How to appeal your Fairfax County assessment

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.

Your assessment notice arrived and the number is higher than you expected. You can challenge it — but probably not in the way you are imagining.

An appeal is not an argument about your tax bill. It is not a request for the county to explain how it got its number. It is you, building a case with evidence, that the value is wrong. The county’s figure is presumed correct until you show otherwise, and that one fact shapes everything else on this page.

Here is what the process actually asks of you.

In 30 seconds:

• An appeal disputes your assessed value. Not the tax rate. Not the size of the bill.
• The county’s number is presumed correct. You have to prove it wrong.
• There are three grounds: fair market value, lack of uniformity, and errors in property description.
• There are three routes: administrative review (April 1, free), a BOE appeal (June 1, free), and Circuit Court. You can go straight to the BOE or to court — no route requires another first.
• Filing reopens the whole assessment. Your value can go down, stay the same, or go up.
• Keep paying your bill on time while your appeal is pending.
• These are Fairfax County rules. The City of Fairfax is a separate jurisdiction with different deadlines — check which one you are in.

Start here. Three checks, in this order, before you fill in any form:

1. Your property record — square footage, lot size, room counts, basement.
2. The market evidence — does it actually support the county’s number?
3. Which routes are still open, and what to put in the calendar.

Start here: three checks before you touch a form works through each one.

Everything below links to the county form, county page, or Code section it came from.

Make sure this page is about your property

Fairfax is two governments. Fairfax County assesses most of the region. The City of Fairfax is a separate, independent city with its own assessor, its own appeal forms, and its own deadlines, which are not the same as the county’s. The City of Falls Church is separate again.

Every date, form and rule on this page is Fairfax County’s. If your bill comes from the City of Fairfax, use the city’s own assessment appeals page instead — the county’s April 1 and June 1 deadlines will not save you there.

Not sure? Your tax bill and your assessment notice name the jurisdiction that issued them.

What you are actually appealing

An appeal disputes your assessed value — the county’s estimate of what your home was worth on January 1 of the tax year.

It is not a complaint about the tax rate, and not a complaint about how big your bill is. That distinction matters, because the county screens for it and rejects it.

The Board of Supervisors sets the tax rate each spring, in the budget. No appeal route can touch it. The county says this directly: simply saying the increase in value is too much in a single year is not a legal basis for an appeal. The 2026 DTA application adds that financial impact and the rate of value change are not sufficient grounds either.

What assessments do have to do is represent fair market value (what the property would sell for on the open market). That requirement comes from the Constitution of Virginia, Article X, Section 2.

So your appeal turns on a single question: is the assessed value supportable? Everything else here is about how the county and the Code frame that question.

Fair market value, in one sentence: the price your property would bring between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither under pressure, as of January 1 of the tax year.

Is your real problem the size of the bill rather than the value? Then the county’s relief programs are the better place to look — see property tax relief you may already qualify for.

Keep paying your bill

Yes, you still pay. In full, and on time, while your appeal is pending.

The county warns in bold that you must pay all taxes on time or be charged penalties and interest, even if you file an appeal.

For 2026, the first installment was due July 28. The second is due December 7 — December 5 falls on a Saturday that year, and the county moves any due date on a weekend or holiday to the next business day. Check the current year’s dates on the county’s due dates page.

Paying does not weaken your case. If an appeal later lowers your assessment, the county credits your second-installment bill or issues a refund.

You have to prove the county wrong

This part is worth being blunt about.

The county’s number is treated as correct until you show it is not. Filing an appeal does not put the county on the back foot and does not oblige anyone to justify the figure to you. It opens a fresh look at your property, and your evidence decides how that look turns out.

The rule is Virginia law — §58.1-3379(B) for the BOE, and §58.1-3984 for the Circuit Court. It asks you for two separate things.

First, show by a preponderance of the evidence — more likely than not — one of two things. Either that your property is valued above fair market value, or that the assessment is not uniform in its application.

Second, show that the assessment was not arrived at in accordance with generally accepted appraisal practice.

Both parts. Not one or the other. The county’s 2026 BOE application says the same thing in its own words, asking for “substantial evidence” that the assessment is erroneous and was not arrived at in accordance with accepted appraisal practice. The two wordings are not identical, and the statute is what governs.

The county’s exact words, if you want them

“THE ASSESSMENT IS PRESUMED TO BE CORRECT. THE BURDEN IS ON THE APPLICANT(S) TO SHOW THAT THE PROPERTY ON APPEAL IS VALUED AT MORE THAN ITS FAIR MARKET VALUE, THAT THE ASSESSMENT IS NOT UNIFORM IN ITS APPLICATION, THAT IT IS OTHERWISE NOT EQUALIZED, OR THAT THERE ARE MISTAKES OF FACT, INCLUDING COMPUTATION. TO RECEIVE RELIEF FROM THE BOE, THE APPLICANT(S) MUST PRODUCE SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE THAT THE ASSESSMENT IS ERRONEOUS AND WAS NOT ARRIVED AT IN ACCORDANCE WITH GENERALLY ACCEPTED APPRAISAL PRACTICE.” (2026 BOE Appeal Application)

The sentence in the statute that does the most work for homeowners

That second requirement sounds like something you would need a professional appraiser to argue. For one kind of case, the statute settles it for you:

“Mistakes of fact, including computation, that affect the assessment shall be deemed not to be in accordance with generally accepted appraisal practice.” (Va. Code §58.1-3379(B))

In plain terms: if the county’s record of your property contains a factual error that affects the value, the second requirement is treated as met. Wrong square footage. Wrong lot size. A bathroom count that is off. The wrong construction year. A basement recorded as finished when it is not.

Take an example. Suppose the county’s record shows your basement as finished living space. It is not — it is bare concrete and studs. (A hypothetical, to show how the two requirements fit together.)

That documented error handles the second requirement. It does not finish the job.

Here is the qualification. The statute’s sentence covers the appraisal-practice requirement only. You still have to show the first thing — that the error actually pushes your assessment above fair market value, or makes it uneven compared with similar properties. In the basement example, you would still need evidence that homes like yours, without finished basements, sell for less than the county says yours is worth.

A documented error opens the door. Your value evidence still has to walk through it.

Either way, checking your property record is the first practical step in any appeal, whichever ground you end up choosing. How to check your Fairfax property record for errors goes through it field by field.

The three grounds you can choose from

Both 2026 county forms list the same three grounds, and you must select at least one. In the forms’ own terms:

1. Fair market value. The property is assessed at more (or less) than its fair market value. This is the ground that comparable sales support. How comparable sales work in a Fairfax appeal covers what makes a sale usable.

2. Lack of uniformity. The assessment is out of line generally with similar properties.

That word “generally” is doing real work. The Virginia Supreme Court has held that it must plainly appear the appraisal behind the assessment is out of line generally with appraisals of other neighborhood properties that bear some relation to yours in character and use. The Court of Appeals restated that rule in a 2024 Fairfax case.

So this is a pattern argument, not a two-house comparison. One neighbor with a lower number, however similar the house, does not establish it.

Uniformity, in one sentence: whether the assessment method was applied even-handedly to your property compared with similar properties generally — not whether one neighbor’s number looks lower than yours.

3. Errors in property description. In the form’s words, the assessment “is based upon inaccurate information concerning this property, such as lot size, square footage, condition of property, flood plain, topography, zoning.”

This ground has its own checkbox on both forms. It is not a footnote to the other two. Read together with the mistakes-of-fact sentence in §58.1-3379(B) above, it is the ground most easily documented from records an ordinary homeowner can check.

Factual error, in one sentence: an objectively wrong data point in the county’s description of your property — square footage, lot size, room counts, construction year, basement details. Not a difference of opinion about value.

One argument the county rejects outright

A large jump in your land value, or in your building value, is not an error as long as the total assessed value is in line with the market.

The county’s BOE page states that uniformity is a function of the total assessed value. Large increases in land or improvement value are not assessment errors when the total is uniform as measured by market evidence.

So “my land value went up 40%” is not by itself a case. Neither is “my taxes went up too much.” Why a big increase is not a legal ground explains what the law looks at instead.

Three ways to appeal

Three routes, three deadlines, three sets of paperwork. None of them requires you to have tried another one first. The county says an administrative appeal is not a prerequisite to a BOE appeal, and that owners may appeal directly to the BOE or to the Circuit Court.

Unless the county deadlines have already passed, your choice is between the first two. The third column is there for completeness.

	Administrative review (DTA)	Board of Equalization (BOE)	Circuit Court
2026 deadline	April 1 — postmarked by that date, or filed online / emailed by 4:30 p.m. EDT	June 1 — postmarked by midnight, or dropped off / uploaded / emailed by 4:30 p.m. EDT; weekend and holiday deadlines roll to the next business day	Filing periods set by §58.1-3984 — see below
Cost to file	Free	Free	Clerk’s fees set by statute
Comparable properties	1 to 5, with sale date and sale price for each	3 slots, each asking the comparable’s assessed value (land / building / total)	Per court procedure
Formality	Informal — a DTA appraiser reviews, contacts you, and verifies the property description	Formal hearing with sworn testimony; confirmation letter around the start of July	Judicial proceeding
Evidence timing	Submitted with the application	All evidence in by filing; nothing new at the hearing except maps and photographs	Per court rules

Administrative review is the least formal route. You put a written case to the county’s own appraisal staff, at no cost — online for residential property while the season is open, or by email or mail.

Expect to hear from someone. The county’s stated policy is that appraisal staff verify the property’s physical description when an appeal is initiated. You can decline, and the review then goes ahead on the information available. The result can be a lower value, the same value, or a higher one.

The BOE is an independent body of nine members appointed by the Board of Supervisors — Fairfax County residents, a majority of them property owners, and not part of DTA.

Its process is formal: sworn testimony, strict formatting rules, and a strict evidence deadline (below). Residential filers usually get a confirmation letter in the first week of July, then case material with a request to call within two weeks to schedule the hearing.

Circuit Court is litigation, run under court rules and filing requirements. Its window is much longer than the county routes. §58.1-3984(A) allows an application within three years from the last day of the tax year, or within one year of certain other determinations the statute lists — whichever period is later.

The statute also sets the presumption and burden that apply in court, in §58.1-3984(B). It is substantially the same test as the BOE’s, including the same mistakes-of-fact rule. Read the statute against your own facts, and get Virginia legal advice before relying on any summary of the filing periods, including this one.

If someone else files for you on either county route, the county requires a signed letter of authorization from the owner. DTA wants it notarized. The BOE accepts it either on the owner’s letterhead or notarized.

The full side-by-side is on administrative review vs. BOE vs. Circuit Court. Every date and what it gates is on Fairfax appeal deadlines.

The evidence rules that catch people out

Your comparable sales have to be old enough. The county’s 2026 forms require sales finalized on or before January 1 of the assessment year. The DTA form puts it concretely: 2025 sales count for the January 1, 2026 assessment, while 2026 sales are not applicable until the 2027 assessment.

The Code words it differently. §58.1-3379(C) permits boards of equalization to consider market sales through December 31 of the calendar year before the assessment date. The form language and the statute language are close but not identical, so each is attributed to its own document here. What both agree on: a sale that closed after your assessment date supports next year’s case, not this year’s.

The BOE gives you one shot. The county states that all written and supplementary information must be submitted with the application by the filing deadline. No additional written materials, visual presentations or other documentary evidence will be accepted at the hearing — maps and photographs excepted. Everything else has to be in the application, on time.

An appraisal report has to be whole. If you attach a professional appraisal or opinion of value to a BOE application, it must be complete as originally prepared and signed. Partial reports are not considered.

The two forms ask different questions about your comparables. The DTA form wants each comparable’s sale date and sale price. The BOE supplement asks for each comparable’s assessed value, split into land, building and total, with sale information going in a free-text box. Evidence prepared for one form does not drop unchanged into the other.

Your signature covers everything attached. The BOE application certifies that the facts in the application and attached to it are true, accurate and correct. Whatever you attach, you are vouching for.

You can see the county’s file before you file. Under Va. Code §58.1-3331 you have the right to examine the records behind your assessment — the appraisal card, working papers, and available information about the methodology, including a list of comparable properties or sales figures considered.

That is worth using. Your right to see the county’s own numbers explains what to request and how. The county also invites a conversation first: DTA recommends talking to its staff appraisers about your assessment before you file anything.

Your assessment can also go up

Yes — on either county route. This is the thing to understand before you file anything.

A BOE filing reopens both the land and improvement values, and either or both may be increased, decreased, or affirmed. The administrative route carries the same possibility: after review, the original assessed value may be affirmed, increased, or decreased.

An appeal is not a one-way request for a reduction. It is a request for a fresh look, and a fresh look can go either way.

Whether that actually puts you at risk depends on something specific to your property: whether your current assessment already sits below what the evidence would support. That is a question of fact, not procedure. Can my assessment go up if I appeal? covers how the reopening works on each route.

Start here: three checks before you touch a form

1. Check your property record for factual errors. The county’s description of your property is the foundation of its value estimate — square footage, lot size, room counts, construction year, basement details. “Errors in property description” is a ground with its own checkbox on both forms.

An error that affects the assessment also satisfies the appraisal-practice part of the burden under §58.1-3379(B). As above, you still have to show the value itself is too high or uneven. Start with the record check. To see what the county relied on, §58.1-3331 gives you the right to examine it — and county staff appraisers will discuss the assessment with you before you file.

2. Check whether the market evidence supports the county’s number. An appeal without evidence runs straight into the presumption of correctness. Before you spend an evening on forms, find out whether your assessment is out of line with the market data for your property. If you are weighing the effort against the money at stake, is appealing worth it? sets out the arithmetic honestly.

3. Check which routes are still open, then calendar the next ones. The county window is short once it opens. In 2026, notices went out on February 17 and the administrative deadline was April 1 — about six weeks. If this year’s deadlines have passed, work out which routes remain, and set yourself a reminder to check next year’s dates when Fairfax publishes them. The deadlines page lists every date and what each one gates.

Sources

• Fairfax County — Real Estate Assessment Appeals (DTA)
• Fairfax County — Board of Equalization Assessment Appeals
• Fairfax County — 2026 Real Estate Assessment Notices Mailed Feb. 17 (notice date; direct-to-BOE/Circuit Court statement)
• Fairfax County — BOE Membership (composition: nine members, residents, majority property owners)
• Fairfax County — Tax Due Dates and Deadlines
• Fairfax Circuit Court — Fees (clerk’s fees are set by statute and vary; no figure is quoted because the schedule is revised)
• City of Fairfax — Assessment Appeals (separate jurisdiction; its own forms and deadlines)
• 2026 DTA Real Estate Appeal Application (PDF) (2026 form; replace with the 2027 form when Fairfax publishes it) · Forms page
• 2026 BOE Appeal Application (PDF) (same note)
• Va. Code §58.1-3379 — (B): presumption, burden, mistakes-of-fact rule; (C): sale-date and publication-date rules
• Va. Code §58.1-3984 — Circuit Court application periods
• Va. Code §58.1-3331 — right to examine assessment records
• Constitution of Virginia, Art. X, §2 — fair market value requirement
• Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County v. Leasco Realty, Inc., 221 Va. 158, 166 (1980) — nonuniformity requires that the appraisal be out of line generally with appraisals of other neighborhood properties comparable in character and use
• Tysons Corner Hotel Plaza LLC v. Fairfax County, Record No. 1655-23-4 (Va. Ct. App., Oct. 29, 2024) (published) — quotes the Leasco rule at 221 Va. 166 and restates the two-part §58.1-3984(B) test in a Fairfax case

This page is general information about Fairfax County’s published procedures and Virginia law. It is not legal advice, and it does not recommend a route or ground for any particular property — those choices are yours. Procedures and dates are the county’s; confirm them against the linked sources before filing.