Arkansas Disabled Veteran Homestead and Personal Property Tax Exemption

This is Arkansas's largest benefit for disabled veterans, and it is complete: it exempts "all state taxes on the homestead and personal property", which in practice means the whole real estate and personal property tax bill, not a slice of it. Who qualifies. Arkansas Code section 26-3-306, subsection (a)(1)(A)(i): a disabled veteran "who has been awarded special monthly compensation by the Department of Veterans Affairs for the loss of, or the loss of use of, one (1) or more limbs, for total blindness in one (1) or both eyes, or for service-connected one hundred percent (100%) total and permanent disability". There are two routes. One is 100 percent permanent and total. County collectors accept total and permanent individual unemployability as meeting it, and Saline and Miller counties say so in terms. The other is special monthly compensation for a limb or blindness, which has no rating attached: a veteran rated well below 100 percent who receives it for the loss of use of a foot qualifies. The rating filter on this page cannot test that second route, so do not let it hide this entry if you receive that compensation. What counts as the homestead. Act 407 of 2025 raised the land contiguous to the dwelling that the exemption covers from 40 acres to 160 acres, if it is not used commercially, for assessment years from January 1, 2025. Act 880 of 2025, signed on April 17, 2025, three weeks after Act 407, rewrote the same subdivision to let a home held in the veteran's revocable trust, in an irrevocable trust of which the veteran is a beneficiary, or in an LLC whose only members are the veteran and spouse qualify from assessment year 2026, and in doing so it reprinted the old "forty (40) acres". The two acts were drafted separately, and they do not take effect together. Act 407 applies to assessment years from January 1, 2025. Act 880's rewrite applies only to assessment years from January 1, 2026. So for assessment year 2025 the only text in force is Act 407's, and 160 acres is the law. From assessment year 2026 both texts are in force and they disagree. Arkansas Code section 1-2-207, subsection (b), says that when a session enacts more than one act on the same subject, all are given effect "except to the extent of irreconcilable conflicts in which case the conflicting provision of the last enactment shall prevail", and the last enactment is the one the Governor signed last. Act 880 was signed on April 17, 2025, after Act 407. Read literally, that rule favours Act 880's 40 acres from 2026. The argument the other way is that Act 880 only reprinted the old figure without meaning to change it, so there is no real conflict, and Act 407 is the only act that set the acreage on purpose. No court, Attorney General opinion or 2026 act that we found has settled it, and the Code Revision Commission's reconciled text is behind the LexisNexis paywall. Miller County already applies 160 acres outside city limits, but only 1 acre inside them, a limit the statute does not contain. If a collector limits you to 40 acres for 2025, cite Act 407. For 2026 and later, claim the 160 acres, cite Act 407 and ask the collector in writing which act it is applying. Personal property means items not used for business and registered in the veteran's name. The letter is now filed once. Act 876 of 2025 added to subsection (b) that the VA letter "is required to be submitted only one (1) time" and that "annual submission of a letter from the department is not required", for assessment years from 2025. You must tell the collector if you stop qualifying or if the property's ownership or use changes, and you file again for a new home. The same act lets a collector who finds an exemption was granted in error remove it and collect up to three years of back taxes with penalties. Saline, Pope and Miller County collectors still tell veterans on their websites that the letter must be turned in every year by October 15. Act 880 also added a subdivision numbered (b)(3), so the Code will carry two provisions under one number until they are renumbered. Surviving spouses and children. Subsection (a)(1)(B): on the veteran's death the surviving spouse and minor dependent children keep the exemption. It also reaches the spouse and minor children of a service member killed or who died in the scope of duty, a service member missing in action, and a veteran who died of service-connected causes. The spouse keeps it while unmarried, and it is reinstated if a later marriage ends. Children keep it during their minority. What you give up. Saline, Pope and Miller counties all say a veteran or spouse receiving the exemption does not also get the Amendment 79 homestead credit or the over-65 assessment freeze. That credit has risen from $425 to $500 in 2024, $600 in 2025 and $675 for assessment year 2026 under Act 174 of 2026. The exemption is still worth far more, because it removes the whole tax rather than a fixed sum. How to apply. Take the VA benefit summary letter showing the qualifying rating or special monthly compensation to the county collector, not the assessor. A spouse adds a surviving spouse affidavit. Taxes are due October 15, and collectors will not refund years in which no letter was on file. The veterans agency's pages are behind. The Department of Veterans Affairs property tax guide, revised October 2024 and still linked from its rebuilt State Benefits page, quotes only the qualifying sentence, says nothing of the 2025 acts and still prints the $425 homestead credit. The State Benefits page itself, read 2026-10-24, says the exemption is "recertified annually", which Act 876 ended from the 2025 assessment year.