rising values pass straight into higher school taxes, and the credit limits that increase to inflation. For example, if a building’s school tax is $10,000 and values rise 10%, the bill would go to $11,000. With inflation at 3%, the credit holds it near $10,300. Check whether your school district is at the floor before counting on it.

House Bill 335 caps inside millage, the unvoted part of the rate that used to grow in step with values. In update years like 2026, that growth is now limited to three-year inflation. For example, a $2,000 inside-millage share facing a 10% value increase would have risen to $2,200. With a 6% cap, it stops at $2,120.

The other bills (HB 124, HB 129, HB 309) change how the state reviews county values, which levies count toward the 20-mill floor, and how county budget commissions adjust unvoted levies. Their effect on any one building is indirect.

The Sale: when a purchase can reset the value

A sale does not change the appraised value on its own. What can change it is a complaint filed with the Franklin County Board of Revision, and school boards are allowed to file them on commercial property.

Since House Bill 126 (2022), a school board can file a complaint to raise the value of a property it does not own only when all of these are true:

The property sold in the year before the tax year the complaint covers.
The sale price exceeds the Auditor’s value by at least 10%.
The sale price exceeds the Auditor’s value by at least $500,000, a threshold indexed to inflation.
The sale was recorded, with the price declared on a conveyance fee statement (added by House Bill 96, 2025).

The school board must authorize the complaint at a public meeting and notify the owner first.

The Bottom Line: underwrite the bill you will pay

Property tax is one of the largest operating expenses on a multifamily building, and one of the few a sale can reset. The seller’s T12 shows what they paid on their value. It does not account for the 2026 update.

Run the number before you write the offer:

Purchase price x 35% x Effective rate / 1,000

Pull the effective rate from the Auditor’s tax estimator. Compare the result to the seller’s tax line. The gap belongs in your NOI, your loan sizing, and your reserves from day one.