Skip to content
Tax Sale Atlas

Gallatin County, MT tax sales

Tax Sale Atlas maps the Gallatin County, MT tax sale, one of 2,862 counties in 36 states. Montana sells tax lien certificates paying up to 10%. Sale office, calendar and list locations read from the county’s own official pages on Sep 11, 2026.

How tax lien and tax deed sales work in Gallatin County, seat of Bozeman: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.

New to tax sales? Read how Montana tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.

Next sale
Nothing is scheduled in advance.
Format
In person
County office
406-582-3033
Every displayed fact carries a source badge. Verified Sep 11, 2026 against official county and state pages.How we verify
On this page
Look up a sale detail

County Treasurer. In person at the county treasurer's office during regular office hours. Mont. Code Ann. 15-18-220(6) permits a county to conduct the auction electronically but does not require it, and there is no statewide platform.. As applied for. There is no deed sale calendar, and most parcels never reach an auction at all.

Record quality: high. Last verified: 2026-09-11.

Mont. Code Ann. 15-18-220 - Sale at public auction, notice of auction, cancellation of assignment for unsuccessful auction, foreign entity prohibition (source accessed 2026-09-10)

Recorded reference information. Verify current sale conditions with the county. Read the full sale details.

Link to this detail

How Gallatin County sells delinquent taxes

Tax certificate sale (lien)

In person at the county treasurer's counter, or by mail or email where the county allows it. Montana holds no tax lien auction, so there is no online bidding platform, no registration portal and no vendor to sign up with.
Run by
Gallatin County Treasurer, Property Tax Division
Frequency
annual
Typical timing
Liens attach to the county on the first working day in August.
Registration
There is no bidder registration and no deposit.
Sale list
Delinquent 2021-2025 real property taxes summary
When it runs
Liens attach to the county on the first working day in August. A prospective assignee must mail the certified Notice of Pending Assignment no earlier than August 15 and at least two weeks before paying. Preference lists are due "by noon on August 30", the first day liens can be purchased is August 31, and the county lists "September 1 (or next business day)" as "the date that the lottery will be held and the majority of assignments will be issued." Subsequent taxes on an assignment already held can be paid June 1 through July 31.
Registration and deposit

There is no bidder registration and no deposit. File a list of every tax code (parcel number) you want, ranked in order of preference, with the Treasurer by noon on August 30. Email it to [email protected] on the county's form to be grouped as an Electronic Submission, or mail it or drop it off at 311 West Main, Room 103, Bozeman, MT 59715 as a Manual Submission; both categories are judged against the same noon deadline. The list must arrive together with proof of the certified mail notice for each parcel and with funds covering every assignment sought: all delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and a $60 fee per parcel. Funds must be verifiable, meaning a cashier's check, a money order, a personal check with a bank letter confirming sufficient funds, or a credit card. Paperwork and funds are reviewed before the sale date, and any parcel with incomplete notices or short funds is disqualified.

Sale format and venue
Montana has no competitive tax lien auction and Gallatin County holds none. The tax lien attaches to the county under Mont. Code Ann. 15-17-125, and an investor acquires it only by assignment under 15-17-323 by paying all delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and a $60 fee per parcel. Nothing is bid, so the return and costs are fixed by statute rather than set by competition. When more than one investor wants the same parcel the Treasurer runs a lottery: an automated program assigns each investor a random draft position, then works through the ranked preference lists in a snake draft, giving each investor one parcel per round and reversing the order each round until requests or parcels run out. At 7:30 a.m. on the sale date the office prints the complete list of available parcels from its TaxWise system with the principal, interest and fees owed on each, and only parcels on that printed list can be assigned that day. Unused funds come back as a refund check, receipts are usually ready within five days, and certificates follow later by certified mail. City of Bozeman delinquent special assessments are collected through this same process, so a parcel can carry a lien even when county taxes are current. Gallatin County does not give legal advice to lien purchasers.
Source: Delinquent Taxes, Tax Liens and Assignments, Gallatin County Treasurer· Verified Sep 11, 2026

Tax deed sale

In person at the county treasurer's office during regular office hours. Mont. Code Ann. 15-18-220(6) permits a county to conduct the auction electronically but does not require it, and there is no statewide platform.
Run by
County Treasurer
Frequency
As applied for. There is no deed sale calendar, and most parcels never reach an auction at all.
Typical timing
Nothing is scheduled in advance.
When it runs
Nothing is scheduled in advance. Once the redemption period runs out, 3 years after attachment or 2 years for an unimproved subdivided lot with delinquent improvement district assessments, the path forks on what is standing on the parcel. Ordinary property is deeded straight to the assignee under Mont. Code Ann. 15-18-211 for a 25 dollar deed fee plus the county's notice costs, with no auction and no bidders. Property with a dwelling currently occupied by the legal titleholder of record goes to a public auction instead: the assignee files a tax deed application with the treasurer after the redemption period expires, and the treasurer must hold the auction in the county within 60 days of receiving it. The treasurer publishes the auction notice with the date, time, location, legal description, deposit requirement and minimum opening bid. The auction runs during the treasurer's regular office hours and may be conducted electronically.
Registration and deposit

Bidders at a Montana tax deed auction do not pre-register, but three requirements bind at the auction itself. An entity must give the treasurer written proof that it is a domestic entity before the treasurer will accept its opening bid, and a foreign entity may not buy at all. The high bidder posts a nonrefundable deposit at the time of sale of 5 percent of the bid or 200 dollars, whichever is greater, applied to the price on full payment, and the treasurer may ask bidders to show they can post it. Full payment of the purchase price plus the treasurer's auction costs is due within 24 hours of the sale, excluding weekends and legal holidays, and a bidder who misses it loses the parcel to the next highest bidder. Confirm the accepted payment methods with the county treasurer before the auction opens.

Sale format and venue
The opening bid is the amount needed to redeem the lien, plus everything the assignee paid on application, plus the tax deed and recording fees, plus an amount equal to half the most recent assessed value of the land and of the dwelling. An independent appraisal meeting Montana Board of Real Estate Appraisers standards and conducted within 6 months may stand in for the assessed value. The treasurer may not take a bid below that figure. The half-value component, and anything bid above the opening bid, is surplus: the treasurer repays the assignee first where someone else buys, then pays the surplus to the legal titleholder of record within 30 days. If nobody bids, or no bidder pays, or the assignee wins and fails to pay inside the 24 hours, the treasurer cancels the assignment and files a notice of cancellation, and the investor loses the lien position entirely. The owner may redeem right up to the day of the auction.
Source: Mont. Code Ann. 15-18-220 - Sale at public auction, notice of auction, cancellation of assignment for unsuccessful auction, foreign entity prohibitionMont. Code Ann. 15-18-220· Verified Sep 10, 2026

Gallatin County tax sale list and auction calendar

For Gallatin County tax sale 2026 searches, use the county-run sources below rather than a copied parcel list, and confirm the parcel, registration cutoff, deposit, and payment deadline against the county before you bid. If the parcels on this list are vacant land rather than houses, what buying land at a tax sale hands you is the place to start.

  1. Get the advertised list

    Use Delinquent 2021-2025 real property taxes summary for the current advertised parcels, then recheck it before the auction.

  2. Register to bid

    Ask the county office how and when to register; many counties close registration days or weeks before the sale.

  3. Sale day

    Nothing is scheduled in advance. The sale is live and in person; there is no online bidding platform. Confirm the venue and hour with the county office before you go.

  4. Confirm with the office

    If the list, platform, and notice disagree, use County Treasurer as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.

Before you bid in Gallatin County

  1. Start with the live sale list

    Pull the current advertised parcels from Delinquent 2021-2025 real property taxes summary. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.

  2. Confirm registration and deposit

    Bidders at a Montana tax deed auction do not pre-register, but three requirements bind at the auction itself. An entity must give the treasurer written proof that it is a domestic entity before the treasurer will accept its opening bid, and a foreign entity may not buy at all. The high bidder posts a nonrefundable deposit at the time of sale of 5 percent of the bid or 200 dollars, whichever is greater, applied to the price on full payment, and the treasurer may ask bidders to show they can post it. Full payment of the purchase price plus the treasurer's auction costs is due within 24 hours of the sale, excluding weekends and legal holidays, and a bidder who misses it loses the parcel to the next highest bidder. Confirm the accepted payment methods with the county treasurer before the auction opens.

  3. Check the state rules that change the bid

    Read the Montana due-diligence checklist before bidding. Redemption, liens that survive a tax deed, title cleanup, and payment deadlines can change what a parcel is worth. Which liens survive is state law, so read what survives a tax deed in Montana before you price the title work.

  4. Set a walk-away number

    Work out what the parcel is actually worth with the rural land value estimator, then turn it into a ceiling with the tax deed max-bid calculator.

Over-the-counter (leftover) purchases

Every Montana tax lien is effectively over the counter, because assignment is the only way one is ever acquired. The county holds each lien from the day it attaches, and the treasurer must assign it to any person who mails the assessed owner the statutory notice and pays the delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and costs plus the county's assignment fee. After the late August allocation step, whatever is left sits with the treasurer and can be assigned on demand for the rest of the year, subject to the same notice rules: not earlier than August 15, mailed at least 2 weeks before payment and no more than 60 days before it. Older tax years are assignable the same way. Separately, land the county itself took by tax deed is sold at a public auction the county commissioners must order within 6 months of acquiring title, at a price the board fixes in advance, with the list of lands and the time and place published by the county clerk. That county land auction is not a tax lien or tax deed sale and the delinquent taxpayer may repurchase up to 24 hours before the first offering.

New to this path? Read how over-the-counter certificates work. Every state has its own name for what goes unsold, so check what Montana calls its leftover tax-sale inventory.

Use the arrow keys to switch between these sections.

County offices

Tax Collector (runs the certificate sale)

Gallatin County Treasurer, Property Tax Division

406-582-3033

Gallatin County Courthouse, 311 W. Main St., Room 103, Bozeman, MT 59715

Official website

County notes

  • Gallatin County publishes a delinquent real property tax list as a downloadable summary of parcels by tax year, linked from the Treasurer's delinquent tax page. A separate, authoritative list of every parcel actually available is printed from the county's TaxWise system at 7:30 a.m. on the assignment sale date, and only parcels on that printed list can be assigned.
  • The office is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed on holidays. Assignment questions and submissions go to [email protected]; payoff information on a parcel already assigned comes from the Treasurer's office at 406-582-3033.
  • Timing of receipt does not improve your position in the lottery. Every complete submission received by noon on the last working day before the sale date shares first priority; later submissions are considered the following day and then in order of receipt.
  • The public auction Gallatin County advertises for delinquent collections covers personal property such as mobile homes, furniture, fixtures, equipment and livestock. Delinquent real property taxes are handled through the lien and assignment process, not through that auction.

Montana rules

Max interest rate
10% per year, fixed by statute (nothing is bid)
Minimum return
No statutory floor; every certificate earns the same statutory rate
Redemption
The clock runs from attachment of the tax lien, which happens no later than the first working day in August, and it ends on the first working day in August of the third year after that. Redemption stays open for the whole period and the assignee cannot shorten it. On the residential auction track the right to redeem runs further still: the statutory notice tells the parties that a tax deed will be auctioned unless the lien is redeemed before the date of the auction, and 15-18-112(4) lets a particular tax year be redeemed until a deed has issued under 15-18-211 or 15-18-220. Interest and costs keep accruing until the day of redemption, and the county treasurer, not the assignee, calculates the payoff as of the date of payment. A redemption before the lien is assigned goes to the county; after assignment the treasurer pays the assignee.
Deed deposit
The high bidder posts a nonrefundable deposit with the county treasurer at the time of sale of 5 percent of the bid or 200 dollars, whichever is greater, and the deposit is applied to the sale price on full payment. Notice of the deposit requirement must be posted at the auction site, and the treasurer may require bidders to show they can post it. The treasurer may refuse to recognize a bid from someone who previously bid and then refused to honor the bid.
Surplus proceeds
Montana pays the owner's equity out rather than letting it be forfeited. The portion of the opening bid equal to half the most recent assessed value of the land and of the dwelling is treated as surplus funds, and so is anything a winning bid adds above the opening bid. Where the deed is bought by someone other than the assignee, the treasurer first repays the assignee the amount paid for the assignment, including delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and costs, plus everything paid on the tax deed application under 15-18-219(2). The treasurer then distributes the surplus to the legal titleholder of record within 30 days of receiving payment from the purchaser, whether or not the titleholder lives in Montana. On the ordinary non-auction track there is no sale, no bidding and no surplus: the assignee receives the deed itself.
Governing statute
Mont. Code Ann. Title 15, ch. 17

A tax deed does not convey marketable title. Most buyers file a quiet title action before they can resell or insure the property. See the due diligence guide.

See the full Montanarules and every county →

Frequently asked questions

Does Gallatin County, Montana sell tax liens or tax deeds?

Gallatin County follows Montana's tax lien state system.

When is the Gallatin County tax certificate sale?

Liens attach to the county on the first working day in August. A prospective assignee must mail the certified Notice of Pending Assignment no earlier than August 15 and at least two weeks before paying. Preference lists are due "by noon on August 30", the first day liens can be purchased is August 31, and the county lists "September 1 (or next business day)" as "the date that the lottery will be held and the majority of assignments will be issued." Subsequent taxes on an assignment already held can be paid June 1 through July 31. The sale is held in person. Always confirm the exact date with the County Treasurer before the sale.

How often does Gallatin County hold tax deed sales?

Gallatin County holds its tax deed sale As applied for. There is no deed sale calendar, and most parcels never reach an auction at all. Nothing is scheduled in advance. Each sale is scheduled and advertised in advance, so check the county's tax deed calendar for the next posted date.

I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?

Often yes, by paying the overdue taxes, interest, and costs before the deadline. Montana's redemption rule: 3 years from attachment of the tax lien, ending on the first working day in August; 2 years for a subdivided residential or commercial lot with delinquent improvement district assessments and no habitable dwelling or commercial structure. Call the County Treasurer as early as possible for your exact payoff and options; deadlines are strict. Free help: lawhelp.org lists legal aid programs, and consumerfinance.gov lists HUD-approved housing counselors.

Where can I find the Gallatin County tax sale list?

Gallatin County posts its tax sale list at gallatinmt.gov. Lists go up ahead of each sale and keep changing until the sale date, so confirm every parcel against the county's legal advertisement before you bid.

Verified Sep 11, 2026 against official county and state sources.

Tax Sale Atlas publishes educational information about public tax sale processes. This is not legal, financial, or investment advice. Rules, dates, and fees change; confirm with the county office before you bid.

More Montana counties

Browse all 56 Montana counties

Compare sale calendars, platforms, and rules across the state, or read the guides before you bid.

Montana tax salesDue diligence guide
Call Gallatin County Treasurer