Quebec City Property Assessment Roll 2025-2027: Why Every Value Dates From July 1, 2023

In Quebec City, the value on the property assessment roll for 2025, for 2026 and for 2027 rests on a single date: July 1, 2023. That is the key to reading a municipal assessment in the capital, and it is also the part most often forgotten. This article explains where that date comes from, what the law means by actual value, and what the assessed value is and is not. If the value looks wrong to you, the steps are covered in our article on requesting a review of a municipal assessment.

A three-year roll with one reference date

The City of Québec presents its roll on a page titled "Rôle d'évaluation foncière", its property assessment roll. It states three things there: the roll is a three-year roll, it covers the 2025, 2026 and 2027 fiscal years, and the values on it were set as of July 1, 2023.

The three-year cycle is not a local quirk. The Act respecting municipal taxation provides for a new roll every three years. Between two rolls, all three fiscal years rest on values fixed at the same date.

That is what makes the roll both easy and misleading to read. Easy, because a single date governs the whole roll. Misleading, because nothing in the number on screen reminds the reader that it describes a market more than two years old by the time the roll takes effect.

Why July 1, 2023: section 46 of the Act respecting municipal taxation

The City does not pick the date. Section 46 of the Act respecting municipal taxation sets the reference date at July 1 of the second fiscal year preceding the one in which the roll comes into force.

You get there by counting back. The roll comes into force for the 2025 fiscal year. The year before it is 2024; the second year before it is 2023. The reference date is therefore July 1, 2023. The same rule applied to another roll would produce another date, always about a year and a half before the first fiscal year covered.

Remembering the rule rather than the date pays off: it lets you work out, for any Quebec roll, the exact moment its values describe.

What actual value means in the Act

The Act respecting municipal taxation defines actual value as the most probable price of a sale by agreement between willing parties. Every part of that definition matters.

"Most probable" means a probability, not a price observed for your property. "By agreement" means a sale freely agreed between the parties, not a forced sale. And that probable value is set at the roll's reference date, which in Quebec City is July 1, 2023.

Put together, those three ideas give the correct reading of the number on the roll: it is the price at which your property would most probably have sold, between willing parties, on July 1, 2023.

Using the City's online roll lookup

The City of Québec provides a public online tool for consulting the roll, reached from its property assessment roll page. It lets you find a property and the value recorded for it.

Two checks come before reading the value. First, make sure the unit displayed really is yours, by cross-checking the address and the information shown against what you know of the building. Second, keep in mind the date the value describes, since the number alone does not tell you.

For any question about your own file, the contact is the City's assessment department, the Service de l'évaluation. It set the value, and a request for clarification goes to it.

Three tax years pinned to a 2023 snapshot

The practical effect of the reference date is measured in years. In 2025, the assessed value describes a market from about a year and a half earlier. In 2027, the roll's last fiscal year, it still describes July 1, 2023, a market more than three years old. Whatever happened in the Quebec City market since that date, in either direction, is not in it.

That does not make the roll inconsistent. Every property on it is valued at the same date: comparing your house with a neighbouring house on the same roll compares two values as of July 1, 2023. The roll is consistent within itself.

That consistency ends the moment you step outside the roll. Setting the assessed value next to a sale closed in 2026 or 2027 compares two different dates, and the resulting gap measures elapsed time as much as it measures the property.

A 2023 value is not today's selling price

A municipal assessment and a selling price estimate answer different questions. The first states what your property was probably worth on a date fixed by law, for the three years of the roll. The second tries to place a price at the moment you would sell.

The date alone separates them, before any question of method. A 2023 value applied in 2026 or 2027 takes no account of the sales closed since, and it is precisely those recent sales, in your area and for your type of property, that place a price today.

If your question is about selling, start from recent comparable sales. Our estimation page places your property against sales in your area, showing the number of comparable sales and the period they cover.

If the assessed value looks wrong

The City of Québec's page includes a section for requesting a review, "Demander une révision". Before using it, keep the date in mind: the relevant question concerns the property's value as of July 1, 2023, since that is what the roll describes.

We do not repeat the procedure here: it is the subject of our article on review requests, linked in the introduction. For a question about your file, the City's assessment department remains the direct contact.