Alabama veterans whom the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has determined permanently and totally disabled no longer have to claim their homestead exemption again every year, under House Bill 155, which takes effect October 1, 2026. After the first approval, the yearly verification drops away for as long as the veteran stays in the same home.
The change targets paperwork, not the size of the benefit. The exemption itself is untouched. What goes is the annual mail-in or electronic verification, the signed form that otherwise has to come back every year for the exemption to stay in place.
What House Bill 155 actually changes
The bill, sponsored by Representative Paul Lee, amends two sections of the Code of Alabama 1975. According to the bill as passed by the Legislature, section 40-7-2.1 now exempts a permanently and totally disabled veteran from the signature verification that is otherwise mailed out each year, and section 40-9-21.1 gains a new subsection (b)(2).
That subsection says that after initial qualification, these veterans need not annually claim the exemption or verify eligibility. The House passed the bill on February 10, 2026, and the Senate passed it on April 7, 2026. Governor Kay Ivey signed it in April, according to reports on the signing of her military and veterans package.
The question for a veteran or a family member is whether the exemption is already on file with the county, since the relief only applies after the first qualification. A veteran who has been approved for the permanent exemption is covered. A veteran who has never applied, or whose application was denied, is not released from anything because there is nothing yet to release.
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Who the bill covers, and who it leaves out
The text applies to veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces who have been determined permanently and totally disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs and who qualify under section 40-9-19(d) or 40-9-21. It names no percentage. The test is the VA’s determination, not a self-assessment and not any disabled veteran.
That is a narrower group than veterans with a high rating. A veteran rated 100 percent but not designated permanent, for example because a reexamination is scheduled, does not fit the language. The wording is permanent and total, and both words appear in the bill.
The exemption these veterans already hold sits in Alabama’s homestead system. The Department of Revenue’s homestead exemptions page lists permanently and totally disabled owners with no income limit and no maximum assessed value, with a 160-acre land cap on the state exemption. The bill leaves every one of those terms where they were.
When the release ends
The relief has two stopping points written into the bill. It ends when the veteran dies, and it ends when the veteran establishes a new homestead. A veteran who sells and buys elsewhere, or moves to a different county, should expect to start over with the new address.
That second trigger is easy to overlook. Because the exemption attaches to a homestead, a move resets the clock on the permanent status even if the VA rating stays exactly the same. A veteran should expect to supply the VA determination again to the county that receives the new homestead filing.
The bill also removes a requirement, which is a different thing from adding a protection. If a county record has a gap, such as a missing initial approval or a wrong parcel number, the yearly mailing was the one regular prompt that surfaced it. With the mailing gone for these veterans, nothing prompts a correction unless the family looks.
The step the bill does not take for anyone
A release written into the statute is not the same as a confirmed county file. The Department of Revenue’s property tax pages describe the statewide exemption categories, and the records themselves sit with each county’s revenue office.
Calling the county revenue commissioner’s or tax assessor’s office before the next bill is the cleanest route to confirming that a permanent exemption is on file. The questions to ask are short: is the exemption coded as permanent, is the veteran’s name current, and does the file reflect the VA’s permanent and total determination.
Keeping a copy of the VA decision letter that states the permanent and total determination makes the call faster. So does the parcel number from the most recent tax notice. A county office that can match the two can usually say in one call what its file shows.
The Alabama Gazette’s report on the signing shows Representative Lee and Senator Donnie Chesteen with the governor at the bill signing. The governor signed it as part of a package of military and veterans bills that also included military education and workforce training benefits.
For surviving spouses, the picture is less clear. The bill’s release ends when the veteran dies, and the text addresses the veteran, not a spouse. A widow or widower who inherits the home should ask the county how the exemption is handled after the veteran’s death rather than assume it carries forward.
Is the veteran’s homestead exemption really on file for good?
A lapsed homestead exemption costs a veteran a year of tax relief on the home. HB 155 removes the yearly form for permanently and totally disabled veterans, but it also removes the one annual prompt that would have exposed a missing file.
The Veterans Benefits Action Kit includes an exemption status check and a list of what to keep on file, so a family has the VA decision letter, the parcel number and the county contacts together before the call to the revenue office. The kit does not file anything for a veteran.
It also carries a claim tracker and a deadline calendar in Part 8, which is where a veteran can note the date of that call and the name of the person who confirmed the exemption.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
