Tax class

Every New York City property belongs to one of four tax classes — broadly: small homes; larger residential buildings; utility property; and commercial and everything else. The class determines the assessment ratio, the valuation method, the smoothing protections, and through class-level share rules, the effective burden per dollar of value. Class is consequential in ways the nominal tax rate conceals.

Class boundaries create their own phenomena: condominium and cooperative valuation follows statutory methods with well-known quirks, mixed buildings straddle definitions, and conversions can move a property between classes with real tax consequences. A property's class is a recorded fact worth checking rather than assuming — misclassification happens, and it compounds annually.