If you opened your Marion County tax bill this spring and did a double-take, you were not alone — and you were not imagining it. The bills payable in 2026 (first installment due May 11, second due November 10) are the first to reflect the January 1, 2025 assessment date, and that assessment cycle moved a staggering amount of value onto the Indianapolis tax rolls.
The numbers are large enough that a major law firm felt compelled to publish an advisory about them. In April 2026, Faegre Drinker released a client alert titled "Indianapolis Taxpayers: Know Your Rights Before Paying a Higher Property Tax Bill" — which tells you something about how many owners were caught off guard.
This post covers why the bills jumped, what rights you still have now that the June 15 appeal deadline has passed, and how to protect yourself before the November installment arrives.
Why the 2026 Bills Jumped
Three forces converged on this billing cycle, and none of them required anything to change about your property.
First, a heavy commercial and industrial reassessment. Per the Faegre Drinker advisory, the Marion County Assessor added nearly $5.5 billion in assessed value to Indianapolis commercial and industrial properties for the January 1, 2025 assessment date.
Second, an apartment-specific surge. Property tax firm KE Andrews documented nearly $2 billion in new assessed value landing on roughly 1,000 apartment complexes with 20 or more units in Marion County.
Third, a statewide cost-methodology change. The Department of Local Government Finance removed a downward adjustment for the January 1, 2025 assessment date, significantly raising the base replacement-cost rates assessors start from — across property types, not just apartments. KE Andrews notes the DLGF further increased base rates for this year's assessments as well, setting up two consecutive years of upward pressure.
| Driver | Who it hit | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial/industrial reassessment | Indianapolis commercial and industrial parcels | ~$5.5B in new AV |
| Multi-family reassessment | ~1,000 apartment complexes (20+ units) | ~$2B in new AV |
| DLGF removal of downward cost adjustment | All property types using the cost approach | Higher starting replacement costs statewide |
Higher assessed values do not translate dollar-for-dollar into higher taxes — rates, deductions, and circuit breaker caps all intervene — but when this much value lands on the rolls at once, plenty of individual bills spike hard.
Your Rights Checklist
The bill itself is not the final word. Here is what every Marion County owner should verify, in order.
1. Reconcile the bill against your Form 11
Your Form 11 assessment notice told you the assessed value the county intended to use; the TS-1 tax statement tells you what they actually billed. Confirm the assessed value on the bill matches the Form 11, and that the math from gross AV to net tax flows correctly through your deductions and caps. Our guide to reading your Indiana property tax bill walks through every line.
2. Audit your deductions
A missing deduction inflates your bill just as surely as a bad assessment. Check that the bill shows:
- The homestead standard and supplemental deductions, if the property is your primary residence
- The homestead credit applicable to 2026 bills
- The correct 1% circuit breaker cap category for a homestead (2% for other residential, 3% for commercial)
- Any mortgage-era, veteran, over-65, or disability deductions you previously qualified for and filed
Deductions can silently fall off after a refinance, a title change, or a trust transfer. If the bill's cap percentage or deduction lines look wrong, call the Marion County Auditor's office before assuming the assessment is the problem.
3. If you appealed by June 15, know the pay-under-protest option
Taxpayers who filed a timely appeal of their 2025 assessed value have a statutory right under IC 6-1.1-15-10 to pay based on the prior year's assessed value while the appeal is pending, rather than fronting the full disputed amount. The mechanics — the written notice to the treasurer and auditor, the reserve you should hold, the bond scenario — are covered in depth in our guide to paying under protest with an appeal pending. The short version: the statute defers the disputed liability; it does not erase it if you lose.
4. Know the refund path if you win
An appeal victory does not automatically produce a check. The auditor applies the correction, recalculates the affected years, and issues a refund or credit with statutory interest. If you overpaid this spring and your appeal later succeeds, that money comes back — the process and timelines are in our guide to how the refund works after winning an appeal.
5. Plan for November 10 now
The second installment is due November 10, 2026, and it will be the same size as the one that shocked you in May. If the spring installment strained your cash flow, start setting aside funds now — Indiana's late-payment penalties compound the pain of an already-high bill. And if you missed the spring installment, see what happens after a missed May 11 payment.
Warning
If you pay through a mortgage escrow, expect your servicer to run an escrow analysis after this cycle. A sharply higher bill typically means both a shortage payment and a higher monthly escrow going forward — budget for the monthly payment change, not just the tax bill itself.
The June 15 Deadline Passed. What Is Still Actionable?
The subjective appeal window for the January 1, 2025 assessment closed on June 15, 2026. If you did not file, you cannot argue this year's valuation is simply too high. But three doors remain open.
Objective errors: a three-year window. Under IC 6-1.1-15-1.1, appeals based on objective errors — a math error, a description error, taxes charged on the wrong parcel, an incorrectly denied deduction — can be filed on the Form 130 up to three years after the taxes were first due. If your record card shows the wrong square footage or a structure that does not exist, that claim is not dead.
Refund claims. Separate from the appeal process, Indiana's refund chapter (IC 6-1.1-26) allows a claim for taxes paid that were not actually due — also on a multi-year lookback. This is narrower than a valuation appeal, but it exists.
The next cycle. The January 1, 2026 assessment — which will drive the bills payable in 2027 — is the one you can still fully contest. With the DLGF's base rates rising again this year, the smart move is to review your assessment before the 2027 Form 11 arrives, so you can file within the window with evidence already in hand.
Tip
Sticker shock is a one-day event. The assessment behind it is a multi-year trajectory. Owners who treat this spring's bill as a prompt to audit their record card and deductions now are the ones who avoid repeating this experience in 2027.
Check Your Property Before the Next Cycle
Want to see what is driving your number? Our Indiana property explorer and Marion County pages show parcel-level assessed values, and our property lookup tool surfaces your assessment history, classification, and comparable sales in one place.
If your assessment looks out of line with the market, our tax appeal service builds the evidence package and files on your behalf — so when the next appeal window opens, you are ready on day one instead of scrambling on day forty-four.