Photo: A view of Dorchester with the Boston skyline in the distance taken from the top of Jones Hill in November 2025. Seth Daniel photo
Boston property owners received a mixed New Year’s message from City Hall last Wednesday: The values of their homes have gone up, according to city assessments, but the bill due to the tax collector will also go up in the new year, with a Feb. 2 deadline for the first installments.
The new figures— sent via US mail and posted online at the city’s website— vary widely, depending on each property and neighborhood. The city assigns estimated values each year based on a formula that leans heavily on comparable sales of nearby homes in recent months.
Last month, the Boston City Council voted unanimously to set the residential tax rate at $12.40 per $1,000 in value for this year— up from $11.58 in 2025. Commercial properties are taxed at a higher rate— $26.96 per $1,000. That rate, combined with the assessed value, reveals the tax payment due by each property owner.
This year’s adjustments come as city officials continue to spar with Beacon Hill lawmakers over dueling approaches for tax relief to Boston residents. Mayor Michelle Wu and the council have offered home rule petitions on three occasions over the last two years that Wu argues would ease the annual hikes to homeowners by sharing the burden gradually with commercial owners, a measure that state Senate leaders in particular have rejected.
Sen. Nick Collins, who has been most forceful in opposing the city’s home rule efforts, says alternate legislation expected to advance through the Senate this month will offer Boston taxpayers relief, but without shifting too much of an increase to businesses.
Other critics of the city’s approach have raised concerns about the timing of this year’s estimated assessments on New Year’s Eve, as in other years they were released in the fall to allow for potential appeals from homeowners, who can seek abatement or a review by a state tax board.
In 2024, for example, preliminary values were released to owners on Oct. 28 with a final approval from the state Department of Revenue in December. Having values earlier allowed taxpayers to have a better idea of their values and what they would owe in the new year.
Wu defended the city’s timing when asked by The Reporter on Saturday.
“Every year at this time the deadline is set so bills go out the door on Jan. 1 and we work as quickly as possible to meet that,” Wu said. “Values aren’t certified until December every single year. I have to double check the timing to see if previous values were released earlier or something else happened differently, but we follow the same timeline every year of needing to ensure that we are getting City Council approval for the shift amount and residential exemption amount and then state certification once those are in place and then printing and finalizing the bills.”
Wu noted that over the past two years city officials have waited to see if the Legislature and governor would act on the city’s home rule petitions.
“We had been hoping in 2024 and 2025 that there would be action at the state level so that the City Council could vote on the shift in residential exemptions that would provide the level of relief residents actually needed.
“So, we waited and hoped to ensure that window could be maximized and once again – no hearing, no vote, no action,” she said.
Frustration and anxiety over the rising costs to homeowners was evident on Monday at two civic meetings in Mattapan and Dorchester.
Sen. Collins, who was the featured speaker at the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, offered a detailed explanation on his legislation and his critique of Boston’s plan.
Several residents from Savin Hill pointed to what they felt were inconsistencies between owner-occupied single- and two-family homes as compared to multi-family investment properties, which in many cases had lower property values and tax bills, they claimed.
Collins agreed that there are “outliers that are insane. Now you have such inequity across the city here where neighborhoods like Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, South Boston are seeing annually exponential [valuation] increases up to 10 percent unilaterally. It’s outrageous,” he said, and added:
“That’s where your bills skyrocket. It’s not because of the tax rate. That’s not for any reason other than the city, the assessing department, unilaterally increased the value of your home.”
In Mattapan, neighbors who joined a virtual meeting of the Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council were similarly consumed with a discussion of taxes, how the city arrived at property value assessment, and immediate ways for homeowners to ask for changes or abatements.
About 35 residents joined the call in which chairperson Fatima Ali-Salaam and her board offered guidance on how to check the new values and to make sure the features of homes, such as the numbers of bathrooms or the driveway’s parking spaces, were correct.
They also encouraged homeowners to check their values and compare them with other like properties to see if they are consistent. Residents can dispute their values with the city in what is known as an abatement process, but that must be done by Feb. 2 at midnight.
“One thing that will disqualify you from an abatement is not paying attention to deadlines,” said Ali-Salaam. “If you miss it, they won’t give you an extension. There are no excuses.”
Ali-Salaam also outlined the process of appealing to the state’s Appellate Tax Board (ATB) if the city does not make any adjustments. Residents must continue paying taxes during the appeals process, she said, and any rebate would come afterward.
“I think we need some kind of relief because the taxes just keep going up like the homeowners insurance keeps going up – every year,” said resident Darline Harris.
Added Barbara Crichlow: “This property tax information should be a Road Show, meaning this detailed information should be given to each neighborhood association or group of homeowners. It is very detailed.”
Other residents also advised homeowners to make sure they apply for the owner-occupant residential exemption if they live in their home, which can chop thousands of dollars off the tax bills and has an April filing deadline.
“You want your property to maintain and increase in value, but everyone also does expect your taxes to be proportional. But you wouldn’t think your value would be more than a person with a property that has more units and is collecting more rental income,” said Ali-Salaam. “That’s where the city’s abatement process and the state (ATB) comes in.”
Back in Savin Hill, Collins offered similar advice to constituents who think their property’s value has been unfairly or incorrectly assessed.
“I want people not to be afraid and [to] use our office,” he said, referring to helping people make appeals to the ATB and not just the city’s tax abatement office. “You have to understand [that] logically speaking, you’re not going get the people who assigned the value of your home and overvalued your home to say, ‘Yeah, you’re right, I’m wrong,’ to 10,000 people.”
Reporter staff members Seth Daniel, Bill Forry, and Cassidy McNeeley contributed to this report.
