Ohio’s Homestead Exemption for 2026: Who Qualifies in Ross County, and What It Takes Off the Bill

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The homestead exemption is the line that keeps a Ross County tax bill from being figured on the full value of the house. For the 2026 tax year, a qualifying homeowner can shield $29,000 of market value. Disabled veterans, and surviving spouses of public-service officers killed in the line of duty, can shield $58,000. Those figures move with inflation. Confirm the current year on the form before you file.

Who gets the standard exemption: you are 65 or older, or permanently and totally disabled, or the surviving spouse of someone who had the exemption. Your name has to be on the deed, land contract, or qualifying trust. The house has to be your home. A temporary stay in a hospital or a nursing facility does not by itself end it, if the house is still your domicile.

The income test is the part people miss. If you first qualified in 2014 or later, Ohio income for the 2026 tax year cannot be over $41,000. The state has been adjusting that cap each year. It was $40,000 for 2025. Income is checked off the Ohio return, not off a Social Security award letter you wave at the counter. Two groups skip the income cap: homeowners grandfathered from before the 2014 tax year, and the disabled-veteran and fallen-officer surviving-spouse cases.

The form is DTE 105A. It goes to the county auditor, not the treasurer and not the school board. In Ross County that is the auditor’s office. Pickaway, Pike, Highland, and Fayette residents file with their own auditor. A Chillicothe address does not get filed in Columbus.

What it saves depends on local mills. The exemption lowers value before the rate is applied. It is not a flat $500 check. A house taxed as if it were worth $29,000 less will save more in a high-levy district than in a low one. The owner-occupancy credit is a different line. Having one does not mean you have the other.

If you are 65 or disabled, own the house you live in, and your Ohio income is at or under this year’s cap, file DTE 105A with the auditor. If you qualified before 2014, ask whether you are already grandfathered before you assume you have to pass the income test again.

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