South Dakota Homestead Exemption: Owner-Occupied Class and Creditor Limits

South Dakota has no general homestead exemption that subtracts dollars from a home’s value. The tax break for an owner’s residence is the owner-occupied classification (SDCL § 10-13-39), which carries a lower school general-fund levy. The certificate goes to the county director of equalization by March 15.

The word “homestead” shows up in two other places, and neither is that classification. Chapter 43-31 is a creditor law: it keeps a family’s home out of judicial sales, within acreage limits and a dollar limit set in § 43-45-3(2): $100,000, or $170,000 for an owner 70 or older or that owner’s unremarried surviving spouse. And the Department of Revenue uses “Homestead Exemption Program” as the name for two ways owners 70 and older can put off property tax: Program 1 rests on chapter 43-31, Program 2 on chapter 10-6C. All three are covered below, each under its own statute.

What the owner-occupied class actually lowers

The Department of Revenue’s July 2026 tax fact puts it in one line: “Owner-occupied classification reduces only the school general levy. All other levies, such as county, city, and school special education are the exact same for all types of property.” The ceilings are written into SDCL § 10-12-42, in dollars per $1,000 of taxable valuation:

The 2027 column comes from House Bill 1051, which the governor signed March 30, 2026 (SL 2026, ch 44). These are caps. The statute says a district “may elect to tax at less than the maximum amounts,” and the levies apply to valuations where “the median level of assessment represents eighty-five percent of market value.” A district with an excess levy under § 10-12-43 has to keep its three rates in the same proportion as the payable-2026 maximums.

A 2025 law adds a second limit, and it works at the county level, not house by house. For taxes payable in 2027 through 2031, § 10-6-158 says the total assessed value of all owner-occupied property in a county “may not increase more than three percent” over the prior year. A county may add the assessed value of new improvements and of property newly reclassified as owner-occupied. And “notwithstanding” the three percent limit, a county “must adjust” that total under § 10-6-121, which keeps the median sales-to-assessment ratio of all real property between 85% and 100%.

The March 15 certificate and who can sign it

The deadline is set in state law, not by each county. § 10-13-40: “The owner-occupant shall submit the certificate by March fifteenth.” The certificate goes to the county director of equalization. On it you state that you owned and occupied the dwelling “as of the assessment date” and that it is your principal place of residence, and you sign under penalty of perjury. The form is called Certification of Owner-Occupied Dwelling. DOR takes it online, or you can file it at the county office. Mobile and manufactured homes follow a different schedule: that certificate is filed at registration, and missing it “does not affect the eligibility of the property.”

• You file once. Once granted, the classification stays “until such time as the property ownership is transferred or the property has a change in use.”
• Only one dwelling per person. Under § 10-13-39, “A person may only have one dwelling, which is the person’s principal place of residence … classified as an owner-occupied single-family dwelling.”
• Who counts as an owner. § 10-13-39.3 names “A joint tenant, an owner of a life estate, a partner, a person owning an interest in a limited liability company, a person owning an interest in a corporation, a vendee of a contract for deed, or a beneficiary of a trust.” It also covers two more cases: a parent living in a home their child owns, and an adult with a disability living in a home a parent owns.
• If you live in only part of the building. Occupy 50% or more of the living space and the whole dwelling is classified. In a duplex, triplex or fourplex, or if you occupy under half, only your portion is. A separate request for an owner-occupied portion of a building goes to the director “before August first” (§ 10-13-39.1).
• Missed deadline. The only relief written into §§ 10-13-39 to 10-13-40.4 is for people on temporary military duty. They can petition the board of county commissioners to recalculate and abate or refund the tax (§ 10-13-40.4).
• Penalty for a false claim. $10 per $1,000 of valuation, which becomes a perpetual lien, plus a three-year statewide bar from the classification (§ 10-13-40.3).

Appeals of the classification go “directly to the county board of equalization pursuant to § 10-11-23.”

Programs tied to age, disability or military service

These programs are separate from one another. Each has its own filing office and its own date.

Assessment freeze, chapter 10-6A (65 and older, or disabled)

The freeze holds the dwelling’s assessment at its base-year value, or at a later year’s value if the applicant elects it. Base year is the year the owner turned 65 or became disabled. To qualify you must have owned an owner-occupied dwelling and lived in South Dakota for five years “unless the person has received the assessment freeze in the previous year,” and you must have spent at least 200 days of the previous year in the house. Household income must be under $55,000 for one person or $65,000 for a larger household, and those figures have been indexed each year since January 1, 2026. DOR’s December 2025 brochure prints the indexed limits as under $56,595 and under $66,885. Homes worth $514,500 or more are excluded unless the freeze was granted in an earlier year (statutory base $500,000, § 10-6A-3). The application is “annually submitted on or before April first” to the county treasurer. An owner who missed April 1 of the previous year can petition the county commissioners (§ 10-6A-4).

DOR’s Homestead Exemption Program 2: the chapter 10-6C deferral (70 and older)

Under § 10-6C-2 the county cannot collect property tax on the dwelling of a qualifying owner. The owner’s base year is the year they reach 70; a surviving spouse inherits the deceased spouse’s base year. You must have owned the home at least three years or lived in the state five years, and lived in the home eight months of the prior year. The statutory income limits are $16,000 for one person and $20,000 for a larger household, indexed since 2024. DOR’s December 2025 figures are under $18,470 and under $23,087. Apply every year by April 1 with the county treasurer. The unpaid tax is not forgiven. Under § 10-6C-8 it becomes a lien carrying interest at the Category E rate of § 54-3-16, and the property cannot be transferred until the tax and interest are paid in full.

Chapter 43-31 has a separate tax rule, which DOR’s brochure lists as Homestead Exemption Program 1 (“SDCL 43-31”). A homestead valued at less than $170,000 that belongs to a person 70 or older, or to that person’s unremarried surviving spouse, “is exempt from sale for taxes for so long as it continues to possess the character of a homestead” (§ 43-31-1).

Disabled veterans and surviving spouses

§ 10-4-40 exempts $200,000 of the full and true value of an owner-occupied dwelling owned and occupied by a veteran “rated as permanently and totally disabled from a service-connected disability.” The home must already carry the owner-occupied classification. The exemption continues until the property is transferred, the veteran stops living there, or its use changes. § 10-4-41 gives the same $200,000 to a surviving spouse of such a veteran, or of a veteran whose service-connected death pays dependency and indemnity compensation, and it ends if the spouse remarries. DOR’s brochure sends the application to the county director of equalization “on or before November 1.” A veteran who misses the deadline only because a claim for a permanent and total disability rating is still pending with the VA gets a mandatory remedy: the county board “must abate or refund the difference in taxes accumulated since the effective date of the claim, but not exceeding the previous four years” (§ 10-4-40). Other veterans who miss the owner-occupied or the exemption deadline can petition the board of county commissioners, which “may abate or refund the difference in taxes” (§ 10-4-40). A surviving spouse who misses either deadline can also petition; the board “may abate or refund the difference in taxes accumulated over a period not exceeding the previous four years” (§ 10-4-41). A dwelling “specifically designed for use by paraplegics as wheelchair homes” (§ 10-4-24.9) is fully exempt if it is owned and occupied for the full calendar year by a paraplegic veteran, a veteran with the loss or loss of use of both lower extremities, or that veteran’s unremarried widow or widower (§ 10-4-24.10).

Yearly refund, chapter 10-45A

This refund is not tied to the house. The statute calls it a refund of “retail sales and service taxes” (§ 10-45A-2). It is open to people who were 65 or older before January 1 of the year the refund is claimed for, or who were disabled, and who lived in the state for that entire calendar year (§ 10-45A-2). DOR’s current form is the “2026 Application for 2025 taxes,” so the year is 2025. Income must be $17,215 or less for one person or $23,265 or less for a larger household (§§ 10-45A-5, 10-45A-6). The claim is due “on or before July first.” For sickness, absence or other good cause, the secretary can extend that date by up to six months (§ 10-45A-8).

Chapter 43-31: protection from creditors

This law has nothing to do with your tax bill. § 43-31-1 makes “the homestead, including a homestead listed for sale, of every family, resident in this state” exempt “from judicial sale, from judgment lien, and from all mesne or final process from any court, to the extent and as provided by statute,” for as long as it keeps the character of a homestead. § 43-31-14 counts a single person in actual occupancy as a family.

The land a homestead can include is limited by § 43-31-4:

• Within a town plat, one acre at most.
• Outside a town plat, no more than 160 acres in total.
• Land held under the federal mineral-land laws: one acre within a plat, 40 acres outside a plat if title came from a placer claim, and five acres if title came from a lode mining claim.

Separate tracts count only if they are contiguous or “habitually and in good faith used as part of the same homestead” (§ 43-31-3). The homestead covers one dwelling plus its appurtenant buildings. A shop, store or other building the owner really uses in their own ordinary business “may be deemed appurtenant.” A mobile home can be the homestead if it is a vehicle “without motive power which can provide adequate, comfortable, all season quarters” for a residence, is larger than 240 square feet measured at its base, and has been registered in South Dakota at least six months before the claim (§ 43-31-2). No lode mining claim embracing a gold or silver mine, no gold or silver mill, and no mill, smelter or machinery used for reducing or milling gold or silver ores can be claimed as a homestead (§ 43-31-5).

§ 43-45-3(1) calls the homestead so defined “absolutely exempt,” but the protection has a dollar ceiling. Chapter 21-19 lets a judgment creditor levy on the part of a homestead’s value “in excess of the homestead exemption set by subdivision 43-45-3(2)” (§ 21-19-2), and § 21-19-15 allows proceedings “to reach under levy any part of the debtor’s homestead which is in excess of the homestead exemption as provided by law.” Subdivision (2) sets two figures. The first is $100,000. If the home is sold, whether voluntarily or under chapter 21-19, proceeds up to that amount stay exempt for one year after you receive them. If a court divides the home in a divorce under § 25-4-44 and imposes a lien for the spouse who moved out under § 25-4-42, the protection attaches to that judicial lien for one year. Senate Bill 88 (SL 2025, ch 185) raised the $100,000 figure from $60,000, effective July 1, 2025 under § 2-14-16. The second figure is in the subdivision’s last sentence: “The exemption is limited to one hundred seventy thousand dollars for a homestead of a person seventy years of age or older or the unremarried surviving spouse of such person so long as it continues to possess the character of a homestead.” In In re Davis, 2004 SD 70, the South Dakota Supreme Court held that article XXI, § 4 of the state constitution (“a homestead, the value of which shall be limited and defined by law”) requires a dollar limit on the homestead exemption, and it treated the subdivision (2) figure, then $30,000, as that limit for owners under 70.

Recording is optional. Under § 43-31-6 the owner or spouse “may” have the homestead marked off, platted and recorded, and if they have not, an officer holding an execution can do it and add the cost to the execution. Recording does matter for taxes: a homestead “certified and recorded as hereinbefore directed, shall be liable only for such taxes” (§ 43-31-29).

Claims South Dakota statutes let reach the homestead

No single section lists these exceptions. Each one below comes from the section named next to it.

A judgment for criminal fines, penalties or costs still cannot take the homestead (§ 43-45-10). Separately, South Dakota residents in bankruptcy cannot use the federal exemption list in 11 U.S.C. § 522(d) (§ 43-31-30).

Owner questions

I closed on my house in August. Do I have to wait until March 15?

Not if the seller’s home was already classified owner-occupied. In that case § 10-13-40 lets the new owner-occupant qualify “by completing and filing the certificate of value” at the time of transfer. If it was not classified, send the Certification of Owner-Occupied Dwelling to the director of equalization by March 15.

Does the classification follow me to a house in another county?

No. It is attached to the property and ends when ownership transfers. You can have only one owner-occupied dwelling, so the new house needs its own certificate.

My house is in a revocable trust. Am I still an owner?

For the owner-occupied class, yes: § 10-13-39.3 counts “a beneficiary of a trust.” The freeze uses a narrower list in § 10-6A-1(8): a joint tenant, a life-estate owner, a trust beneficiary, and a contract-for-deed vendee “as filed with the register of deeds.” Partners and LLC or corporate interest holders are not on that list.

Do I reapply every year?

For the owner-occupied class, no. For the freeze and the chapter 10-6C deferral, yes: each is filed annually by April 1.

Related pages: South Dakota property tax guide · South Dakota closing costs · South Dakota overview · Homestead rules by state · Property tax calculator · Compare state taxes