Original Research · Utah 2026 Assessment Roll · Appeal Deadline September 15
Utah's 2026 Values Landed: Hotels Up 12.7% — and Office Is Still Overassessed
The 2026 commercial values are out in most Utah counties. The medians tell a clean story — hospitality and industrial up, office and apartments down — but the more important story is what the assessments still haven't caught up to.
By Charlie Young, Principal — former Managing Director at one of the nation's largest property tax firms · LinkedIn · July 2026
Utah's 2026 commercial values just landed in most counties, with a statewide appeal deadline of September 15. We pulled the assessment data for the top end of each asset type to see how assessors moved — and where the roll and the market have parted ways.
Methodology: SVA analysis of county assessor records for the largest Utah commercial properties in each asset class, comparing enrolled 2025 and 2026 assessed values. Medians of property-level changes. Utah assesses commercial property annually at 100% of fair market value as of January 1.
Hotels and industrial up; office and apartments down
That's a consistent story across the West right now, and Utah's 2026 roll fits the pattern. Hospitality assessments rose for 83% of hotels — a +12.7% median move against a backdrop of flattening RevPAR that should have hotel owners checking their September 15 math rather than assuming the increase is untouchable. Industrial drifted up modestly. Office and multifamily declined — but not nearly as much as their markets have.
The non-disclosure lag
Utah is a non-disclosure state: sale prices aren't public record. That can mean assessments lag the market more dramatically than in disclosure markets, where a critical mass of transaction data reveals itself quickly and forces the roll to follow.
Right now that lag is visible in the data. Office and multifamily assessments still sit well ahead of the market: vacancies, cap rates, and rent declines remain at decade highs — while multifamily assessments have declined only 0.8% over the past two years. A 3.2% median cut in 2026 acknowledges the direction; it doesn't come close to the magnitude.
The assessor moved office and apartments down. The market moved further — and in a non-disclosure state, the burden of showing that falls on the owner.
What that means before September 15
Utah compresses the entire county-level appeal into one window: valuation notices land in late July, and the petition to the county Board of Equalization is due September 15. Because Utah's certified-rate system is revenue-neutral, your assessment doesn't set what the county collects — it sets your share of it. An office or multifamily property still assessed near its 2024 value is subsidizing every correctly assessed hotel in its tax area.
- Office and multifamily owners: this is the year the evidence is on your side — actual income, occupancy, and cap-rate data against an assessment the roll hasn't corrected. The 2026 declines are a start, not a settlement.
- Hospitality owners: a +12.7% median increase against flat RevPAR deserves a screen, not a shrug — especially with 83% of the class moving up together, which is a mass-appraisal signature, not a property-level judgment.
- Everyone: measured outcomes matter. Our analysis of Salt Lake County's own records shows office appeals succeeding at roughly 2.5× the rate of industrial — preparation and property type drive results.