Montana
Key takeaways from our investigation of Montana’s agricultural tax code
Montana’s property tax system is a complicated thing, involving mind-boggling math and a bewildering array of rules aimed at fairly dividing the bill for public services like schools and police departments between hundreds of thousands of properties.
It’s a tricky task, of course, to agree on what exactly fair means when it comes to taxes — and a trickier one for lawmakers to write a tax code that implements a fair framework without loopholes. Earlier this week, Montana Free Press and High Country News published a lengthy investigation into a facet of the state’s tax code that has been a perennial concern on the loophole front for decades: whether a property tax break intended for farms and ranches is being abused by people who own luxury homes on rural parcels.
Our full story, which you can read here, runs more than 3,400 words. If you’re looking for something briefer, here are some of the key takeaways:
1. Agricultural tax status offers farm and ranch properties a discount relative to residential properties by marking down the value of the underlying land.
If you own a Montana home in an urban or suburban neighborhood, it’s almost certainly classified as a residential property. For those, both the house structure and the home lot beneath it are valued and taxed based on their market value — how much the Montana Department of Revenue thinks they would sell for.
Structures on agricultural properties are also valued and taxed based on their market value, but the underlying land is not. Instead, agricultural land is valued for tax purposes based on its production value — how much money the revenue department thinks its owner could make growing crops or grazing livestock.
That’s a significant difference. Home lot prices vary from place to place across Montana, but the average residential property had a land value of about $127,000 in 2023. Production values are much, much lower. Some of the properties we looked at, for example, had grazing land valued at less than $50 an acre.
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Montana’s agricultural tax rules slash bills for thousands of million-dollar homes
Montana’s property tax code is designed to offer working farms and ranches lower land taxes than those paid on residential properties. An analysis by HCN and MTFP indicates there are thousands of high-end houses benefitting from ag treatment, paying reduced property taxes with the offset landing on other taxpayers. While some lawmakers want to tighten the qualification requirements during the 2025 Legislature, those measures face tough odds because stripping agriculture tax status from current beneficiaries would mean forcing them to pay more.
2. The agricultural discount can translate into hundreds or thousands of dollars in annual tax savings.
One example we looked at was a property on the Flathead River near Kalispell, described in a Zillow listing as a “gorgeous Montana river estate” with a putting green and orchard. Classified as agricultural land, the 10-acre property paid about $7,000 in property taxes in 2023, all but $20 of that based on the value of the property’s structures, according to our analysis.
A 10-acre residential property next door, including a slightly less valuable home, paid about $9,100 in taxes in 2023, including about $3,300 in land taxes.
That sort of disparity is typical. For parcels smaller than 20 acres, we found that residential properties paid a median effective land tax of $1,609 an acre in 2023, compared to only $6.61 for agricultural parcels.
3. Critics worry that it’s too easy for high-end real estate to qualify for agricultural tax benefits.
Unlike most western states, larger Montana properties automatically qualify for agricultural tax treatment without being required to document that the land is being used for agriculture. Properties of 160 acres or more are automatically granted a full agricultural designation, while properties bigger than 20 acres automatically qualify for a partial agricultural designation that offers slightly reduced tax benefits regardless of whether the land is being put to significant agricultural use.
Smaller properties can qualify for the full designation by reporting at least $1,500 a year in agricultural income. Critics say that threshold, which hasn’t been updated since 1986, is low enough that savvy property owners can reach it with relatively little effort.
4. Thousands of million-dollar Montana homes are benefiting from the ag tax treatment. Gov. Greg Gianforte’s Bozeman home is one of them.
Looking at state property data for 2023, MTFP and HCN found more than 3,000 properties with million-dollar structure values that qualify for the full or partial agricultural tax benefit. In some cases, like the Flathead River example, those properties are adjacent to otherwise comparable residential properties, resulting in stark tax disparities.
Another example is Gianforte’s home on an 11-acre parcel with an agricultural designation on the outskirts of Bozeman. According to our calculations, the governor and his wife, Susan, paid about $5.75 an acre in land taxes on it in 2023 while a neighbor with a residential parcel across the street paid $826 per acre. (The governor’s office said that the Gianfortes’ property, which also includes additional parcels, is used for barley and alfalfa production and is also used to board horses and mules.)
The governor’s $66 land tax bill for the 11-acre parcel is also less than what the vast majority of urban homeowners in Montana pay each year for the lots beneath their homes.
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Higher property tax bills are hitting homeowners across Montana this year as the state’s tax system shudders into a new alignment following the first reappraisal cycle using tax appraisals reflecting the explosive growth in Montana home values during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Those higher bills for residential properties appear to be the result of higher local and state-level tax collections, as well as how the Montana Department of Revenue’s valuations for residential properties have spiked while its valuations for some industrial and utility properties have declined, a dynamic that pushes more tax burden onto homeowners.
5. Lawmakers could change the tax code as the Montana Legislature meets this year.
As the session opened in early January, there were two bills under consideration that would tighten qualification standards for the agricultural designations (House Bill 27) and increase taxes on homesite portions of high-value ag properties (Senate Bill 4).
Similar measures have floundered in the past, in part because of opposition from people who would face higher tax bills. The sponsors of both measures told MTFP this week that they are working on revisions to their proposals in an effort to make the bills politically viable.
READ MORE: Montana’s agricultural tax rules slash bills for thousands of million-dollar homes.
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HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.
“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.
It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.
(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)
Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026
“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”
But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.
“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.
Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.
“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.
The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.
The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.
“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.
While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.
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Frontier Conference women: MSU-Northern, Montana Western pull upsets to advance to semifinal round
BUTTE — MSU-Northern and Montana Western pulled a pair of upsets Saturday at the Butte Civic Center to wrap up the quarterfinal round of the Frontier Conference women’s basketball postseason tournament.
The fifth-seeded Skylights started the day with a red-hot shooting performance to down No. 4 Rocky Mountain College 82-74. Western, the sixth seed, used a third-quarter surge to defeat No. 3 Carroll College 65-56.
MSU-Northern (17-11) and Western (14-13) now advance to Sunday’s semifinal round, where the Skylights will play No. 1 seed Dakota State at noon and the Bulldogs will face No. 2 Montana Tech at 2:30 p.m.
MSU-Northern 82, Rocky Mountain College 74
MSU-Northern sizzled in the first quarter, making seven 3-pointers to take a double-digit lead, and put together a crucial third-quarter run to get past Rocky and advance to the semifinal round.
Becky Melcher splashed four 3s in the first 10 minutes, and Taya Trottier, Canzas HisBadHorse and Shania Moananu added one apiece as the Skylights built a 29-13 lead. Melcher scored 14 first-quarter points and finished with a game-high 30 on 10-of-19 shooting (7 of 15 from 3-point range). She added 11 rebounds, a blocked shot and three steals to her stat line.
Rocky battled back to tie the game at 36-36 in the second quarter on a Brenna Linse basket, but MSUN responded with consecutive triples from Trottier and Melcher and took a 44-38 lead into halftime. The Bears eventually stole the lead back in the third quarter following a 9-0 run capped be an Isabelle Heggem bucket.
But the Skylights again answered — this time with a 13-2 run to take a 60-51 lead. MSUN led 66-59 going to the fourth and wouldn’t trail the rest of the way. The Skylights trailed for less than two total minutes of the game.
As a team, MSUN made 14 of 26 3s in the game. Ciera Agasiva was 3 for 3 from behind the arc, and Trottier was 2 for 3. Trottier had 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists, while Agasiva had 13 points.
Paige Wasson led Rocky (20-9) with 29 points but was 0 for 10 on 3-point attempts. Heggem had a double-double of 21 points and 12 rebounds.
Montana Western 65, Carroll 56
After neither team led by more than five points in the first half, Western broke open a 25-25 tie game by outscoring Carroll 20-9 in the third quarter.
Bailee Sayler scored 10 points in the quarter, including making two 3-pointers, to help the Bulldogs take control. They led 45-34 going to the fourth, and Carroll wouldn’t get closer than six points the rest of the way.
The Fighting Saints were just 18-of-65 shooting (27.7%) for the game.
Sayler scored an efficient 22 points on 7-of-8 shooting. She was 2 for 3 from 3-point range and 6 for 7 at the free throw line. The Missoula native also had nine rebounds.
Isabella Lund added 16 points for the Bulldogs, and Keke Davis had 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Carroll (19-10) was led by Kenzie Allen with 12 points. Willa Albrecht and Meagan Karstetter scored 11 points apiece for the Saints.
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