Kentucky Homestead Exemption 2026: $49,100 Off Your Assessment at 65 or Disabled

Kentucky’s homestead exemption cuts the taxable value of a home owned and lived in by someone 65 or older or totally disabled. For the 2025 and 2026 tax years, it takes $49,100 off the home’s assessed value [1]. There’s no income test in the statute [2]. You apply once with your county’s PVA , and the deadline is December 31 of the tax year [1].

How it lowers your bill

The exemption comes off the home’s assessed value before tax rates are applied. If your home is assessed at $200,000, you’d be taxed as if it were worth $150,900 in 2026 ($200,000 minus $49,100). The dollar savings depend on the combined state and local tax rates where you live.

The amount moves with inflation. Kentucky’s Constitution set it at $6,500 in 1972 purchasing power, and every two years it’s adjusted if the federal cost-of-living index has changed by at least 1% [2]. The next adjustment covers 2027 and 2028 [1].

Who qualifies

You must own the home and live in it as your personal residence [2]. The Department of Revenue says that means owned, occupied and maintained as your residence on the January 1 assessment date [1]. Then one of these must apply:

• Age: you’re 65 or older at some point during the tax year [2].
• Disability: on January 1 of the year you apply, you’re classified as totally disabled under a program run by a federal agency or by any public or private retirement system, and you receive disability payments. You must keep that classification for the whole tax year [1][2].

Other rules [2]:

• One exemption per home, even if someone is both 65 and disabled, or several people 65+ live there.
• Manufactured homes and mobile homes count as a home, and so do RVs classified as real property.
• Ownership can be held jointly, in common, as a condominium, or through certain long-term cooperative arrangements.

How to apply

1. Get the application from the Department of Revenue’s website [1].
2. File it with the PVA in your county online, by mail or in person. Call first to ask which way your PVA prefers [1].
3. Meet the deadline: no later than December 31 of the tax year you’re claiming [1].

If you already paid, you can still get the benefit. Someone who qualifies and applies before paying gets the bill reduced. Someone who qualifies after paying gets a refund of the tax on the exempt value [2].

Do you have to reapply?

• Age 65 and older: the statute doesn’t require a yearly application for age-based exemptions [2].
• Totally disabled and under 65: you must apply every year [2].
• Exceptions for disability: a veteran with a service-connected total disability, or someone found totally and permanently disabled by Social Security, Kentucky Retirement Systems or another Kentucky law, documents the disability once and doesn’t reapply each year [2].

Where to get help

• Your county PVA office: applications, filing methods and your current assessment.
• Kentucky Department of Revenue: statewide homestead exemption information [1].