Reading a Philadelphia OPA Property Record

Pull up almost any Philadelphia address on property.phila.gov and you'll get a wall of fields — market value, assessed value, land value, improvement value, exemptions, abatements — with very little explanation of what any of it means or how it connects to the bill that actually shows up in the mail. Most of it isn't complicated once you know what you're looking at. This is the plain-English version.

What OPA is

The Office of Property Assessment (OPA) is the city agency responsible for determining the assessed value of every parcel in Philadelphia — roughly 580,000 of them. That assessed value is the foundation everything else is built on: it's the number the tax bill is ultimately calculated from, and it's the number you'd challenge if you think your property is over-assessed.

The OPA Account Number

Every parcel has a 9-digit OPA Account Number, which is the same identifier long-time owners may know as the BRT number (from the old Board of Revision of Taxes). It's how the city ties together the assessment record, the tax bill, and the deed — and it's what you'll need to look up a property directly on property.phila.gov. You can find it on a current tax bill, or search by address on the site itself.

Key fields, explained

• Market value — the city's estimate of what the property would sell for. Since Tax Year 2014, Philadelphia has assessed properties at 100% of market value, which is why market value and assessed value are the same number on most records today.
• Land value & improvement value — market value split into the value of the land itself and the value of whatever's built on it. This split matters more than it looks: it's part of how depreciation and certain exemptions get calculated, and it's often the first place an appeal will focus.
• Most recent sale date & price — self-explanatory, but useful as a sanity check. A property that assessed well below a recent arm's-length sale price is a common flag for a coming reassessment.
• Exemptions & abatements — reductions applied to the taxable value. The most common in Philadelphia is the 10-year tax abatement on new construction or improvements, which phases in the added value gradually rather than taxing it in full immediately.
• Homestead exemption — a flat reduction to assessed value for owner-occupied primary residences. It has to be applied for; it isn't automatic just because someone lives there.
• Taxable value vs. exempt value — assessed value minus whatever exemptions and abatements apply. This is the number the tax rate actually gets applied to.

How the tax bill is actually calculated

At its simplest: assessed value × millage rate = tax bill. The millage rate is set annually by City Council, not by OPA — OPA's job stops at determining value. Abatements and exemptions reduce the taxable portion of that value, not the assessed value itself, which is a distinction that confuses a lot of owners looking at their own record. A property can carry a high assessed value and still have a modest bill if a large abatement is in effect.

Common gotchas

• A Notice of Valuation isn't a bill. It's a proposed value the city is sending you a chance to react to — usually mailed in the fall ahead of the following tax year. Ignoring it because it "isn't a bill" is how people miss their appeal window.
• Mailing-address issues cause missed notices. OPA mails to whatever address is on file, which isn't always the property address — especially for out-of-town owners, LLCs, or properties that changed hands without updating the mailing address.
• Vacant lots often lack a usable mailing address on file, which means notices for them are especially easy to miss. Worth checking directly rather than assuming mail is reaching anyone.

The appeal path

If you think a property is over-assessed, there are two steps, each with its own deadline:

1. First Level Review (FLR) — an informal review directly with OPA. The deadline is September 1. It's free, doesn't require a hearing, and is worth doing first since it can resolve the issue without a formal appeal.
2. Formal appeal to the Board of Revision of Taxes (BRT) — a hearing-based appeal, due the first Monday in October. This is the path if FLR doesn't resolve things, or if you want to skip straight to a formal hearing.

Both deadlines apply to the value that will take effect the following tax year — so an appeal filed in fall 2026 is arguing about the Tax Year 2027 bill, not the one already mailed.

Pulling this at scale

Checking one address at a time on property.phila.gov works fine for a single property. It doesn't work if you're trying to screen a portfolio, compare assessed-to-market ratios across a neighborhood, or track how abatements in a given area are phasing out over the next few years. For that, OpenDataPhilly publishes the full Philadelphia Properties and Assessment History dataset, which updates nightly and covers every parcel in the city — the same underlying data OPA's own site is built on, just accessible in bulk.

This article explains how Philadelphia's public assessment data and appeal process work in general terms. It isn't legal or tax advice, and appeal deadlines and procedures can change year to year — confirm current dates directly with OPA or the BRT before relying on them, and talk to a real estate attorney or tax professional for guidance on a specific property.