An over-assessed home costs you real money every year — but only if you don't act in time. Philadelphia's appeal deadlines are firm, and there are two of them. Miss the window and you generally wait a whole cycle. Here's how the timing works and how to lock in your dates.
This cycle's deadlines: First Level Review by September 1, 2026; formal Board of Revision of Taxes appeal by October 5, 2026 (the first Monday in October). Both dates are set each year — always confirm the current year's dates on your assessment notice and at phila.gov before you rely on them.
The single biggest source of confusion is that Philadelphia runs two separate appeal paths, each with its own cutoff:
They are independent. Filing an informal First Level Review does not spend your right to a formal BRT appeal — but a slow FLR response also won't pause the BRT clock. If you're pursuing both, calendar both.
For the formal path, the first Monday in October (of the year before the tax year) is the deadline that keeps property-tax appeal lawyers busy every fall. It's the last day to get a formal petition in front of the Board for the following year's taxes. Here is the one caveat you should never drop: the exact date can be adjusted, so confirm the current year's deadline on your assessment notice or the Board of Revision of Taxes website before you rely on it. Treat "first Monday in October" as the planning anchor, not the final word.
Deadlines are the one part of an appeal that no amount of good evidence can fix after the fact. Confirm your dates the day your notice arrives, and everything else has room to breathe.
Every year, OPA mails assessment notices — typically in the spring or summer — showing each property's new market value for the coming tax year. That notice is your starting gun. It carries your new number and the First Level Review deadline, and it's the prompt to ask the only question that matters: is this value higher than what comparable homes near me are actually selling for? If the answer is yes, the clock is now running on your ability to do something about it.
Not sure whether you even have a case? Start with is my home over-assessed? before you worry about paperwork — there's no point racing a deadline for an appeal you don't need.
Missing both windows generally means waiting until the next assessment cycle to challenge your value. In practice that can be another full year of paying tax on a number you believe is too high — at Philadelphia's combined City and School District rate of about 1.4% (1.3998%) of assessed value, an inflated assessment quietly compounds into real dollars. The deadlines aren't a formality; they're the difference between fixing an over-assessment this year and eating it.
The trick is to work backward from your confirmed deadline, not forward from the day you happen to remember. A comfortable schedule looks like this:
Even if you compress all of that into a single afternoon, doing it early is free insurance against a postal delay or a form you filled out wrong the first time.
The deadlines are yours to track, but the work you have to fit inside them — pulling your OPA record, finding real comparable sales, deciding whether the gap is worth filing, and assembling a clean packet — is exactly what TaxAssessmentIQ compresses from days into minutes. That leaves the deadline as the easy part: you'll have a ready-to-file packet well before the window closes, with time to spare to confirm your date and send it. No tool can guarantee an appeal will win, but filing on time with solid evidence is entirely within your control.
There are two. The First Level Review deadline is printed on your annual assessment notice and changes year to year. The formal BRT appeal deadline is generally the first Monday in October of the year before the tax year, but you should confirm the exact date on your notice or the Board of Revision of Taxes website for the current year.
That is the general deadline for filing a formal appeal with the Board of Revision of Taxes for the following tax year. Because the exact date can be adjusted, treat it as a strong guideline and confirm the current year's date before you rely on it.
Assessment notices are mailed by the Office of Property Assessment, typically in the spring or summer. The notice shows your new value and the First Level Review deadline, and it is your signal to check your assessment and decide whether to appeal.
You generally have to wait until the next assessment cycle to challenge your value, which can mean another year of paying based on a number you believe is wrong. That is why it pays to check your assessment as soon as the notice arrives.
Yes. They are separate paths with separate deadlines. Filing an informal review does not use up your formal appeal right, but do not let a pending review cause you to miss the BRT deadline.
TaxAssessmentIQ gives you a free, honest verdict from the City's own recorded sales — just enter your address, no sign-up and no account. If your home looks over-assessed, you can get a ready-to-file appeal packet for a flat, one-time price, backed by a money-back guarantee. If it isn't worth filing, we tell you that too — for free, before you pay anything.
Free in public beta — no charge to check your assessment or build your packet.