Land · Nebraska tax sale guide

Nebraska tax sales by county

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Nebraska is the state where the sale is the easy part and the exit is the discipline. The county treasurer sells certificates of purchase at a public sale opening the first Monday in March (sections 77-1801, 77-1806, 77-1807): the buyer pays the taxes, delinquent interest and costs due and receives not the property but a certificate carrying one perpetual tax lien (sections 77-1818, 77-1819), earning 14 percent per annum, a rate article 18 never prints because it is incorporated from section 45-104.01 (section 77-1824). Registration is statutory, 25 dollars before participating (section 77-1807(2)(g)); no deposit exists in the statute. Three years later the certificate matures into a choice the statute gates twice: a treasurer's deed only inside nine months after the three years expire and only where 110 percent of assessed value minus the redemption amount is 25,000 dollars or less, foreclosure in district court above the gate (sections 77-1837, 77-1902), and cancellation of the certificate and discharge of the lien for a holder who does neither in time (section 77-1856). Unsold certificates are not automatically struck off to the county; they go to the treasurer's private sale at taxes, penalty and costs (section 77-1814), with a discretionary county purchase behind it (section 77-1809). State law names no online platform, and in this set nine of ten counties sell in person.

This page set covers the top 10 Nebraska counties by population, each verified against its treasurer's own publications, and the 2026 season, opening Monday, March 2, 2026, is unevenly documented in a way the pages state rather than smooth over. Five counties publish a dated sale: Sarpy County in person in the Boardroom in Papillion at 9:00 a.m., Hall County in person at the Grand Island Public Library at 9:00 a.m., Scotts Bluff County in person in Gering at 9:00 a.m., Lincoln County in person in the District Court Room in North Platte at 9:00 a.m., continuing day to day, and Dodge County in person in Fremont at 8:30 a.m., each on a 25 dollar registration with February deadlines. Sarpy County even dates its own next sale, March 1, 2027. Platte County ran its sale and published a post sale report, 119 certificates sold of 138 parcels standing at sale day to 24 registered buyers, but publishes no day, time or venue in readable form. Lancaster County's sale is proven to have run in 2026 by its board's minutes, and its unsold parcels went to a board resolution, but no dated sale publication was readable; Buffalo County's sale is proven the same way over a published 143 parcel delinquent list, with no terms published. Douglas County sells online on its own treasurer sale site, but its county pages refused every fetch, so its 2026 terms are marked NOT PUBLISHED rather than carried forward from older notices. Madison County publishes nothing about a tax sale on its county site at all, and its page says exactly that.

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 Nebraska tax certificate sales work

• Nebraska sells certificates, not land, at a public sale that opens on the first Monday in March. Real estate on which taxes are unpaid on or before the first Monday in March after delinquency is subject to sale on or after that date (section 77-1801); the treasurer prepares the delinquent tax list not less than four nor more than six weeks before that Monday and gives notice that the listed property will be sold on that Monday at public auction at the treasurer's office or another designated location, published once a week for three consecutive weeks commencing the first week in February, posted in the treasurer's office, and forwarded for compiled publication on the Department of Revenue website (sections 77-1802 and 77-1804). The sale commences on the noticed day and continues from day to day, Sundays and holidays excepted, until every item has been sold or offered (section 77-1806). For the 2026 cycle the Monday was March 2, 2026.
• What the buyer receives is a lien, in writing. The purchaser pays the taxes, delinquent interest and costs due, or the property is offered again (sections 77-1807 and 77-1808), and receives a certificate of purchase from the county treasurer describing the property, the sum paid and the deed entitlement dates, presumptive evidence of the regularity of the prior proceedings, deliverable by hand, mail or electronic means (section 77-1818). Each certificate carries one tax lien, and the lien is perpetual (section 77-1819). On issuance the purchaser must notify the owner, and a 150 dollar administrative fee is charged to the owner (section 77-1818). Title, possession and the property itself are not part of the transaction.
• The old bid-down is dead, and summaries still describing it are describing pre-2015 law. The smallest portion language of section 77-1807(1) applies only until January 1, 2015. Under the current procedure in section 77-1807(2), a land bank's automatically accepted bid takes the property with no auction; otherwise the purchaser is the person who offers to pay the amount of taxes, delinquent interest and costs due, bidding rules are announced at the start of the auction, and a round robin sale, where a county uses one, follows the statutory count, ticket drawing and one parcel per round order. In practice the counties in this set run in person round robin sales at which registered bidders take turns accepting or passing parcels at the statutory amount.
• The interest rate is 14 percent per annum, and it is not written in the tax sale article. Article 18 states no number; the rate is incorporated from section 45-104.01 and applied on redemption under section 77-1824. It runs on the certificate sum from the date of purchase to the date of redemption, and on each subsequent tax payment, which the holder may pay after delinquency and add to the lien (section 77-1818), from the date of that payment to redemption, together with the issuance and administrative fees. Counties do not set the rate and most do not print it in their sale packets; its absence from a county's instructions does not change it.
• Registration is statutory; a deposit is not. A bidder must register with the treasurer or a designee before participating, a foreign corporation must show a registered agent for service of process, and the registration fee is 25 dollars, nonrefundable on redemption (section 77-1807(2)(g)). The article sets no deposit anywhere. The other statutory fees are distinct and frequently conflated: a 25 dollar certificate issuance fee (section 77-1823), a 20 dollar reassignment fee (section 77-1822), a 20 dollar per description advertising fee (section 77-1804), and the 150 dollar administrative fee charged to the owner on issuance (section 77-1818). The blank checks several counties require at check-in are county terms, not statute, and the registration deadlines in February are county terms too.
• Redemption runs until the deed application is filed, and then it ends that day. The owner redeems by paying the treasurer the certificate sum, the fees and interest at 14 percent per annum (section 77-1824). The right does not expire on a fixed anniversary: it ends at the close of business on the day the holder files a deed application with the treasurer. A holder who waits gives the owner more time at the same rate; the deadline pressure in Nebraska runs the other way, on the holder, whose own window opens only after three years and closes nine months later.
• The deed is gated twice, by time and by value, and missing either gate has a statutory price. A treasurer's deed under section 77-1837 may be applied for only within nine months after the expiration of three years after the sale, a window the 2025 Legislature widened from six months, and only if 110 percent of the assessed value minus the redemption amount is 25,000 dollars or less; above that gate the holder must foreclose under section 77-1902 instead. At least three months before applying, the holder must give the notice required by section 77-1831, served under section 77-1832 on occupants, record title holders and every encumbrancer of record found by the title search the statute requires, with publication under section 77-1834 for anyone who cannot be found. The recorded deed vests title subject to community improvement district and sanitary and improvement district special assessment liens not previously offered for sale, and the grantee must pay any calculated surplus to the previous owner within 30 days after recording (section 77-1838). A holder who neither demands a deed nor forecloses inside the window loses everything the certificate carried: it ceases to be valid, is canceled, and the tax lien is discharged (section 77-1856).
• The alternative route is a court case, and above the value gate it is the only route. Judicial foreclosure under article 19 may be brought by the county on its own lien, on a board order directing the county attorney (section 77-1901), or by a certificate or deed holder instead of demanding a deed, or surrendering a deed in court, under section 77-1902, within the same nine months after three years. It proceeds like a mortgage foreclosure except as article 19 provides; redemption before suit, during suit and after decree but before confirmation runs on the terms in section 77-1917, and surplus is handled as in a mortgage foreclosure under section 77-1916. The two year tracks that appear in sections 77-1837 and 77-1902 belong to vacant and abandoned property held by a land bank, not to ordinary certificates. Articles 18 and 19 name no online auction or bidding platform anywhere: the only electronic provisions are website publication of the compiled list and electronic delivery of the certificate, so an online sale, a deposit, or a platform rule is always a county or platform term. In this set only Douglas County sells online; the other nine counties verified in person.
• Unsold certificates are not automatically struck off to the county, whatever the summaries say. Property that draws no bid at the public sale goes to private sale by the treasurer at the treasurer's office, to any person who will pay the taxes, penalty and costs (section 77-1814), the channel Scotts Bluff and Dodge Counties publish as the private tax sale after their public sales close. The county board may also purchase unsold property in the name of the county, hold the certificate in the treasurer's custody, and assign it later for its face amount plus interest, with a land bank first opportunity where one exists (section 77-1809); in 2026 the boards in Sarpy, Lancaster and Buffalo Counties resolved to take their unsold parcels this way. Property delinquent three or more years is separately reported and put to a board choice between county foreclosure and certificates to the county (section 77-1918).

One Nebraska fact decides most purchases: the certificate is a three year loan with a locked exit door. The deed exists only inside a nine month window after the three years expire, and only under a value gate; above the gate the law sends the holder to district court, and a holder who misses the window loses the certificate and the lien with it. The exit has to be priced, and the window diarized, on the day of the sale, not three years later.

Research the parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcel, the date, and the opening terms. It does not give you the owner, the value, or the rest of the picture: liens, foreclosure status, and parcel history. PropertyRadar is the data platform for that layer. It carries owner records, assessed and market values, foreclosure and tax data, and property history for parcels across the country, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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Get the alert, not just the calendar.

The dates on these pages are the free layer. The Pine membership is the paid layer, proven in New York: members pick their counties, get alerts when a sale is scheduled or a list posts, and receive the full property list with the analysis already done. Nebraska counties open from the interest list first, in the order readers join it.

Keep going

Once a deadline puts you in a sale, the Land Investor Due Diligence Toolkit is the checklist and bid worksheet to run on each parcel before you bid.