Land · Kentucky tax sale guide

Kentucky tax sales by county

Verified

Kentucky is the state where the most common description of the sale gets the event itself wrong. Guides describe tax lien auctions, with bidding, deposits, and rates competed down, for a sale at which nothing is bid at all. What the county clerk sells is the certificate of delinquency, the tax claim the sheriff filed after April 15 (KRS 134.122), at one annual sale held 90 to 135 days later on a date the Department of Revenue schedules (KRS 134.128; 103 KAR 5:180). The price is the full amount due on the day, a stack of statutory charges that the Department's own worked example builds from a 1,000 dollar bill to 1,704.21 dollars at the sale. Certificates a purchaser already has a prior year claim on are allocated first as priority certificates, conflicts resolved by seniority; the rest are chosen in size tiered lots in an order set by a random drawing the clerk runs on the day. The interest is a real 12 percent, but simple, charged by the month with fractions counting whole, and never bid down (KRS 134.125). And the foreclosure clock that matters most is anchored where almost nobody anchors it: the year in KRS 134.546 runs from January 1 after the assessment year, so for the 2026 season's 2025 bills it expires on January 1, 2027, months after the sales, not a year after them.

This page set covers the top 10 Kentucky counties by population, each verified against its clerk's own publications and the Department of Revenue's statewide calendar on November 9, 2026, and every one of the ten 2026 sales has already run. Kenton County sold Wednesday, July 15, 2026 and Jefferson County Friday, July 17, 2026, both with published procedures, registration deadlines, and deposits; Fayette County's Friday, July 24, 2026 date is verified from the Department's calendar, but no time, venue, or format appears on any official source read. Boone County ran the fullest small county packet in the set on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, with a drawing of order on July 31. Campbell County's Wednesday, August 12, 2026 date is calendar verified only and is the thinnest record in the set. Hardin County sold Monday, August 17, 2026 on a clerk legal notice; Daviess and Bullitt both sold Thursday, August 20, 2026, Daviess on the calendar alone with its documented 2025 terms left in 2025, Bullitt with a published pre-sale priority process; Warren County's Wednesday, August 26, 2026 date is calendar only; and Madison County sold in person on Thursday, August 27, 2026, with a clerk page whose flat 25 percent deposit statement conflicts with the regulation's 100 percent priority deposit and is flagged on its page, not smoothed over. No county and no Department publication read states a parcel count for any of the ten, so no count appears anywhere in this set.

Verify before you go: counties can move a date, change terms, cancel a sale, or pull parcels at any time. The official sale list is the final word.

The 10 counties

Each row links to that county's own page: selling office, venue or platform, deposit, payment terms, leftover channel, and sources. Where a county has not posted a dated sale, the row says so instead of projecting a pattern onto it.

How Kentucky certificate of delinquency sales work

• Kentucky sells certificates of delinquency, never land, and the sheriff to clerk handoff is where the certificate is born. Taxes carry the KRS 134.015 ladder: a 2 percent discount by November 1 of the assessment year, face amount to December 31, a 5 percent penalty through January, and a 10 percent penalty after January 31. The sheriff collects until April 15. Unpaid claims are then filed with the county clerk and become certificates of delinquency owned by the taxing jurisdictions (KRS 134.122), with the Department of Revenue responsible for collection and usually contracting it to the county attorney, who must send the owner a first notice within 30 days (KRS 134.504). The certificate base is the face tax plus the 10 percent penalty plus the sheriff commission (KRS 134.119(6)) plus the 10 percent sheriff add on (KRS 134.119(7)).
• The clerk holds one annual sale, on the Department's schedule, inside a statutory window. The sale runs not earlier than 90 nor later than 135 days after the claims transfer (KRS 134.128), and the date is not the clerk's free choice: the Department of Revenue sets the preliminary statewide schedule under 103 KAR 5:180, and a clerk may only request a change, at the Department's discretion. In the 2026 season, sales of 2025 bills ran from Tuesday, July 14, 2026 (Pendleton, the first statutory day) to Thursday, October 22, 2026. The clerks deliver the master list of certificates to the Department by May 15 and the Department publishes the consolidated list by June 1 (KRS 134.131). Dates moved between the April and September versions of the 2026 statewide list, so an early list is a draft, never a final calendar.
• There is no auction and no bidding, of price or of rate. A buyer files lists of the certificates it wants and pays the full amount due on the day. Bidding a rate down, the mechanic most lien summaries describe, does not exist in Kentucky, because the rate is fixed by statute and the price is fixed by arithmetic. What looks like an auction calendar entry is in fact an allocation event, and preparing for it means preparing lists, deposits, and registration, not a bidding strategy.
• The amount due is a stack of statutory charges, and the Department's own example shows how fast it grows. On top of the certificate base, the buyer pays interest at 12 percent (below), a 10 percent county clerk fee (KRS 134.126(9)), a 20 percent county attorney fee, 1 dollar per county attorney notice, a 5 dollar advertising fee, the allocated cost of advertising the list, and the recording fees of KRS 64.012. The Department of Revenue's worked example turns a 1,000 dollar face bill into 1,254.00 dollars when the certificate is created and 1,704.21 dollars by the day of the sale. A buyer underwriting only the face tax and interest has missed roughly two fifths of the ticket.
• Allocation runs in two steps: priority first, then the drawing. A priority certificate is a current certificate on a parcel where the purchaser already holds a prior year certificate; priority claims are allocated before anything else, and when two purchasers claim the same priority certificate, the holder of the most recent prior year wins, by seniority and not by lot (KRS 134.128(2)(d)4). The remaining certificates are chosen in size tiered lots in an order set by a random drawing the clerk runs on the sale day (103 KAR 5:180, Section 6). Counties call the event a lottery sale, and Jefferson County's own procedures are titled that way; the drawing sets the order of choosing, and the Department writes the rules and audits the sale but does not run it.
• The 12 percent rate is real, and almost every description of it is wrong in the mechanics. Interest is simple, 12 percent per annum, charged monthly with a fraction of a month counting as a full month, on the statutory base before purchase and on the amount the purchaser actually paid after purchase (KRS 134.125). It is not compound, it is never bid down, and it does not run on the purchaser's later fees (KRS 134.452). The owner's cost of waiting is therefore steep and lumpy: a payment made one day into a new month owes that whole month.
• The owner can pay at any time, and there is no fixed redemption window to wait out. Before a third party purchase the owner pays the clerk (KRS 134.127(1)(a)); after a purchase the owner pays the purchaser, who must release the lien under KRS 382.365, and if the purchaser cannot be located the owner may pay the full amount into escrow at the clerk and take the release there (KRS 134.127(3)). A registered purchaser must offer a monthly installment plan on written request, with a processing fee capped at 8 dollars per month (KRS 134.490(5)), and the purchaser's own added fees are capped by KRS 134.452: prelitigation tiers at 350, 560, and 700 dollars, and 115 dollars on an assignment. Any guide that prices a Kentucky certificate on uncapped purchaser fees is pricing charges the statute forbids.
• Foreclosure is a circuit court action, and its one year clock is not anchored to your purchase. Under KRS 134.546 the holder sues in circuit court and the property is sold through the master commissioner, in rem, in personam, or both, after the 45 day pre-action notice of KRS 134.490(2). The one year in KRS 134.546(1) runs from the date the taxes became delinquent, January 1 of the year after the assessment year. For the 2026 season's 2025 bills that date is January 1, 2027, only about three to six months after the July to October 2026 sales, not a year after them. The certificate lien is prior and superior to any other obligation and lives eleven years (KRS 134.420). If the foreclosure sale brings less than two thirds of the appraised value (KRS 426.520), the owner may redeem within six months at the purchase money plus 10 percent plus qualifying post sale costs (KRS 426.530, incorporated by KRS 134.546(5)); at or above two thirds there is no redemption. If nobody buys, the master commissioner deeds to the certificate owners pro rata. Chapter 134 gives that deed no clean title guarantee, unlike the separate city procedure in KRS 91.514, so title is a case level question, and certificates nobody bought at the clerk's sale simply stay at the clerk, purchasable afterward under KRS 134.128(6); nothing is struck off to the county or the state.

One Kentucky fact decides most purchases: the foreclosure year is anchored to the delinquency date, not to your purchase. A certificate bought at an August 2026 sale can support a foreclosure filing from January 1, 2027, roughly four months later, because the taxes became delinquent on January 1, 2026. Buyers who model a full year of 12 percent interest before any filing have added eight months of return the timeline does not contain, and owners who model the same year have missed how soon a purchaser can be in circuit court.

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