Senior Property-Tax Relief Programme Types by State, 29 States Verified, 2026

State-by-state classification of senior property-tax relief programmes into four mechanism types - freeze, exemption, circuit-breaker credit and deferral - with a derived field recording whether a deferral creates a lien against the home. Coverage: 51 jurisdictions; 29 at high confidence, 21 medium (provisional), 1 low. 19 jurisdictions where a deferral creates a lien. Why classification rather than dollar amounts. Thresholds are re-legislated most years; the mechanism is durable. Every row carries the state source URL and the date it was read, and any quoted threshold is labelled with the year confirmed. The finding. Two states give a deferral a misleading name. South Dakota's 'Homestead Exemption' does not reduce taxable value - it postpones collection and creates a perpetual lien. North Carolina's 'circuit breaker' carries the above-cap amount forward as deferred tax that becomes a lien due on death or sale. Michigan is the opposite case: a 'deferment' that is only a due-date extension and creates no lien. The lien field is derived from the mechanism, not the label. Method. State revenue departments, comptrollers and statutes only. Law firms, listicles and aggregators were forbidden as sources of fact. A jurisdiction that could not be reached was marked down rather than inferred from a neighbour. Canonical page: https://clearmoneyguide.com/property-tax-relief-for-seniors-by-state/