Roughly $2.74 billion in New Orleans real estate assessed value, or 37 percent of the total, was exempt from property taxes in 2025, according to a report the Bureau of Governmental Research released November 5. The study, titled Off the Rolls: Managing the Impacts of Tax-Exempt Property in New Orleans, updates BGR’s 1996 analysis of who pays property taxes in the city, and it arrives as the City Council has just voted to raise property taxes on homeowners to close a budget gap.

Public property makes up the largest share of the exempt base at 55 percent, with most of the remainder held by large nonprofit owners such as schools, hospitals, and shelters. The concentration matters because property taxes provide about half of all local tax dollars in New Orleans, so every dollar of value removed from the rolls shifts the burden onto the taxable owners who remain.

The report also corrected the record. BGR identified two errors in the Orleans Parish Assessor’s data that had inflated the value of tax-exempt real estate by $721 million, and the Assessor has since fixed them. Measured across the entire tax base rather than real estate alone, 33 percent of New Orleans’ assessed value is exempt, the second-highest share among six large Southeast Louisiana parishes, behind only Ascension Parish.

BGR’s central recommendation is an infrastructure fee. Because a fee is not a tax, it can be applied to all property owners, including those exempt from property taxes, and would allow institutions that rely on city streets, drainage, and services to contribute to their upkeep. The report frames exemptions as a structural constraint on the tax base rather than a problem with any single owner.

The timing gives the recommendation a political audience. The City Council unanimously approved a property tax increase for homeowners for next year, which Mayor Helena Moreno sought to offset about $21 million of roughly $77 million in proposed cuts to the 2027 budget. Both the mayor and council members have said they want to find a way for nonprofits that do not pay property taxes to contribute more to city revenue.

For commercial property owners, the exempt-share figure explains part of the pressure on millage rates and assessments. A tax base where more than a third of real estate value pays nothing concentrates the cost of city services on taxable residential and commercial property, and any shift toward fees on exempt owners would be among the few levers available to ease that load without raising rates further.

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