SB 33, signed on May 11, 2026, makes Georgia's floating homestead exemption mandatory for every county, city and school district. It does not cap property tax revenue. Here is what changes, and why your appeal still matters.
# Georgia SB 33 (HOME Act): What It Changes for Homeowners
Less than thirty minutes before the midnight deadline on April 2, 2026, Georgia legislators gutted a hemp regulation bill, stuffed it with sweeping property tax reform language, and passed it out of the chamber. The 2026 Georgia property tax cap, now riding inside SB 33, creates two distinct mechanisms that will reshape how local governments collect property taxes and how your home's assessed value grows over time.
But if you're holding your 2026 assessment notice right now, wondering whether this bill changes anything about that number, the answer is no. Not yet. Your 2026 assessment stands, your appeal window runs from the date on your notice, and every dollar you reduce this year becomes the baseline that the new cap protects going forward.
Understanding what actually passed, what it doesn't do, and why the timing matters for your appeal decision requires separating two very different reforms that got bundled into one last-minute vote.
SB 33 contains two separate property tax mechanisms that work in parallel but target different problems.
The first is a 3% revenue cap on local government property tax collections. Counties, cities, and school districts can't increase their total property tax revenue by more than 3% or the Consumer Price Index (whichever is greater) from one year to the next without voter approval. This targets the practice where local governments collect windfall revenue from rising assessments without ever voting to raise the millage rate.
The second makes the HB 581 floating homestead exemption mandatory statewide. This caps how much your individual home's assessed value can increase each year, pegged to the CPI. When Georgia voters approved Amendment 1 in November 2024) with 63% support, they created this protection as a local option. The problem: roughly 68% of school systems, 30% of counties, and 25% of cities opted out. SB 33 eliminates those opt-outs.
Together, these provisions create both a ceiling on what local governments can collect and a floor under what individual homeowners can be assessed.
The original vehicle for this reform was HB 1116, which contained substantially the same property tax cap provisions. It failed in the Georgia Senate on a 24-28 vote on April 2, with opposition from senators concerned about local government funding for schools and public safety.
Within hours, legislative leaders took SB 33 (a bill originally dealing with hemp product regulations), stripped out its contents, inserted the property tax cap language, and pushed it through both chambers before the Sine Die deadline at midnight. The legislative maneuver meant the provisions that couldn't pass on their own merits got a second life inside unrelated legislation.
The substance of HB 1116 and the final version of SB 33 is largely identical. If you see references to either bill number, they're describing the same reform package. SB 33 is the version that landed on the governor's desk.
Governor Kemp has 40 days from April 2 to sign or veto SB 33, putting the deadline around mid-May 2026. He's publicly supported property tax relief throughout the session, so a signature is widely expected.
Even after signing, the provisions phase in on different timelines:
This phased timeline is the single most important detail for homeowners reading their 2026 assessment notices right now.
No. Your 2026 property tax assessment is completely unaffected by SB 33.
Assessment notices are typically mailed in late spring or early summer, reflecting your county assessor's determination of fair market value as of January 1, 2026. The cap provisions don't take effect until 2027 at the earliest. The appeal deadline on your notice, the Board of Equalization hearing process, and, when an appeal reduces your value, the three-year assessment freeze (subject to the statutory exceptions) available under O.C.G.A. § 48-5-299(c) all operate exactly as they did last year. Georgia law sets the appeal deadline at 45 days from the date of your assessment notice. The date printed on your notice controls. Confirm with your county before you file.
If anything, the passage of SB 33 makes your 2026 appeal more consequential, not less. The assessed value you lock in this year becomes the base from which the CPI cap limits future increases. A lower starting point compounds into larger savings over time.
The revenue cap restricts how much total property tax revenue a local taxing authority (county, city, or school district) can collect year over year. The limit is 3% or the CPI, whichever is greater.
To understand why this matters, consider how property tax windfalls currently work. When home values surge, as they did across Georgia with assessed values doubling between 2013 and 2023, local governments collect dramatically more revenue even if they never touch the millage rate. A county with a 30-mill rate collecting against a tax digest that grew 15% in a single year (as Cobb County's record $58 billion digest did in 2023) gets a 15% revenue increase without any vote.
Under SB 33, that same county would need to either roll back its millage rate to stay within 3% revenue growth or put the excess collection to a public vote.
With the Atlanta-area CPI currently at 2.3% and the U.S. South region at 1.8%, the 3% floor is the binding constraint right now. Local governments will effectively be limited to 3% revenue growth unless inflation accelerates.
Property taxes fund roughly 66% of local government revenue in Georgia, totaling $18.3 billion annually. Local officials have argued that a hard cap without adequate replacement revenue threatens school funding and public safety budgets. The LHOST provision (a 1% local sales tax option starting in 2028) is meant to partially offset that concern, though it requires voter approval in each jurisdiction.
Yes, for all jurisdictions, pending the governor's signature. This is arguably the bigger change for individual homeowners.
When voters passed Amendment 1 in 2024, they authorized (but didn't require) local governments to cap annual assessment increases on homesteaded properties at the rate of inflation. The exemption "floats" because it represents the difference between your home's fair market value and the CPI-capped assessed value, growing larger each year your home appreciates faster than inflation.
The opt-out problem was massive. All five of Georgia's largest counties (Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb, and Chatham) had their school systems decline to participate. Gwinnett and Cobb county governments also opted out. According to the Georgia Recorder's analysis, 64.8% of counties, representing about 83% of Georgia's population, had at least one local jurisdiction opt out.
SB 33 eliminates the local option entirely. Every county, city, and school district must apply the CPI-based assessment cap to homesteaded properties starting with the 2027 tax year.
Yes, and this is where the California comparison becomes unavoidable.
Under SB 33's mandatory homestead exemption, your home's assessed value can only grow by the CPI each year while you own it. But when the property sells, the assessment resets to current fair market value for the new owner. This is structurally identical to California's Proposition 13, which has capped assessment growth at 2% since 1978.
The practical math shows why this matters. Take a homeowner in east Cobb County who purchased a 1,800-square-foot home in 2024 for $400,000. At Georgia's 40% assessment ratio, that's a $160,000 assessed value. With a $2,000 homestead exemption and a combined millage rate around 30 mills, the annual tax bill is approximately $4,740.
If the home appreciates at 5% annually but assessments are capped at 2.3% (current Atlanta CPI):
The cumulative five-year savings total roughly $2,142. But when that homeowner sells, the buyer's assessment jumps to the full market value, meaning they'd pay $747 more per year than the previous owner was paying.
NBER research on Prop 13's effects in California found that similar reset-on-sale provisions increased average homeowner tenure by 10% and renter tenure by 19%. Long-term owners benefit increasingly over time, while recent buyers and renters see no direct benefit from the assessment cap.
This creates a lock-in effect. The longer you stay, the wider the gap between your capped assessment and market value. Moving resets the clock.
Neither the assessment cap nor the homestead exemption applies to rental properties, commercial properties, or second homes. Only owner-occupied primary residences with a homestead exemption qualify.
Renters may benefit indirectly from the revenue cap if it constrains overall property tax growth in their jurisdiction, but the individual assessment protection doesn't flow through to them. Landlords' assessments will continue to track market value without a CPI ceiling.
Investment property owners should note that the gap between homestead and non-homestead tax treatment widens under this framework. A rental property next door to an identical owner-occupied home could carry a significantly higher assessed value after just a few years.
Absolutely, and with more urgency than in previous years.
Your 2026 assessment is determined entirely under existing law. The cap doesn't apply until 2027 at the earliest. If your county overvalued your property this year, that inflated number stands unless you challenge it.
More importantly, the value you establish through a successful 2026 appeal becomes the launching point for future CPI-capped growth. Consider two neighbors with identical $400,000 homes. One accepts a $168,000 assessed value without question. The other appeals and gets the assessment reduced to $152,000 based on comparable sales evidence. Starting in 2027, both assessments grow at the same CPI-limited rate, but the neighbor who appealed saves the difference every single year, compounding over time.
Georgia law sets the appeal deadline at 45 days from the date of your assessment notice. The date printed on your notice controls. Confirm with your county before you file. The Board of Equalization hearing is free, and if your appeal reduces your value, O.C.G.A. § 48-5-299(c) holds the reduced value for the appeal year and the next two, subject to the statutory exceptions.
For homeowners who want professional comparable property analysis, AppealAlly's DIY Appeal Kit ($79) provides the evidence packet and step-by-step instructions for your BOE hearing. Homeowners who'd rather not manage the process themselves can use the Full-Service Appeal, which files your appeal and tracks the county's deadlines and letters, with $0 upfront, and you pay only if we win.
A successful 2026 appeal can pay off on its own, before any change SB 33 makes. Factor in the SB 33 cap locking in that lower base value going forward, and this year's appeal may be the most valuable one Georgia homeowners ever file.
The counties and school districts that opted out of HB 581's voluntary framework stand to see the biggest shift. These jurisdictions had chosen to let assessments track market value without a CPI cap, often because they relied on the revenue growth to fund services.
The most notable opt-outs that SB 33 overrides:
For homeowners in these jurisdictions, SB 33 delivers a protection that their local officials declined to provide voluntarily. The mandatory nature of the new law means no jurisdiction can opt out regardless of its budget preferences.
Rural counties where property values have been stable or growing slowly may see minimal practical impact from the assessment cap, since the CPI limit only matters when appreciation outpaces inflation.
The immediate timeline has three key dates:
The gap between items two and three is what makes the next few weeks so consequential. Your 2026 assessment is the last one set entirely under the old rules, and it establishes the base value that the new cap protects. Getting that number right, whether through your own research or a formal appeal, pays dividends that compound for as long as you own your home.
Georgia property tax reform has been debated for years, but it arrived in the form nobody expected: a hemp bill rewritten at 11:30 p.m. on the last night of session. Whatever you think of the process, the outcome creates a fundamentally different property tax landscape starting in 2027. The one thing it doesn't change is what's sitting in your mailbox right now.