Thousands seek NYC pied-a-terre tax relief, City Hall says

Roughly 2,000 people have completed applications seeking an exemption from New York City's newly-implemented pied-à-terre tax, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance said Tuesday. 

The completed applications represent roughly 12% of the 17,000 notices mailed to New York City addresses since July 23rd informing property owners that they may be subject to the tax on high-end, non-primary residences. Overall, about 4,800 owners have at least started the application process to seek an exemption, the Finance Department spokesperson said. 

The levy targets single-family homes worth $5 million or more and apartments worth $1 million or more. Owners who received notices who use their property as a primary residence, or who rent or lease it to full-time residents, are exempt from the tax. 

City officials extended by four weeks the deadline for property owners to file for exemptions. Owners now have until September 18 to submit applications, a response to concerns about the compressed timeframe for property owners to gather and submit the necessary documents. 

While Mayor Zohran Mamdani has publicly defended his administration's messaging around the new tax, the rollout has gotten off to a rocky start. In July, the Finance Department published a spreadsheet of nearly 1 million residential properties that it said may be subject to the new tax. 

The document included hundreds of thousands of properties that fell short of the value thresholds at which the tax would be implemented, as well as owner names and addresses for properties that were said to be primary residences.

The city regularly releases rolls listing property owner and address information as part of its annual property tax assessment process, but the timing and messaging around the new tax and the newly published list sparked confusion among tax and real estate attorneys, property owners and even some elected officials.