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If you run a business in Salt Lake County, the county taxes the chairs, computers, ovens and registers you use, separately from the building. This guide covers what the Salt Lake County Assessor sends you, how to file it online, who owes nothing, and what it costs to ignore it.
The Salt Lake County Assessor mails a Statement of Personal Property to every business on its rolls in January and February, and you have 60 days to return it. If everything your business owns in the county adds up to $30,100 or less in 2026 taxable value, you owe no tax, but you still file the statement and sign the exemption block. Skip it and the penalty is $25 or 10 percent of the estimated tax, whichever is greater.
Utah taxes business equipment as property, the same way it taxes land and buildings. The Salt Lake County Assessor's 2026 classification guide lists alarm systems, cash registers, phones and vending machines in one class, furniture, bars, sinks and barber shop fixtures in another, then medical and dental equipment, bakery and food prep equipment, forklifts, laptops and printers. A salon in Sugar House pays on its chairs and dryers. A dental office in Murray pays on its x-ray machines and exam furniture.
Some things are left out. The state's Publication 20 lists inventory held for resale, supplies, household furnishings, farm machinery used mainly for farming, livestock and intangibles like software licenses. An item that cost under $500 and is not critical to the business is also exempt. Equipment you have written off on your books still counts. Leased equipment is taxed to the company that owns it, so you list it on Schedule B to keep the county from taxing it twice.
The tax follows what you owned at noon on January 1. Publication 20 puts it plainly for this year: property you buy in 2026 is not taxed until January 1, 2027. New owners should register when they get a business license, because the county's page says registering at that point is how you avoid an escaped property assessment later. The form is on the Assessor's Register a New Business page. If you are still at the license step, our Salt Lake City business license guide covers that side.
The Assessor mails the Statement of Personal Property in January and February. The county's page says you have 60 days to complete it and return it with the tax, and Utah Code 59-2-306 sets the same 60 days from the assessor's request. The due date is printed at the top of your statement, and that date is the one that counts, because interest starts running from it.
You can file online or on paper. The online version is the Assessor's Business Personal Property Tax Online Filing Application at apps.saltlakecounty.gov/assessor/persproptax/public/. The paper statement goes back by mail to the Assessor at 2001 South State Street, Suite N2-600, Salt Lake City. Unsigned statements get returned, and the form warns they may pick up interest or penalties if that delays you past the due date.
The Salt Lake County form is built around what changed since last year. Line 2 is the taxable value of everything you reported in prior years, already printed from the county's records. Line 3 is the net of what you bought and disposed of during 2025, which you list on Schedule A, or 0 if nothing changed. The next lines total it up, print the tax rate for your tax district, and multiply. If the property location on your statement is wrong, call the Assessor for the correct rate.
Write down acquisition cost with freight, installation, assembly and sales tax included. Training, licensing fees, permits and insurance are not part of the cost.
The Utah Constitution and Utah Code 59-2-1115 exempt a small amount of business equipment. For 2026 the limit is $30,100, and Publication 20 and the Salt Lake County statement both use that number. It is figured per owner in a single county, and the exemption block on the statement asks whether you own property at other locations in Salt Lake County so the county can add them together.
On the statement, if the total taxable value is $30,100 or less, you stop and go to the exemption application at the bottom of page 1. You sign it, certifying that the taxable value of all your tangible personal property is $30,100 or less. The form says it is an application and is not official until the Board of Equalization grants it, and the Assessor's instructions say the declaration has to be filed on time to receive the exemption.
Owing nothing does not mean you can ignore the envelope. Publication 20 says the Tax Commission picks accounts for audit using several criteria, including failure to file the signed statement. The business gets a mailed notice two weeks ahead, then an on-site inspection of the property and the accounting records.
The county takes what you paid for each item, including freight and installation, and multiplies it by a percent good rate from the State Tax Commission's schedules. The rate falls each year until it reaches a floor, so old equipment never goes to zero. These are some of the 2026 percent good rates on the Salt Lake County statement, by year bought:
| Class and examples | Bought 2025 | Bought 2024 | Bought 2023 | Bought 2022 | Lowest rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 005: furniture, bars, sinks, shelving, barber shop fixtures | 96% | 90% | 83% | 74% | 13% |
| 012: computers, laptops, printers, copiers, VOIP phones | 62% | 46% | 21% | 9% | 7% |
| 003: cash registers, alarm systems, cell phones, vending machines | 90% | 79% | 59% | 41% | 21% |
| 008: medical and dental equipment, bakery and food prep, auto repair | 97% | 93% | 89% | 82% | 11% |
| 001: canned software, uniforms, pots and pans, pallets | 76% | 47% | 12% | 12% | 12% |
Say a dental office in Murray bought $20,000 of dental equipment in 2024, $6,000 of computers in 2025 and $5,000 of furniture in 2022. On the 2026 schedule the dental equipment is $20,000 times 93 percent, or $18,600. The computers are $6,000 times 62 percent, or $3,720. The furniture is $5,000 times 74 percent, or $3,700. That totals $26,020, under $30,100, so the office files, signs the exemption and owes nothing.
Now add one $5,000 dental chair bought in 2025. At 97 percent it adds $4,850, the total becomes $30,870, and the whole amount is taxable, not just the $770 over the line. The tax is that total times the rate for the tax district printed on the statement. This is an illustration built from the county's published rates, not a real business.
Under Utah Code 59-2-307, a business that does not file after the follow-up notice pays 10 percent of the estimated tax, with a minimum of $25. The county instructions say that if you do not file within 30 days of a subsequent notice, the Assessor records the failure and estimates your value. Neither the county Board of Equalization nor the Tax Commission can lower that estimate. The statute lets the county waive or reduce the penalty if you show reasonable cause.
If the county finds that you hid, moved or misreported property to avoid the tax, the penalty equals the tax on that property under Utah Code 59-2-309, and the statement warns that a false written statement can be charged as a class B misdemeanor. Property never reported can be taxed as far back as five years.
The county's page says personal property taxes become delinquent 60 days after billing, and the 2026 interest rate is 9.5 percent. You can pay online at the Assessor's payment page or by phone at 833-312-0208. Card and electronic check payments carry a convenience fee, and the instructions note that paying online does not replace filing the statement. You can also mail a check payable to the Salt Lake County Assessor.
Leased and multi-location property is filed differently. The Assessor's leased and multi-location page asks for an Excel file emailed to the office with the signature page. Columns run location, business name, three-digit state class, year acquired, cost, asset number and description. Disposals go on a separate sheet in the same workbook with the date, reason and new location. On a true lease the lessor reports the property and the lessee lists it on Schedule B. On a capital lease the lessee reports it on Schedule A.
People searching for the property tax form often land on TC-160. TC-160 is a Utah State Tax Commission form, but it is the application for a sales tax exemption number for religious and charitable organizations. It is not part of the county's property tax statement.
A church, charity or school that wants its property off the roll applies to the county instead. The Assessor's exemptions page lists religious, charitable and educational institutions as a separate category and names Terrie Sherbon at 385-468-7226 as the contact for that application. The small business exemption, the $30,100 one, goes through the Personal Property Division at 385-468-7999.
The Personal Property Division is part of the Salt Lake County Assessor's office at 2001 South State Street, Suite N2-600, Salt Lake City, open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The number is 385-468-7999, and the fax is 385-468-8093.
If you think the value is wrong, appeal in writing to the Clerk of the Board of Equalization at the Salt Lake County Auditor, 2001 South State Street #N3-300, PO Box 144575, Salt Lake City, UT 84114-4575. It must be postmarked on or before the appeal date printed on the first page of your statement and include an appraisal or a summary of why the valuation is wrong. Publication 20 gives a general window of 60 days from the date the tax notice was mailed, then 30 days after the county's written decision to go to the State Tax Commission. Use the date on your own statement.
Once the paperwork is done, the next job is customers. Our guides on where to advertise in Salt Lake City and small business resources in Salt Lake City cover the next steps. The Salt Lake Valley is our own newsletter, and we sell ads in it: it had 2,441 subscribers on November 2, 2026, and monthly plans run $149, $179 and $539. The details are on our advertising page. A listing in our Local Directory costs $49 a month, a 30 day post on our local job board costs $49, and our AI 101 class for business owners is free.