A typical South Dakota homeowner pays $2,724 a year in property tax on a house worth $257,400, a ratio of 1.06 percent, according to the Census Bureau’s 2024 five-year survey. Across 65 counties the ratio runs from 0.40 percent in Buffalo County to 1.81 percent in Todd County, though Todd’s figure is inflated for reasons covered below. The calculator multiplies the value you type by your county’s median bill over median home value and shows the result next to what a typical neighbor pays. Enter full and true value, meaning the market figure on your March assessment notice or a realistic sale price, not the smaller taxable value.
Two examples show the math. A $300,000 house in Minnehaha County, home to most of Sioux Falls, at 1.14 percent works out to $3,420 a year, or $285 a month, which is $139 above the county’s $3,281 median bill. A $350,000 house in Pennington County, which includes Rapid City, at 1.08 percent comes to $3,780 a year, $315 a month, and $515 above the $3,265 median there. Both reflect bills from before the 2025 and 2026 relief laws, so most 2027 statements should land lower.
South Dakota Property Tax Calculator (2027)
Covers 65 South Dakota counties. Select yours, enter a market price, and the tool scales it by the local ratio of reported bills to home values, then sets that result beside the county's middle bill. Data: Census Bureau ACS 2024 five-year survey.
A planning figure, not the statement your county treasurer mails. It multiplies your value by the county's median bill over median owner-occupied value (Census ACS 2024 five-year), so the owner-occupied school levy and typical relief are already inside the ratio. The Census median bill leaves out owners who pay nothing, while the median value includes them, so in counties with much tribal trust land (Todd, Dewey, Ziebach) the ratio reads higher than a normal bill. Those survey years predate the 2025 SB 216 limits and the owner-occupied school general levy cut to $0.669 per $1,000 of taxable value in HB 1051, which first shows on 2027 bills, so many 2027 statements should come in lower. Not modeled: the elderly and disabled assessment freeze, the $200,000 disabled veteran exemption, city levies, and special assessments. Your county director of equalization answers value questions; the county treasurer answers what is owed.
The 2027 School Levy Cut for Owner-Occupied Homes
The biggest change in years arrives on bills payable in 2027. House Bill 1051, enacted in March 2026, lowered the maximum school general fund levy on owner-occupied homes from $2.518 to $0.669 per $1,000 of taxable value. The companion Senate Bill 245 pays for it: when the state sales tax holiday ends in 2027 and the rate returns to 4.5 percent, the extra 0.3 percentage point goes to homeowner relief, and the state puts more money into the school funding formula right away. Other property drops from $5.211 to $4.867.
Here is what that is worth. A $300,000 home equalized at 85 percent carries $255,000 of taxable value. In a district levying the maximum, the $1.849 drop per $1,000 saves $471.50 a year. The benefit only reaches homes carrying the owner-occupied classification, which requires a certificate filed with the county director of equalization by March 15. The classification lowers only the school general levy; county, city, and special education levies are the same for every class of property.
SB 216: a 3 Percent Countywide Ceiling on Homeowner Values
Senate Bill 216, signed by Governor Larry Rhoden on March 13, 2025, came first. If reappraisal would lift a county’s total owner-occupied valuation more than 3 percent over the prior year, a reduction factor is applied to every owner-occupied home in that county equally. The limit showed up first on 2026 assessment notices and on the bills those values produce in 2027, and it lasts five years. Because the cap is countywide, one home can still rise faster than 3 percent. SB 216 also limits how much taxing districts may grow their budgets from new construction to 3 percent, and it raised the income and value limits on the senior assessment freeze.
Full and True Value, 85 Percent, and Dollars per Thousand
County assessors, called directors of equalization, revalue all real property every year. Homes are valued at what they would sell for; farmland is valued by productivity. The Department of Revenue then sets an equalization factor for each county so that taxable value lands at 85 percent of market value.
South Dakota runs on a budget first, rate second system. Each school district, county, city, and township adopts a budget, and the county auditor divides the property tax need by taxable valuation to set a levy stated in dollars per $1,000. The state itself collects no property tax, and there is no state income tax. Of the more than $1.8 billion levied in 2025, schools received 55 percent, counties 27.5 percent, cities 13.5 percent, townships 2 percent, and special assessments 2 percent.
County Ratios From Buffalo to Todd, and the Trust Land Problem
The middle county ratio is 1.02 percent, a bit under the statewide 1.06, because the large eastern counties sit higher than many rural ones. Of the 65 counties, 27 are above the state ratio, 36 below, and McCook and Yankton match it. Lincoln County, which takes in the southern part of Sioux Falls, has the largest median bill at $3,990. Custer County has the top median value, $372,100, at only 0.77 percent. On the other end, Buffalo shows 0.40 percent, with a median bill of $473.
On a $250,000 house the spread runs from $1,000 in Buffalo to $4,525 in Todd. Todd’s number should not be taken at face value. The county lies entirely within the Rosebud Reservation, and trust land is exempt from state and local tax. The Census median bill counts only owners who report paying something, while the median value, just $53,900, counts all owners, so the ratio overstates what a paying household owes. Dewey and Ziebach, nearly all Cheyenne River Reservation, carry the same distortion. McPherson County, at 1.55 percent, is the highest ratio without that issue. Oglala Lakota County is left out entirely because about four in five owners there pay nothing and the Census reports its median bill only as under $200.
March Notices and the Equalization Board Ladder
Assessment notices go out by March 1. Talk to the director of equalization first, then appeal in writing. The 2026 deadlines:
- March 12: written appeal to the clerk of the local board (city council or township supervisors plus a school board member), which met March 16 to 20.
- April 7: appeal of the local decision to the county board of commissioners, which met April 14 through May 5.
- May 15: appeal to the Office of Hearing Examiners in Pierre, or within 30 days of the county decision straight to circuit court.
Skipping the local board forfeits the later steps, except for nonresidents of the jurisdiction and owners in unorganized townships. Some counties use one consolidated board instead, which your notice will say. Bring comparable sales as evidence. Owner-occupied status is appealed directly to the county board.
Freeze, Refund, and Veteran Relief
The Assessment Freeze for the Elderly and Disabled keeps a qualifying home’s taxable value from rising. For 2026 applications, household income had to be under $56,595 for one person or $66,885 for more than one, and the home worth no more than $514,500. Applicants must be 65 or older or disabled, have owned a home and lived in South Dakota for five years, and have lived in the home at least 200 days the prior year. Applications are due to the county treasurer by April 1, and the limits now rise each year with an index.
A separate state refund for seniors and people with disabilities pays cash back on lower incomes: for 2025 taxes, $17,215 or less for a single person or $23,265 for a household, with applications taken May 1 to July 1. Rapid City is the only city offering a reduction of municipal taxes for the same groups. A veteran rated permanently and totally disabled from a service-connected disability exempts $200,000 of the dwelling’s full and true value, and paraplegic veterans have their own exemption, applied for by November 1.
April 30, October 31, and the December Certificate Sale
Taxes are paid a year in arrears: bills paid in 2027 cover the 2026 assessment. The first half is due April 30 and the second October 31. Unpaid amounts draw interest at the Category G rate in state law, five-sixths of 1 percent a month, from May 1 and November 1. Delinquent parcels go to the tax certificate sale on the third Monday of December, and the certificate holder may start tax deed proceedings three years after the sale and within six years of it. Pennington County, for one, takes no partial payments on delinquent taxes.
County Sales Tax Credits and the Next Data Refresh
Senate Bill 96, effective July 1, 2026, lets a county commission add a sales tax of up to half a cent, with every dollar credited against owner-occupied bills in that county. The earliest it can be collected is January 1, 2027, and the credit will show as its own line on the bill, on 2028 statements at the earliest if a county waits to collect the money first, or sooner if it credits an estimate. These South Dakota property tax estimates follow the Census five-year file released each December, so every county ratio updates when the next vintage arrives, and the first one to include 2027 bills will begin to capture the levy cut.
Sources: county ratios divide Census table B25103 (owner real estate taxes) by B25077 (owner home value), American Community Survey 2024 five-year estimates; South Dakota Department of Revenue property tax, relief program, owner-occupied, and 2026 appeal process guides; DOR Property Taxes and 2026 Legislative Update (May 6, 2026); HB 1051 (2026) session law; SDCL 10-4-40, 10-21-23, and 54-3-16; Pennington County Treasurer. Value and classification questions go to your county director of equalization; payments go to your county treasurer.