Land · Missouri tax sale guide

Missouri tax sales by county

Verified

Missouri runs three systems under one name. In most counties the collector sells tax certificates on the fourth Monday in August under ch. 140: the certificate pays at most ten percent, the bid above taxes and costs becomes surplus that earns nothing, and the deed waits on a year of redemption plus a title search and ninety day notice process the buyer must run perfectly. But the state's two largest jurisdictions are not in that system at all. St. Louis City forecloses through court suits and Sheriff sales under ch. 92, with unsold parcels passing to its land bank, and Jackson County forecloses judicially under ch. 141 through the circuit court.

This page set covers the top 20 Missouri jurisdictions by population. Each page carries the selling office, the 2026 sale date and status, the venue or platform, registration and payment rules, and the channel for parcels nobody buys, verified against county, court and statute sources. Timing is the first fact: the August 2026 season has run in every ch. 140 county in this set, so these pages are the verified 2026 record and the 2027 working map, with the next statutory sale on Monday, August 23, 2027. The second fact is Jackson County: its 2026 sale was canceled outright by executive order to verify the tax records, no new date has been announced, and its page says so instead of projecting one.

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 20 jurisdictions

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 Missouri tax sales work

• One August Monday runs most of the state. Under s. 140.150 the collector's sale falls on the fourth Monday in August. The delinquent list is published three consecutive weeks, and the sale is held in or adjacent to the county courthouse commencing at 10:00 AM, or by electronic media where the collector chooses (s. 140.170). Two jurisdictions in this set, St. Louis City and Jackson County, run court foreclosures instead and carry their own process on their pages.
• The winner is whoever pays the required sum, and eligibility is policed. Under s. 140.190 the purchaser is the bidder who pays the taxes, interest and charges due. A buyer delinquent on other property must sign the non-delinquency affidavit, and a nonresident may not bid without filing a written consent to circuit court jurisdiction and appointing a citizen of the county as agent.
• The certificate caps at ten percent, and the surplus is not yours. The certificate of purchase states an interest rate not to exceed ten percent per annum (s. 140.290). Anything bid above taxes and costs is surplus, held by the county treasury for the former owner (s. 140.230), and it earns the purchaser no interest at all under s. 140.340.
• Redemption runs a year, and stays defeasible until the deed. Under s. 140.340 the owner, a lienholder or an occupant holds an absolute right to redeem for one year and a defeasible right until the purchaser actually acquires the deed. Redemption pays the purchase money, sale costs, title search and notice costs, interest at the certificate rate on the tax amount, and eight percent per annum on subsequent taxes the purchaser paid.
• The deed is earned on paperwork, and missed paperwork is fatal. Under s. 140.405 the purchaser must run a title search and notify the record owner and every publicly recorded claim holder, by first class and certified mail, at least ninety days before taking the deed, then file the affidavit; failure to comply loses the purchaser's interest entirely. The collector's deed then vests fee simple (s. 140.420).
• Unsold parcels climb a ladder, then leave the calendar. No covering bid means a second offering next year (s. 140.240) and a third offering the year after, the third carrying a ninety day redemption (s. 140.250). After the third offering the collector offers unsold parcels once every thirty days, and post-third purchasers take a deed immediately with no redemption; counties and cities may also hold parcels through a trustee under s. 140.260.

One Missouri fact decides most bids: the certificate pays interest only on the taxes and costs, capped at ten percent, and the surplus bid earns nothing while it waits. Every dollar of overbid is a zero percent loan to the redemption process. The mirror image sits at the bottom of the offering ladder, where a post-third purchase skips redemption entirely and takes a deed on payment; in Missouri the patient end of the system, not the crowded August room, is where the terms change character.

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. Missouri 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.