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Tax Sale Atlas

Dakota County, NE tax sales

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

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

Next sale
Nebraska holds no tax deed auction.
Format
In person
County office
402-987-2131
Every displayed fact carries a source badge. Verified Aug 24, 2026 against official county and state pages.How we verify
On this page

How Dakota County sells delinquent taxes

From lien to deed

Nebraska holds no county tax deed auction. A certificate holder reaches title down one of two roads, and which road is available depends on how much equity is in the parcel. Three years after the date of the tax sale, and after serving the Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-1831 notice at least three months in advance, the holder may apply to the county treasurer for a tax deed. That road is open only where 110 percent of the parcel's assessed value at the time of the application, less the amount that would be needed to redeem it, is twenty five thousand dollars or less. Where the equity is larger the holder must instead foreclose the certificate in the district court of the county where the land lies, in the same manner as a real estate mortgage foreclosure. Either step has to be taken within nine months after the expiration of three years from the date of sale, or nine months after two years where the holder is a land bank and the parcel qualifies as vacant and abandoned. Missing the window voids the certificate.

Tax certificate sale (lien)

In person
Run by
Dakota County Treasurer
Frequency
annual
Next expected
on the first Monday in March, 2027 (window; exact date posts closer to the sale)
Sale list
Delinquent tax advertising list, sale notice, guidelines and registration form
When it runs
First Monday in March at 9:00 a.m. The Treasurer's guidelines state "Tax sales are held on the first Monday in March starting at 9:00 A.M." and the 2026 notice sets the sale "beginning on the first Monday in March (March 2nd) Two Thousand Twenty-Six (2026) at Nine (9) o'clock in the forenoon of said day," offering all property with delinquent taxes for 2025 and prior. Parcels left unsold at the annual sale are then available at a private tax sale, day to day, beginning May 1.
Registration and deposit

Pre-registration is mandatory and must be completed by 4:30 p.m. on the last Thursday before the sale. The guidelines state "REGISTRATIONS WILL NOT BE TAKEN AT THE DOOR." Submit the Treasurer's Public Tax Sale Registration Form together with a W-9 and a $25.00 registration fee per company. The form collects the investor name and physical address to print on the certificate, a separate mailing address if different, a tax ID or Social Security number, phone, fax and email, the primary contact, and the representative attending. Bidders must be separate and distinct entities: those registering as substantially the same bidder are limited to one participant, and each attending representative may represent no more than five entities. Forms are available from the Treasurer's Office or on the county website. Bidding starts promptly at 9:00 a.m., and a bidder who arrives late is placed last in the following round. At the close of bidding each buyer leaves a blank check payable to the Dakota County Treasurer; the office processes the purchases over the following week, mails copies of the certificates, and then presents the check.

Sale format and venue
Dakota County holds a live, in person tax sale in the District Court room on the second floor of the Dakota County Courthouse, 1601 Broadway St, Dakota City. There is no online auction platform, and nothing is bid: the rate is fixed by statute at 14 percent per year. The Treasurer runs a "pick your parcel" rotation. Each registered bidder receives a number at sign-in, the Treasurer draws one number at random to set the starting position, and bidders then take turns in that order selecting parcels from the advertised list, which is ordered from the largest tax amount to the smallest. A bidder who passes on a turn is finished for that round. Write both the item number and the parcel number on the registration form when taking a parcel. The dollar figures published in the newspaper exclude delinquent interest and may cover several years of back taxes, which are flagged with an asterisk, so bring more than the advertised amount. Fees follow LB-650, effective May 7, 2025: a $25.00 certificate fee per certificate, a $150.00 administrative fee, a $25.00 redemption fee, and a $20.00 advertising fee. A redeemed certificate pays 14 percent interest from the date of sale to the date of redemption, and the $25.00 redemption fee is not reimbursed to the holder. Parcels in bankruptcy are not offered. Certificates are issued in the registered name; reassignment costs $10.00, is barred entirely on sale day, and is not allowed for 45 days. Subsequent delinquent taxes may be paid as they come due each May 1 and September 1. A treasurer's deed costs $10.00 and follows statutory notice timelines, and a holder may instead bring a foreclosure action in district court after three years, in which case the holder must tell the Treasurer's Office that the action was filed or risk losing foreclosure fees. Under Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-1818(2) the purchaser must report the administrative service fee within thirty days after service of the statutory notice is completed; the office accepts a receipt showing completed personal service and will not collect the fee if the certificate was redeemed first. Sale day announcements can take precedence over earlier listings. Cell phones must be off during bidding. In person at the Dakota County Courthouse
Source: Tax Sale Guidelines, Dakota County Treasurer (PDF)· Verified Aug 24, 2026

Dakota County tax sale list and auction calendar

For Dakota 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.

  1. Get the advertised list

    Use Delinquent tax advertising list, sale notice, guidelines and registration form 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

    Nebraska holds no tax deed auction. 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 for the administrative deed, or the sheriff under a district court decree as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.

Before you bid in Dakota County

  1. Start with the live sale list

    Pull the current advertised parcels from Delinquent tax advertising list, sale notice, guidelines and registration form. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.

  2. Confirm registration and deposit

    Pre-registration is mandatory and must be completed by 4:30 p.m. on the last Thursday before the sale. The guidelines state "REGISTRATIONS WILL NOT BE TAKEN AT THE DOOR." Submit the Treasurer's Public Tax Sale Registration Form together with a W-9 and a $25.00 registration fee per company. The form collects the investor name and physical address to print on the certificate, a separate mailing address if different, a tax ID or Social Security number, phone, fax and email, the primary contact, and the representative attending. Bidders must be separate and distinct entities: those registering as substantially the same bidder are limited to one participant, and each attending representative may represent no more than five entities. Forms are available from the Treasurer's Office or on the county website. Bidding starts promptly at 9:00 a.m., and a bidder who arrives late is placed last in the following round. At the close of bidding each buyer leaves a blank check payable to the Dakota County Treasurer; the office processes the purchases over the following week, mails copies of the certificates, and then presents the check.

  3. Check the state rules that change the bid

    Read the Nebraska due-diligence checklist before bidding. Redemption, liens that survive a tax deed, title cleanup, and payment deadlines can change what a parcel is worth.

  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

Two routes reach parcels outside the March sale, and both run through the county treasurer. Any parcel that stayed unsold at the public sale for want of bidders must then be sold at private sale at the treasurer's office to any person who pays the taxes, penalty, and costs; the certificate issued that way is marked sold for taxes at private sale. Separately, where the county board bought a parcel in the county's name because it drew no bidder, the treasurer holds that certificate and may assign it at any time to anyone willing to pay the face amount plus 14 percent interest from the date of the certificate, with the county clerk endorsing the assignment and the twenty five dollar issuance fee due from the buyer. If the parcel lies inside a municipality that has created a land bank, the treasurer must give the land bank the first opportunity to acquire the county's certificate. Ask the county treasurer which parcels are open to private sale and which county held certificates are available for assignment.

New to this path? Read how over-the-counter certificates work.

Use the arrow keys to switch between these sections.

County offices

Tax Collector (runs the certificate sale)

Dakota County Treasurer

402-987-2131

Dakota County Courthouse, 1601 Broadway Street, P.O. Box 863, Dakota City, NE 68731-0863

Official website

County notes

  • The Treasurer is Stephanie Gatzemeyer. The office is on the main floor of the Dakota County Courthouse and is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., through the lunch hour, and closed weekends and holidays. The fax number on the tax sale registration form is 402-494-9234.
  • Delinquent taxes are advertised in The Dakota County Star for three consecutive weeks in February ahead of the March sale. Copies come from the newspaper or from the county website, and the Treasurer aims to post an updated list the week before the sale. The office states the published list is otherwise left as it stands after the initial notice, so confirming paid or pulled parcels before bidding is on the buyer.
  • The advertising tax lists page links a separately dated sale notice, an advertising list in PDF and Excel, a delinquent special assessment and paving list, the tax sale guidelines and the registration form. Open the linked notice to read the sale date for the current year rather than relying on the page text.
  • Bidding happens in the District Court room on the second floor of the courthouse, not in the Treasurer's office on the main floor.
  • Parcels that draw no buyer at the March sale are sold over the counter at a private tax sale, day to day, starting May 1. Costs and fees match the public sale except that the registration fee does not apply.
  • Real estate tax bills run on the standard Nebraska calendar: the first half becomes delinquent May 1 and the second half becomes delinquent September 1. The Treasurer offers parcel and tax lookup and online payment through Nebraska Taxes Online, with a 2.35 percent card convenience fee, a $2.00 card minimum, and a $2.00 e-check fee.

Nebraska rules

Max interest rate
14% per year, fixed by statute (nothing is bid)
Minimum return
No statutory floor; every certificate earns the same statutory rate
Redemption
Nebraska does not run a redemption clock that simply expires. The right to redeem stays open until the certificate holder files the application for a tax deed with the county treasurer, and the treasurer may not accept a redemption after the close of business on the day that application arrives. Because the holder cannot apply until three years after the sale, and must first serve a notice at least three months before applying that says in sixteen point type UNLESS YOU ACT YOU WILL LOSE THIS PROPERTY, the ordinary parcel carries a redemption window of about three years and three months and the owner gets a written warning inside it. Several conditions of the parcel or of its owner change that window, and they are recorded as tracks below. On the foreclosure road the window is different again: redemption stays open until the district court confirms the sheriff's sale.
Surplus proceeds
Nebraska returns the owner's equity on both roads. On the administrative road, within thirty days after the deed is recorded the grantee must pay the surplus to the previous owner. The surplus is the resale price if the grantee has already sold the parcel, or the assessed value shown in the county assessor's records at the time of the deed application if the grantee has not, less the amount that would have been needed to redeem the parcel, less the amount needed to pay all encumbrances on it, and less an administrative fee of five hundred dollars, or reasonable attorney fees in the case of a judicial foreclosure, which the grantee may keep to offset the cost of getting the deed. On the foreclosure road, any surplus remaining after all costs and taxes on a parcel are satisfied is applied the way surplus is applied in a mortgage foreclosure, and proceeds from one parcel may not be applied to the taxes on another except as the decree directs.
Governing statute
Neb. Rev. Stat. Chapter 77, Article 18 (77-1801 et seq.)

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.

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Frequently asked questions

Does Dakota County, Nebraska sell tax liens or tax deeds?

Tax lien certificates. In Nebraska investors buy the lien, not the property; the County Treasurer runs the sale.

When is the Dakota County tax certificate sale?

First Monday in March at 9:00 a.m. The Treasurer's guidelines state "Tax sales are held on the first Monday in March starting at 9:00 A.M." and the 2026 notice sets the sale "beginning on the first Monday in March (March 2nd) Two Thousand Twenty-Six (2026) at Nine (9) o'clock in the forenoon of said day," offering all property with delinquent taxes for 2025 and prior. Parcels left unsold at the annual sale are then available at a private tax sale, day to day, beginning May 1. The sale is held in person. Always confirm the exact date with the County Treasurer before the sale.

How often does Dakota County hold tax deed sales?

Dakota County holds its tax deed sale none. Nebraska holds no tax deed auction. 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. Nebraska's redemption rule: 3 years from the tax sale before the holder may apply for a treasurer's tax deed, and the owner may redeem right up to the day that application is filed. Call the County Treasurer for the administrative deed, or the sheriff under a district court decree 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 Dakota County tax sale list?

Dakota County posts its tax sale list at dakotacounty.ne.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 Aug 24, 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.

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