Ohio CAUV: Current Agricultural Use Valuation

CAUV applies only to the qualifying agricultural land. The homesite acreage on which a residence sits and any non-agricultural improvements remain on the standard true-value tax roll, separately assessed at 35% of fair market value. Farm buildings used directly in the qualifying agricultural activity — barns, grain bins, livestock structures — are typically valued on the standard roll but at agricultural-use replacement cost rather than as commercial improvements. Each auditor handles the homesite carve-out slightly differently, so it's worth confirming how your county splits the parcel before signing off on the tax roll. If the split looks wrong, it is appealable on the same DTE Form 1 used for any other Ohio assessment dispute. See our property tax deadlines guide before you file.

Under Ohio Rev. Code 5713.34, when CAUV land is converted to a non-agricultural use, the county auditor calculates the difference between the taxes paid under CAUV and the taxes that would have been paid under the standard true-value assessment for the three preceding tax years and bills the recoupment as a charge against the property. If only part of a tract is converted, the recoupment is calculated only on the converted acreage and the remaining qualifying acreage stays in CAUV. A sale alone does not automatically trigger recoupment — what triggers it is the conversion of the use. A buyer who keeps the land in qualifying agricultural production and timely files a new DTE 109 can avoid recoupment entirely. Owners contemplating a sale should model the recoupment exposure as part of their property tax planning well before the deed transfers.

Yes. Land enrolled in a federal land retirement or conservation program — including the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), the Wetlands Reserve Program, and similar federal programs — qualifies for CAUV even when the acreage is not actively producing crops. Ohio law treats conservation enrollment as a qualifying commercial agricultural use, recognizing that taking land out of production for conservation purposes is itself an agricultural decision. Documentation matters here: keep your enrollment contracts and annual program payments organized, because the auditor may ask for evidence during the initial application or any subsequent review. If the auditor disagrees and removes the land from CAUV, the decision is appealable.

A cash-rent or crop-share lease arrangement does not disqualify the land from CAUV. What matters is that the land is devoted exclusively to commercial agricultural use during the relevant period — not who is operating it. The owner remains the applicant of record on the DTE 109 and the responsible party for the annual DTE 109A renewal, but the qualifying use can be satisfied by the tenant's commercial farming activity. Owners should keep copies of lease documents, evidence of the tenant's commercial agricultural production, and (for the under-10-acre income test) gross income documentation tied to the tract. Disputes over whether a lease arrangement satisfies the "commercial" requirement come up most often when small-acreage tracts get scrutinized — and they are appealable through the standard Ohio appeal process.

Yes — CAUV is administered tract-by-tract. A landowner with multiple parcels can have some enrolled in CAUV and others assessed at standard true value, and the same parcel can be split between qualifying and non-qualifying acreage. This is particularly common where a working farm sits adjacent to a homestead lot, an industrial yard, or a developed outparcel — the qualifying acreage stays in CAUV while the non-qualifying portion is taxed normally. Multi-parcel owners need to track DTE 109A renewals separately for each enrolled tract, because missing a renewal on one parcel does not affect the others, but it does remove that specific parcel from CAUV and trigger recoupment on it. For portfolio owners, this is exactly the sort of administrative compliance issue that an experienced commercial property tax consultant helps surface before it becomes a recoupment bill.

Plan the transaction with the recoupment math fully visible on both sides of the table. If the buyer intends to convert the land out of agricultural use, recoupment of the three prior years' tax savings will be assessed against the property — the question is who pays it and how it's reflected in price. Some sellers negotiate the buyer's assumption of recoupment as part of the closing; others price it into the sale. Buyers who plan to keep the land in qualifying production during a phased development can sometimes avoid recoupment on the still-farmed acreage and incur it only as each phase converts. Whichever path makes sense, get the tax exposure modeled before signing the purchase agreement — once the conversion happens, the auditor's recoupment calculation follows ORC 5713.34 mechanically and is hard to unwind. Request a free review if you're evaluating an offer on Ohio CAUV land.