Travis Bunn
Founder, AppealDesk · Published February 28, 2026 · Updated August 22, 2026
The 2026 filing window closed on April 30, 2026. The rule is April 2 to April 30, so the next deadline is April 30, 2027. Use the time before it opens to build the evidence.
Check your property now, $49 flat fee →Knowing your deadline is half of it. The other half is whether the county’s number is actually too high, because a deadline you meet with no case is just paperwork. Checking your number is free and takes about a minute.
Free to check. No account needed.
Updated August 2026
Where things stand as of August 2026: the 2026 protest window closed on April 30, 2026, and the local boards of review have adjourned. If your board ruled against you, the appeal to the Property Assessment Appeal Board or district court was due within 20 days of that decision. Nothing can be filed on the 2026 assessment now. The next window opens April 2, 2027 and closes April 30, 2027, and the weeks before it are the time to build the case.
Iowa gives you exactly 29 days to protest an assessment: April 2 through April 30 of the assessment year (Iowa Code 441.37). The window is statewide and statutory, it does not move from county to county, and it does not extend for late notices, the one exception being a county under a declared disaster, where filing runs to June 5. The local board of review then sits in May to decide the protests it received. Many sources, including earlier versions of this page, describe the May board session as the filing window. It is not. By May 1, filing is over.
Iowa protests are ground-based. Iowa Code 441.37 lists the grounds, and your protest should state at least one of them and the evidence behind it:
Overvaluation and inequity are the two grounds that win residential cases, and both are proven the same way: recent sales of genuinely similar nearby homes, adjusted for the differences, laid out so the board can follow the math.
Knowing the date is the easy part. The date only matters if the county's number is actually too high, and nobody checks that number for you.
The number your appeal would challenge, pulled free in seconds. No account needed.
No. The board of review sits in May to decide protests filed in April. The filing window is April 2 to April 30, and the only statutory extension is to June 5 in a county under a declared disaster.
Yes, the right to protest does not depend on receiving a notice, and the window is the same. Check your assessment online with your county assessor in early April whether or not anything arrives in the mail.
Iowa has a second, narrower period beginning October 9 that applies only when the Department of Revenue issues an equalization order raising values county-wide. It is not a second chance on an ordinary April assessment.
No. Many boards decide on the written protest and attachments. If you want to appear, say so on the form; a clear packet does most of the work either way.
A real AppealDesk order, St. Clair County, Illinois
In June 2026, a homeowner in St. Clair County, Illinois ran the check. The county had their home on record at $455,499, while recorded sales of comparable homes supported about $328,620: an over-assessment of $126,879, worth roughly $2,908 per year if corrected. Their packet laid out the comparable sales, the forms, and the filing steps. Nobody at the county was ever going to run that check for them.
A deadline you meet with no evidence behind it is just paperwork. Comparable sales are what boards actually respond to, and pulling your county's number is where that starts.
Enter your address to pull your county record free. If it looks too high, your $49 packet gives you the comparable sales, forms, and filing steps.