Can your assessment go up if you appeal?

Last reviewed 2026-08-02, against the county's 2026 appeal forms and the current Virginia Code. The 2027 forms and dates have not been published yet.

Yes. It can.

An appeal is not a one-way request for a reduction. It reopens the number, and a reopened number can move in either direction.

The useful questions are narrower. What must happen before the county can raise your value? Which protections cover a house? And what makes your own property more exposed, or less?

In 30 seconds:

• Yes, on any route. Both county routes and the court can move your assessment up as well as down.
• You cannot be increased without warning. Virginia law says no assessment shall be increased until the owner has been notified and given a chance to show cause.
• One stronger safeguard skips houses. The 14-day notice and independent-appraisal requirements cover commercial, multifamily and industrial property — not a single-family home.
• The board does not need your appeal to change a value.
• We will not tell you the odds, and we explain why below.
• What decides your exposure is whether the county's record already understates your property.

Fairfax County only. The City of Fairfax and the City of Falls Church assess separately, run their own appeal processes, and set their own deadlines — including deadlines that differ from the county's. If your bill comes from one of those cities, start at the city's own assessment appeals page.

The mechanism, route by route

Administrative review. After county appraisal staff review your case, the original assessed value may be affirmed, increased, or decreased.

The Board of Equalization. Despite the name, it is simply the independent county board that hears assessment appeals. The BOE equalizes the assessment by increasing, decreasing, or affirming it. A filing reopens both the land and the improvement values.

Circuit Court. §58.1-3984(B) asks the taxpayer to show the property was assessed at more or less than fair market value (what the property would sell for on the open market) — a finding in either direction, on its face.

This is not a quirk of Fairfax practice. These are equalization procedures, and equalizing means correcting numbers that are too low as well as too high. How the three routes compare covers what each involves.

The protection you do have

Va. Code §58.1-3381(A) governs what the Board of Equalization may do with your petition. It may increase, decrease or affirm the assessment you complained about, and may adjust any assessment on its own motion. Then it says this:

"No assessment shall be increased until after the owner of the property has been notified and given an opportunity to show cause against such increase."

No property-type limit. No exception for small cases.

That does not mean an increase cannot happen. It means it cannot happen quietly. If you have been imagining filing an appeal and simply receiving a larger bill, that sentence is there to prevent it.

The protection you do not have

The same statutes draw a line, and a house is on the wrong side of it.

When the assessing officer asks the board to increase your assessment after you appeal, §58.1-3379(D) requires two things — but only for commercial, multifamily residential, or industrial property:

1. notice of the request at least 14 days before the hearing; and
2. if the taxpayer contests it, the assessor must withdraw the request or produce an independent appraisal from a contractor certified by the Virginia Real Estate Appraiser Board, affirming that the increase represents fair market value.

A single-family home is none of those three types. Neither requirement applies. §58.1-3381(A) draws the same line, limiting its extra restriction on increases to the same three categories.

Even where subsection D applies, the appraisal requirement drops away where the increase rests on mistakes of fact including computation errors, or on information the taxpayer had but did not provide when asked.

So the honest summary: you are entitled to notice and an opportunity to show cause. You are not entitled to 14 days' notice of a requested increase, and no independent appraiser has to sign off on it. If that matters to your decision, get advice about your own situation.

The board does not need your appeal

The board's power to raise an assessment is not something your appeal switches on. §58.1-3379(A) charges it with the "especial duty of increasing as well as decreasing assessments, whether specific complaint be laid or not."

Other provisions point the same way. The board may adjust an assessment on its own motion. The county may itself apply to the board to adjust and equalize any taxpayer's assessment. The board may go upon and inspect any real estate subject to its adjustment, direct that omitted real estate be entered on the land books, and summon taxpayers and their records — ignoring that summons is a criminal offense.

None of that is aimed at people who appeal. It describes a body whose job is equalization in both directions. Your appeal does not create the risk — it puts your property in front of that body at a particular moment.

Separately: Fairfax reassesses annually, so your number changes whether or not you file anything.

We are not going to tell you the odds

You will find sites that tell you increases are rare. We are not going to, and you should know why.

The only figures available for Fairfax describe how often an appeal produced a change — and a change counts an increase exactly the same as a decrease. Using that to reassure you would be using it to say something it does not say. We have a standing rule against publishing outcome rates, and this is the case it was written for.

What we can tell you is what the county publishes, and what the statutes above require before an increase happens. Anyone quoting you a probability for your property is quoting a number they do not have.

What actually decides your exposure

The concrete question is this: is the county's record of your property, and the value built on it, already lower than the evidence would support?

A record that overstates your property is the safer case. A basement recorded as finished when it is bare concrete, square footage larger than the house, a bathroom that does not exist — correcting these moves the value down. How to check your property record for errors walks through the fields.

A record that understates your property is the riskier case. An addition, a finished basement, a deck or a garage that never reached the county's record is a feature you are not currently taxed on. And the county's stated policy is that appraisal staff verify the property's physical description when an appeal is initiated. Verification runs both ways by definition.

So look at your own record first. Know what is in it before you invite anyone to look at it with you. Is appealing worth it? covers the arithmetic side.

One thing that does not protect you in Fairfax

If you go looking, you may find §58.1-3381(B). It makes a board's determination presumptively correct for the two following years unless the assessor shows by clear and convincing evidence that the value substantially changed. It reads like a useful shield.

Read its last sentence. That subsection applies to the City of Virginia Beach. It is not a Fairfax County protection, and a page that tells you otherwise has not read to the end of the section.

If your assessment does go up

A board order goes to the county for entry. If the change affects a land book already complete, the county may make a supplemental assessment for an increase; where the change is a decrease, the order entitles you to exoneration or a refund. Either way, the change takes effect as of January 1 of the tax year under appeal.

A board decision is not the end of the line. §58.1-3382 lets a taxpayer aggrieved by a board order apply to the circuit court for correction and revision — in the same manner, and within the same time, as for erroneous assessments generally. Note that the county's attorney has that same right.

The deadlines page has every date, and paying your bill on time remains required while any appeal is pending.

Sources

• Fairfax County DTA — Real Estate Assessment Appeals (administrative outcome may be affirmed, increased or decreased; verification of the physical description)
• Fairfax County BOE — Filing an Appeal (a filing reopens land and improvement values)
• Fairfax County BOE — Notice of Meetings (the board equalizes by increasing, decreasing or affirming)
• Fairfax County BOE — Hearing Procedures (changes effective January 1 of the tax year under appeal; appeal onward to the Circuit Court)
• City of Fairfax — Assessment Appeals (separate jurisdiction)
• Va. Code §58.1-3379 — (A): the especial duty of increasing as well as decreasing assessments, whether complaint is laid or not; (B): the presumption and the taxpayer’s burden before the board; (D): the 14-day notice and independent-appraisal requirements, limited to commercial, multifamily residential and industrial property; (F): the board’s power to inspect
• Va. Code §58.1-3380 — the county may itself apply to the board to adjust and equalize an assessment
• Va. Code §58.1-3381 — (A): increase, decrease or affirm, and on its own motion; the notice-and-show-cause requirement before any increase; the additional restriction limited to commercial, multifamily residential and industrial property. (B): the two-year presumption, which applies to the City of Virginia Beach
• Va. Code §58.1-3382 — appeal from a board order to the circuit court, by the taxpayer or by the locality’s attorney
• Va. Code §58.1-3383 — omitted real estate entered on the land books
• Va. Code §58.1-3385 — supplemental assessment on an increase; exoneration or refund on a decrease
• Va. Code §58.1-3386 and §58.1-3387 — the board’s power to summon persons and papers, and the penalty for refusing
• Va. Code §58.1-3984 — (B): the circuit court presumption and burden, framed as more or less than fair market value

This page is general information about Fairfax County’s published procedures and Virginia law. It is not legal advice, it does not tell you whether to appeal, and it does not estimate what would happen to any particular property — that depends on facts we do not know. Confirm procedures against the linked sources before filing.