Georgia's 299c freeze keeps a reduced home value from rising for the next two years. See what qualifies, what ends the hold early and what HB 581 changed.
# Georgia's 299c Property Tax Freeze: What Holds Your Value
Georgia's 299c property tax freeze stops the county assessors from raising your home's value for the next two years when an appeal lowers it, whether the lower value comes from a Board of Equalization, hearing officer, arbitrator or court decision or from a written agreement signed by the assessors and you or your authorized agent. Since HB 581 took effect for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, a no-change result starts no hold at all.
Counting the appeal year, that's a three-year value freeze if the value is reduced, subject to the statutory exceptions. It holds your value, not your tax bill, and the statute lists four exceptions that can keep it from applying or let the value move. This guide covers a home you own and live in.
The 299c freeze is subsection (c) of O.C.G.A. § 48-5-299, the part of Georgia law that limits what the county board of tax assessors can do after an appeal lowers a value. It applies when your value is reduced from the value on the county's annual assessment notice (or a corrected notice) and the lower value comes from one of these:
The statute says a value set this way "may not be increased by the board of tax assessors during the next two successive years, unless otherwise agreed in writing by both parties." It describes no separate application: the hold attaches to the reduced value that the decision or the signed agreement sets, subject to the four exceptions below.
In Gwinnett County, 99.2% of the appeals that won a reduction were recorded with the three-year hold under O.C.G.A. 48-5-299(c). Source: Gwinnett County public records request, 2025 tax year.
The hold covers the appeal year and the next two tax years, if the value is reduced and no exception applies. A 2025 appeal that lowered your value holds it for the 2026 and 2027 tax years. Holds that started with a 2024 appeal end with the 2026 tax year.
What that's worth depends on your reduction and your local millage rate. Among Gwinnett County appeals that won a reduction for the 2025 tax year, a median win works out to about $218 a year in tax, estimated at a typical Gwinnett millage rate. If the reduced value holds, that's about $653 over three years, also estimated, with each figure rounded on its own. Source: Gwinnett County public records request, 2025 tax year.
That estimate assumes the same yearly saving in each year of the hold. If the county would otherwise have raised your value in years two and three, the hold is worth more.
The old statute granted the freeze when your property value was "reduced or is unchanged" by an appeal. The new statute only grants it when the value is "reduced."
The Georgia Department of Revenue's summary of the 2024 legislation says HB 581 "limits the value freeze for appealed properties to apply only when the property value is reduced upon challenge, instead of freezing when reduced or unchanged." So a no-change result, whether it comes from the assessors or the Board, starts no hold. If the assessors made no change and you chose the Board of Equalization, their no-change notice also sends your appeal on to the Board with no second filing, and a reduction there can still start a hold. If the Board leaves it unchanged too, you can appeal again when next year's notice arrives. The change is HB 581 (Ga. L. 2024, p. 20, § 1-5), and you can read the bill as passed.
One state document still prints the old rule. The Department of Revenue's Board of Equalization Appeal Manual, revised October 2025, reprints 48-5-299(c) with the words "reduced or is unchanged." The current code doesn't have them: its amendment note says the 2024 amendment deleted "or is unchanged" and substituted "such reduced valuation." If you're reading the manual, go by the current statute on this point.
The new rules apply to taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2025. If you filed an appeal for the 2024 tax year or earlier, the old "reduced or unchanged" rule still applied. Any appeal of your 2025 or 2026 assessment notice falls under the revised law.
Yes, if the settlement is a written agreement at the reduced value, signed by the board of tax assessors and you or your authorized agent while your appeal is still open. Georgia's appeal statute, O.C.G.A. § 48-5-311(e)(8), says that when the assessors and the taxpayer "mutually agree in writing on the fair market value," the appeal is concluded and 299(c) applies to the agreed value "unless otherwise waived by both parties." So a signed value agreement carries the hold unless both sides waive it in writing, and the appeal ends on the date you both sign. The same is true at a later stage: if a decision goes to superior court and the two sides reach an agreement at the settlement conference, the statute applies 299(c) to that settlement value.
Some counties put a settlement on their own form, often called an appeal waiver and release. These forms can offer one option that fixes the value for the appeal year and the next two years, and another that leaves the value open to change later, which gives up the hold. Before you sign, check the value, the tax years listed, which option is marked, and that both sides sign.
A revised value you simply let stand is different. After you file, the assessors may change your value and mail a change notice (the state's form is the PT-306-30). The state's change notice says that if you agree with the adjusted value, no action is required, and your bill will be based on it. Doing nothing is not a signed agreement, though, and whether a hold attaches to a value you accept by silence isn't clear. If you want the revised value held for the next two years, ask the assessors for a written agreement signed by both sides while your appeal is still open.
If you disagree with the new value, Georgia law requires you to tell the assessors in writing within 30 days of the date the notice was mailed that you're continuing your appeal. The notice prints the last date to do that. Confirm the dates on your county's letter.
If you filed the appeal yourself, plan to attend the hearing and to send written evidence, because the statute ties the hold on a decision to taking part. Subsection (c)(1) says:
"This subsection shall not apply to a valuation established by an appeal decision if the taxpayer or his or her authorized [agent] failed to attend the appeal hearing or provide the board of equalization, hearing officer, or arbitrator with some written evidence supporting the taxpayer's opinion of value."
That sentence can be read two ways. Read one way, you lose the hold only if you neither attended nor sent written evidence. Read the stricter way, missing either one could cost you the hold. So if you filed the appeal yourself, we recommend doing both: attend the hearing in any format your county offers, and give the Board written evidence of your value, such as recent sales of similar homes near yours. That's our recommendation, not a rule the statute adds.
The rule covers appeal decisions, not signed agreements, so a reduction by signed agreement doesn't depend on a hearing. If you skip the hearing and send no written evidence, you lose the hold under either reading, even if the Board lowers your value. And if the Board leaves your value unchanged, there's no hold however well you prepared.
The statute lists four exceptions, in subsections (c)(1) to (c)(4):
A sale isn't on the list. The statute doesn't say what a sale does to a hold, so if you're buying or selling, ask the county assessors how they treat it.
Yes, a new appeal puts the held value back in play. If you appeal a value that's already under a hold, the appeal can move the value up or down on the evidence, unless both sides agree otherwise in writing. An ordinary appeal works differently: the Board of Equalization, a hearing officer, or an arbitrator can lower your value but cannot raise it above what the county assessors set (O.C.G.A. § 48-5-311(e)(9)), except on an appeal filed while a 299(c) freeze from an earlier appeal is in effect.
If a 2025 appeal lowered your value, appealing your 2026 notice lets the deciding body raise or lower that value on the evidence, and you'd get a new hold only if that appeal reduces the value.
Check your parcel's record before you file. A county's record can show a hold from an earlier appeal, including one a previous owner filed, and your assessment notice or the county's online record may note it. If you just bought your home and you aren't sure, ask the assessors' office whether a 299(c) hold is on the parcel before you appeal.
If a notice during the hold shows a higher value, ask the assessors in writing why. The statute bars them from raising a held value unless both sides agree in writing or one of its exceptions applies, such as changes found on an on-site inspection. To contest the value, Georgia law requires an appeal within 45 days of the date the notice was mailed, and the date printed on the notice governs. That appeal is filed while the hold is in effect, so the value can move up or down on the evidence. Confirm with your county before you file.
The hold keeps your value where the appeal set it; it doesn't cap your tax bill. Your bill depends on your value, your exemptions and the millage rates, so these can still change it:
For what the next bill looks like after a win, see your second property tax bill after a Georgia appeal.
Once the two years after the appeal year are over, the hold no longer limits the value on your next annual notice. If that value looks too high, you can appeal again. Georgia law requires the appeal within 45 days of the date the notice was mailed, and the date printed on your notice governs. A new reduction starts a fresh hold for that appeal year and the next two, subject to the statutory exceptions.
The guide to what happens after you file an appeal in Georgia walks through the steps, and what to do first when your assessment notice arrives covers the notice itself. Confirm with your county before you file.
The 299c change gets the most attention, but HB 581 changed two other things you may run into.
A sale price no longer caps next year's value. The Department of Revenue's summary says HB 581 "strikes the prohibition that the last sales price of a home is the maximum fair market value for the next tax year." A recent purchase price is evidence of market value. It is no longer a cap on the next year's value.
HB 581 also created a statewide floating homestead exemption, which the Georgia Municipal Association says "limits annual increases in the taxable assessed value of homestead property to the rate of inflation." SB 33 (Act 461, signed May 11, 2026) repealed the local opt-out that HB 581 allowed, so the governments that had opted out come under the exemption from tax year 2027, measuring later increases from each home's 2026 value. The exemption and the 299(c) hold are separate rules, and the opt-outs only ever concerned the exemption, though the exemption's yearly calculation counts a final value set on appeal.
This article is general information from public sources, all read September 29, 2026: O.C.G.A. 48-5-299 and 48-5-311 on Justia; HB 581 as passed, with its text of O.C.G.A. 48-5-44.2; the Georgia Department of Revenue's 2024 legislation summary, PT-306-30 change notice template and Board of Equalization Appeal Manual; SB 33 as signed; and the Georgia Municipal Association's SB 33 guide. The Gwinnett figures come from a Gwinnett County public records request for the 2025 tax year. Dates and windows here are estimated, and county practice varies. It is not legal or tax advice. Check your own dates, and whether a hold is on your parcel, with your notice or your county's board of assessors.