The NYC pied-à-terre tax is the surcharge the Department of Finance calls the non-primary residence property surcharge. It reaches condominium and cooperative units the Department of Finance values at $1 million or more, and one- to three-family homes valued at $5 million or more, when the city does not have a qualifying primary resident on record for the property. It applies for fiscal year 2027, and the first surcharge lands with the property tax bill of January 1, 2027. This page puts the tax in one place: the rate ladders with a worked example, the five ways to be exempt, the list and the letter, the deadline and how it moved, the lawsuit, and what MGNY files for owners.

The notice does not tell you the pied-à-terre tax rate. It tells you what the Department of Finance thinks your property is worth and gives you a deadline. The rate, the threshold, and the five ways to be exempt are in the statute and the rules, and this page puts them in one place, with the numbers, so you can read your own notice and know what it means before you decide what to do about it.

New to the term? The meaning of a pied-à-terre, and what counts as one in New York City, is covered separately; this page is the arithmetic.

What is the pied-à-terre tax rate in NYC?

There are two pied-à-terre tax rate ladders, and which one applies depends on what the property is. The surcharge is calculated on the Department of Finance market value, which is not a sale price, and once a property crosses its threshold the rate applies to the entire value, not only the part above the line. The rule preamble says so in as many words: if a property’s valuation exceeds the threshold, the entirety of the property’s value is subject to the surcharge.

Condominium and cooperative units, $1 million and above

• $1,000,000 to $3,000,000: 4.00% of market value each year
• $3,000,000 to $5,000,000: 5.25%
• $5,000,000 and above: 6.50%

One-, two-, and three-family homes, $5 million and above

• $5,000,000 to $15,000,000: 0.80% of market value each year
• $15,000,000 to $25,000,000: 1.05%
• $25,000,000 and above: 1.30%

These are the Phase One rates, in force for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 tax years. From July 1, 2028, condominiums and cooperatives move to a comparable-sales valuation and a single $5 million threshold with the homes ladder.

How much would I actually pay at the pied-à-terre tax rate?

A worked example of the pied-à-terre tax rate from one notice, anonymous: a one- to three-family home the Department of Finance valued at $5,268,000 carries an annual surcharge of $42,144.00, which is 0.8% of that value to the cent. The same market value on a condominium or cooperative unit would sit in the other ladder entirely, at 6.5%, and the property type is therefore the whole question.

The property type is decided by what the property is, never by its tax class. That distinction is load-bearing in one specific case: a condominium unit inside a one- to three-unit building sits in tax class 1, but it is still a condominium unit, so it takes the $1 million test and the condominium rates. Reading it as a house, with the $5 million threshold, tells such an owner the surcharge does not reach them when it does.

Two more things the notice does not spell out. Existing abatements, credits and exemptions do not offset the surcharge. And a $1 million Department of Finance market value is well below open-market prices for class 2 property, because the Department values it by an income method; a $1 million DOF value has been described as corresponding to roughly a $5 million apartment.

The free instant check does this arithmetic for your specific lot: enter the address and it shows the Department of Finance value and the annual surcharge if no exemption is granted, without an account.

To put your own number on it, use the estimator below: pick the property type, enter the Department of Finance market value from your notice, and the annual surcharge appears. It is an estimate using the rate ladders for fiscal years 2026-27 and 2027-28, and the figures on your notice govern.

Who is exempt from the pied-à-terre tax?

The surcharge is not owed when any one of five people uses the property as a primary residence, judged as of the taxable status date, January 5, 2026:

1. The owner. You live in the unit and it is your primary residence; the Department of Finance simply does not have that on record yet.
2. A tenant or subtenant. A renter or subtenant who uses the unit as their primary residence qualifies the property. The tenant must be a natural person, so an LLC tenant cannot establish primary residence, and the statute asks for a bona fide lease negotiated at arm’s length with a term of not less than one year. The final rule added documentation paths for month-to-month tenants and for spouses of owners, so a month-to-month arrangement can be documented; it rests on the Department of Finance’s rule rather than on the statute’s own one-year term, which makes it the weaker of the two positions. Arm’s length has a definition in the rule: a lease “entered into in good faith and for valuable consideration that reflects the fair market rental value” of the unit between informed and willing parties, “where neither is under any compulsion to participate in the transaction and circumstances do not indicate a reasonable possibility that the lease or sub-lease was entered into primarily for the purpose of avoiding imposition of the surcharge.” The Department of Finance’s gloss is that an owner “is not prohibited from considering the tax implications of their business affairs, but cannot orchestrate such affairs for the primary purpose of tax avoidance,” and its tenant affidavit form has both sides swear to exactly that.
3. One or more individuals who collectively hold a majority interest in the LLC, corporation, or partnership that owns the property. This is the path most entity-owned units rely on. Multi-tier entity structures cannot establish primary residence.
4. An immediate family member of the owner or of a majority interest holder, living there as their primary residence.
5. The sole beneficiary of a trust that holds the property. Multiple individuals may together be the sole current beneficiaries; a contingent or future interest does not automatically disqualify.

Primary residency is also deemed to continue for one year after a death, and through a continuous hospitalization or a temporary nursing home or rehabilitation stay, with proof of the event and of prior residency.

Outside that deeming rule, every one of those relationships needs a person in residence as of the taxable status date, and the rule makes no allowance for an ordinary vacancy. Owners asked for one during the rulemaking, three ways: a lease signed shortly after the taxable status date, a renovation under way on that date, and a purchase with a move-in planned for later. The Department of Finance declined all three, because “State law bases the determination of primary residency on a property’s use as of the taxable status date,” and it declined to prorate the surcharge for a partial year, because “Such exemptions are not authorized by law.” The exclusions that do exist are the statute’s, and there are two: a property “for which a temporary or permanent certificate of occupancy is required and has not yet been issued”, and a sponsor’s unit that is still unsold under its offering plan. A renovation that needs no new certificate gets neither.

What documents does the Department of Finance want?

The exemption is not automatic. Somebody has to tell the Department of Finance which relationship applies, with documents, by October 6, 2026, through the portal at nyc.gov/npsurcharge or in person at a location the Commissioner of Finance designates, a route the emergency rule of August 3, 2026 added; the Department of Finance’s page names only the online application. The Department of Finance’s program page asks for one of the most recent federal or state income tax return showing the address, or a driver’s license or other DMV-issued identification; only where neither is available does it ask for both a voter identification card and one other proof. The rule’s own list, 19 RCNY 62-06(b)(2)(i), reads a tax return or two or more of a DMV identification, a voter identification card and other proof of residency, and the emergency amendment of August 3, 2026 did not change it, so a file built to the rule’s list satisfies the program page as well.

On top of that core proof: family relationships need a marriage or birth certificate or an affidavit; the tenant path needs, in the Department of Finance’s words, “A copy of the current lease and one additional rental document, such as a utility bill, proof of rent payment, or renter’s insurance policy,” where the rule defines an additional rental document as a utility bill in the tenant’s name issued within the year before filing, an unexpired renter’s insurance policy the tenant is party to, or proof of rent paid to the owner; a month-to-month tenant with no written lease uses the Tenant or Subtenant Affidavit instead, sworn by both the owner and the tenant, with two additional rental documents, and the affidavit form itself says not to use it where a written lease exists; entities and trusts need their organizational documents plus an officer or trustee affidavit. Owners may file an amended return before appealing.

How does the Department of Finance decide who gets a notice in the first place? For this year, from records. The rule treats a property as a primary residence where a covered owner’s most recent state or federal income tax return shows it as the permanent home address or shows the STAR credit under Tax Law 606(eee) for it, or where the owner holds one of the residency-based property tax exemptions the rule lists, unless “credible information in the possession of the department, including but not limited to information collected by the department in administering the abatement authorized pursuant to section 467-a of the real property tax law, indicates otherwise.” The statute’s open-ended test, “including but not limited to” whether the owner occupied the property “for a majority of days during a calendar year,” is not in play yet: the rule reserves the majority-of-days factor for fiscal years beginning on or after July 1, 2027. Commenters asked the Department of Finance to widen the list of proof it accepts, and it declined.

How long does an owner have to appeal the Department of Finance’s determination?

The rule’s structural clock is 30 days. An appeal of an initial determination is due “no later than 30 days after the date that notice of such initial determination is transmitted,” or, if the Department of Finance transmits no notice, “no later than 30 days after such surcharge appears on the assessment roll.” Transmitted means sent, not received: the rule’s preamble says “Generally, the transmission of a letter or email notice occurs when it is sent via mail or transmitted electronically,” so mail time comes out of the 30 days. For the fiscal year that began July 1, 2026 that clock does not apply. The emergency rule effective August 3, 2026 replaced it with a window running to “(i) September 18, 2026; or (ii) a date selected by the commissioner of finance, where good cause is shown, whichever is later,” and the Department of Finance’s page now carries October 6, 2026, clause (ii) being the rule’s only route to a date later than September 18. That window rests on an emergency rule, which the Charter holds to 60 days with one further 60 days while the Department of Finance prepares a permanent rule, so the paragraph can change again before October 6. The 30-day rule is the one to plan around from the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2027. A petition for a hearing on a penalty determination runs on its own 30-day clock under 19 RCNY 62-04(d), not under the appeal rule, and that petition is the one place in this scheme where a hearing exists.

The appeal is decided on paper. The Department of Finance’s rule preamble calls it “a written appeals process,” with no hearing in any format. The determination on the application goes out as a letter and an email, and the rule directs the notice of determination “to the email address associated with such appeal,” so the inbox matters more than the mailbox. The person who decides the appeal cannot be the person who made the initial determination. A denial “shall be a final determination” and can be taken to the Tax Commission under Administrative Code 11-3206; an owner who files nothing is left with the initial determination, which “shall constitute a final determination” and cannot be challenged at the Tax Commission unless a residency challenge was filed there together with a value challenge.

What if the value on the notice is wrong?

That is a different route from the exemption. Value challenges go to the NYC Tax Commission on Form TC107, by March 1, 2027 for class 2 or March 15, 2027 for class 1, or 30 days after the Department of Finance’s final determination, whichever is later. A Tax Commission determination controls and bars the Department of Finance from reconsidering, and choosing that route replaces the direct exemption application, so the two are not filed casually together. The machinery behind that route, deadlines, forms and hearings, is the standard New York City property tax appeal process.

The penalty for a materially inaccurate certification that would lower the surcharge is 300% of the difference, capped at half the surcharge, with a six-year audit window and subpoena power to go with it: in that audit the Commissioner may “subpoena and require the attendance of witnesses and the production of books, papers and documents.” Get the relationship and the documents right the first time.

Is your property on the pied-à-terre tax list?

There are two things people mean by the list. The first is the supplemental market value roll, also called the assessment roll addendum, which the Department of Finance published on July 24, 2026. It lists all one- to three-family homes and all condominium and cooperative properties, and the Department of Finance itself says the vast majority of properties on that roll will not be subject. The second is the letter with the red box and the unique security code, roughly 17,000 of them, and that is the list that matters. Checking your own property against the pied-à-terre tax list is covered on its own page, and the free property check reads the roll for you.

When is the pied-à-terre tax deadline, and how did it move?

The deadline printed on the letters is August 21, 2026 for homes and condominiums and August 24, 2026 for cooperative units. On August 1, 2026 the Mayor and the Finance Commissioner extended the deadline to a single date for everyone who received a notice, and the Department of Finance extended it again to October 6, 2026. October 6 is the one that counts. The surcharge itself is added to the January 1, 2027 bill.

The rest of the calendar, in date order. The Department of Finance’s 2026 calendar lists the third-quarter property tax bill for November 20; the final version of the assessment roll addendum is published December 31, 2026; the surcharge lands on the bill due January 1, 2027, as above; the Tax Commission dates are March 1, 2027 for class 2 and March 15, 2027 for class 1, as in the value section above; phase two begins July 1, 2028, as the rate section explains; and the whole surcharge sunsets, because Tax Law Article 30-C carries the note “Repealed June 30, 2031.” Two dates sit behind those, both for the notice rather than the owner: the Department of Finance’s outside date to transmit this year’s initial determinations was August 30, 2026, and from the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2027 the rule sets February 15.

What happened in the pied-à-terre tax lawsuit?

On Monday, August 10, 2026, Justice Wayne Ozzi of the State Supreme Court in Richmond County issued a temporary restraining order in O’Brien v. City of New York blocking the rollout of the surcharge. The Law Department filed its affirmation of intention to seek permission to appeal that evening, which stayed the order automatically under state law, and on August 13 the Appellate Division, Second Department, confirmed the stay and granted leave to appeal. No court order on the available record moved the deadline. The docket record is in the court order that lasted one evening.

What does it cost to ask MGNY?

Nothing. A real person answers at (212) 343-1111, right away, and the consultation is free. You engage us only if you want the response handled for you. The firm’s non-primary residence surcharge service is where that work is described, and the surcharge explainer walks through who pays and who is exempt in the Department of Finance’s own words. MGNY has worked NYC property tax since 2008, with $50M+ in tax refunds secured for owners, 900+ developments with tax abatements secured and $30B+ represented in appeals.

Sources: NYC Department of Finance, nyc.gov/npsurcharge, program page and portal, read August 2026; Tax Law Article 30-C; the adopted rule at 19 RCNY Chapter 62 as amended August 3, 2026; the NYC Tax Commission surcharge appeal page; client alerts from Sullivan & Cromwell, Holland & Knight, Rosenberg & Estis and Day Pitney, read July and August 2026.

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