Tax Exempt Property in Western Mass: How Much Is Off the Roll

Not everything in a town pays the property tax. State forests, town halls and schools, colleges, hospitals, churches and land in conservation all sit on the assessors' rolls with a value and no bill. Across this region that untaxed value comes to $19.7 billion in fiscal 2026, and how much of a town it amounts to varies more than almost any figure on this site.

In Huntington, 33.2% of all assessed value is exempt. In Holland it is 3.1%. The median town here has 8.8% of its value off the roll.

Why the Rest of the Roll Cares

The levy does not shrink because property is exempt. A town raises what its budget requires, and the rate is that requirement divided by the taxable value only. Two towns with identical budgets and identical total value will therefore set different rates if one of them hosts a campus and the other does not: the taxable properties in the campus town divide the same bill among fewer payers.

That is the arithmetic behind a pattern in the high end of the table. The towns with the largest exempt shares are largely the towns with institutions: college towns, hospital cities and hilltowns where the Commonwealth itself owns the forest. Some institutions make voluntary payments in lieu of taxes; those are negotiated, unpublished in any consistent statewide form, and no substitute in law for the levy.

Every Town's Exempt Share

Sortable and filterable by county. The bar under the share column marks each town's distance from the table's own middle.

What This Does Not Mean

A high exempt share is not a verdict on a town, and it is not the reason a bill is high on its own. Huntington and Amherst carry large exempt shares and large institutions that also anchor their economies; the hilltowns in the upper half of the table often owe their share to state forest, which asks for no services at all. What the figure does explain is part of why rates differ so widely between neighbouring towns before any difference in spending.

Exempt status belongs to the parcel and its use, not to the neighbourhood; none of this tells you whether a particular property near you pays tax. The assessors' database in each town is the record for that, and each town's page here carries its rate, its bill and their history.