Unsecured Property Tax in California: Boats, Aircraft and Business Property

What goes on the unsecured roll

Under §109 the secured roll is the part of the roll holding state-assessed property and property whose taxes are “a lien on real property sufficient, in the opinion of the assessor, to secure payment of the taxes”; the remainder of the roll is the unsecured roll. §134 defines unsecured property the same way, property whose taxes are not such a lien, in the assessor's opinion. Household furnishings and personal effects are exempt (§224), and “business inventories are exempt from taxation” (§219; §129 defines the term). A board of supervisors may exempt low-value property where the tax would cost more to assess and collect than it raises, at a level it sets uniformly by class and no higher than $10,000 of value, or $50,000 for a possessory interest through the 2029 lien date (§155.20).

Dates, penalties and collection

• Lien date January 1. Unsecured taxes are due on the lien date (§2901). The property is assessed to whoever owned, claimed, possessed or controlled it on that date (§405(a)), and because “every tax has the effect of a judgment against the person” (§2186) the bill is that assessee's personal debt for the whole year; the tax collector collects it (§2903). The property is valued at its market value on that date.
• Statement April 1. The 571-L is due April 1; filing after May 7 adds a 10% penalty to the assessment (§463). A business that ignores the assessor's written request for the statement is assessed on the assessor's estimate (§501), and the 10% penalty of §463 applies.
• One bill a year, usually in July. There are no installments. Taxes are delinquent at 5 p.m. on August 31 (§2922), or the next business day when that falls on a weekend; a 10% penalty attaches, and a further monthly penalty begins November 1 (1.5% a month as the statute currently sets it), and the collector may add the county's actual collection costs (§2922(e)). Not receiving a bill does not relieve the tax or stop the penalties, but the penalty is cancelled if the assessee shows the collector that the bill never reached the address on the roll or was never mailed (§2910.1(b)).
• Rate. The rate is the one last fixed before the lien date for property of the same kind on the secured roll (§2905), so an unsecured bill in a Mello-Roos-free area usually runs about 1.0% to 1.25% of assessed value (our estimate, not a statutory figure), like the county rates.
• Collection without a tax sale. The collector may seize and sell the property (§2951), record a certificate of lien that binds the assessee's real property for ten years (§2191.3, §2191.4), file a certificate with the court that becomes a judgment (§3101 and following), or sue (§3003). The five-year tax-defaulted process and public auction apply to real property only; see the delinquency page for that clock.
• Escape assessments. Equipment that was never reported is assessed when found, within four years after July 1 of the year it escaped (§532(a)); the eight-year window applies only where the §504 penalty for willful concealment is added or a change in ownership went unrecorded (§532(b)(1)–(2)), and there is no time limit where the §503 fraud penalty applies following a change in ownership or control, or a legal-entity change in ownership or control was never reported (§532(b)(3)); the escape assessment guide covers the limits and the payment plan.

“Unsecured taxes remaining unpaid at 5 p.m., or the close of business, whichever is later, on the last day of the second month after the 10-percent penalty attaches shall be subject to an additional penalty of 1 1/2 percent attaching on the first day of each succeeding month on the amount of the original tax. The additional penalties shall continue to attach until the time of payment or until the time a court judgment is entered for the amount of unpaid taxes and penalties, whichever occurs first.” (Revenue and Taxation Code §2922(d); for the usual August 31 delinquency the second month after is October, so the first 1½ percent attaches November 1.)

Unsecured roll by county, 2025-26

In 2025-26 the 48 counties that reported an unsecured value carried $413.6B of it, 4.6% of their $9.04 trillion local roll. Over the 46 counties reported in both years the unsecured roll grew +56.3% since 2015-16. 10 counties (Alpine, Glenn, Imperial, Lake, Lassen, Marin, Mendocino, Plumas, Santa Barbara, Trinity) left both the unit count and the value blank in the BOE table, so the statewide figure understates the true total; a blank is a reporting gap, not an empty roll. Shares vary with what a county's economy owns rather than its homes: Mariposa 31.2%, Kings 14.0%, Kern 8.9%, Tulare 8.9%, Colusa 8.8% lead on the figures as reported (Mariposa's unsecured value jumped several-fold over the decade in the BOE series, which the source does not explain). 48 counties report a unit count (906,759 units in all).

Source: California State Board of Equalization, Annual Report, Distribution of Local Roll Totals (secured and unsecured parcels/units and assessed value by county), assessment year 2025-26, as published on the BOE data portal. “Units” are the BOE's count of unsecured assessments (one business, boat or aircraft each). “Not reported” means the county's row is blank in the BOE table for both units and value; “—” in the change column means no 2015-16 figure exists for that county. Values are assessed, not market, values. Download: CSV.

Ten years of the unsecured roll

Totals are for the counties that reported a value in each year, so year-to-year movements partly reflect which counties reported. The unsecured share drifts down even as its value rises. One likely reason is that real-estate values under Proposition 13 compound through sales while equipment depreciates and is replaced, but the BOE tables do not show the cause.

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