Land · Utah tax sale guide

Utah tax sales by county

Verified

Utah is the cleanest deed sale in this portfolio and the least forgiving. The county auditor sells the property itself at the final tax sale, in May or June, after the treasurer lists property that stayed unredeemed past March 15 following the lapse of four years from delinquency (sections 59-2-1343, 59-2-1351). There is no lien stage, no certificate, and no redemption after the sale (section 59-2-1346): the owner's last chance ends when the sale is held, the governing body accepts the bids, and the auditor's deed conveys fee simple. Three corrections run through this page set. The statutory counting is four years lapsed, not the five years delinquent of the summaries, though the sale does land in the fifth year. No preferential bid exists in the statute for the county, for public entities or for adjoining owners; preferences are county ordinance, and Salt Lake County sold six strip parcels by preference in 2026 while Box Elder County's ordinance sells entire parcels only. And money bid above the tax debt is not county profit and is not paid back at the sale: it is treated as unclaimed property under Title 67, Chapter 4a (section 59-2-1351.1).

This page set covers the top 10 Utah counties by population, each verified against its auditor's own publications, and the 2026 season shows how much of the sale is county ordinance rather than statute. Utah County sold online on Public Surplus on Thursday, May 21, 2026, with 21 items ratified; Iron County online the same way on May 28, with per property deposits and wire only payment inside five business days; Summit County online on May 21, its audited list cut from 8 parcels to 4 in nine days; Box Elder County online on May 21, its unsold parcels struck off to the county, one of them reoffered in a dated October sale. Davis County sold in person in Farmington on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, run on its own record by the County Controller rather than the auditor; Weber County in person in Ogden on May 21, 14 parcels ratified and none struck off; Washington County online in staggered auctions from April 20 to May 28, only 2 of 13 selling, on a platform the county never names. Tooele County held its sale on May 7, 2026, the largest in its history on its minutes, and its minutes and its official results sheet still disagree on the sold count. Salt Lake County's 2026 sale is proven by its published results, 36 parcels sold and 4 struck to the county, with the date and format nowhere published; Cache County publishes its courtroom regime in county code and no dated 2026 sale at all.

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 Utah final tax sales work

• Utah's final tax sale is a deed sale at the end of a four year road, not a lien sale. Property taxes are due on November 30 (section 59-2-1331). If a property is not redeemed by March 15 following the lapse of four years from the date the tax or a tax notice charge became delinquent, the county treasurer files the tax sale listing with the county auditor (section 59-2-1343), and the auditor selects a date and conducts the final tax sale in May or June of that year, the fifth year after the delinquency began (section 59-2-1351). The popular statement that Utah sells property five years delinquent is the practical shape of the same rule: four full years must lapse, the listing follows in the March after the lapse, and the sale lands in the May or June after that. Nothing is sold before that point, and no certificate stage exists in between.
• The auditor runs the sale, and the governing body accepts the bids. The sale is held either at the front door of the county courthouse or through an electronic process that lets the public observe and participate (section 59-2-1351). Notice goes by certified and first class mail, or first class mail plus a tracked shipping service, to the last known recorded owner, to occupants of improved property, and to other interests of record as of the preceding March 15, and is published at least four weeks before the sale on the county website with a newspaper advertisement in a county of the first class, or four times in a newspaper in the four successive weeks before the sale in smaller counties. After the sale the county governing body accepts or ratifies the bids; the counties in this set publish that ratification in commission or council minutes, which is where several of their 2026 sale records live. One county in this set breaks the seller pattern on its own published record: Davis County's 2026 sale was run by the County Controller, not the auditor, and its page says so.
• The governing body takes one of two bids, and the second is the one summaries miss. It may accept the highest bid for the entire parcel, so long as no bid is accepted for less than the total amount of taxes, tax notice charges, penalties, interest and administrative costs. Or it may accept a bid paying that full amount in cash for less than the entire parcel, in which case the accepted bid is the one taking the smallest portion of the parcel, a strip bid around the perimeter or one that blocks access to the remainder must be rejected, and the balance of the parcel is considered redeemed by the owner (section 59-2-1351.1). The auditor may combine contiguous parcels of one owner that form a single economic or functional unit before offering them. A purchaser who takes an undivided interest of forty nine percent or less is capped on a later sale of the parcel at the greater of the price paid plus twelve percent interest or a pro rata share of the sale price (section 59-2-1351.7), which is the statute pricing the strip bid strategy rather than forbidding it.
• There is no preferential bid in the statute, and the county is never a preferential bidder. Part 13 contains no preference for the county, for any public entity, or for an adjoining owner. Preferential or preferred bidder procedures exist only where a county has adopted them by ordinance, on the auditor's recommendation, for matters the Tax Commission rules do not address, the same authority that produces county registration, deposit and payment terms (section 59-2-1351.1, subsection 2(b)). Where a preference operates it is county law: Salt Lake County sold six strip parcels by preference in its 2026 sale on its published results, and Cache County's code runs possessory interests and then abutting owners ahead of the public on nonviable parcels. A bidder who assumes a statewide preference, or none, without reading the county ordinance has misread the room either way.
• Redemption ends at the sale, and there is no notice of expiration and no deed waiting period. Any person may redeem on behalf of the record owner at any time before the tax sale by paying the county treasurer all delinquent taxes, tax notice charges, interest, penalties and administrative costs (section 59-2-1346). After the sale there is no redemption at all: no post sale redemption period, no holder served notice, no months of waiting for a deed. The one post sale redemption in Part 13, in section 59-2-1357, belongs to the separate county lien foreclosure sale, a different proceeding that these pages do not cover. For the auditor's final tax sale, sale day is the deadline, which is why owners paying in the last week shrink every county's list, and why the audited list close to the sale is the only list to trust.
• The deed follows governing body acceptance, and it conveys fee simple. After acceptance, the county auditor executes a deed in the name of the county conveying the property to the purchaser in fee simple, and the county recorder records it (section 59-2-1351.1). The deed is prima facie evidence of the regularity of all proceedings after the date the taxes or charges first became delinquent and of the conveyance in fee simple. It is not a warranty deed: the county warrants nothing about condition, boundaries or title beyond the statutory presumption. A purchaser of an invalid tax title holds instead a lien for the purchase price under section 59-2-1352, and the proceedings carry a presumption of regularity with the burden of showing an irregularity on the person who asserts it (section 59-2-1362).
• Money above the tax debt is not paid back to the owner at the sale; it is unclaimed property. Any sale funds in excess of the amount needed to satisfy the delinquent taxes, tax notice charges, penalties, interest and administrative costs are treated as unclaimed property under Title 67, Chapter 4a (section 59-2-1351.1, subsection 7). The same rule catches the excess on county held parcels the county later disposes of (section 59-2-1351.5). Counties work the claim mechanics in their own terms, and the totals can be large relative to the tax debt: Tooele County's official 2026 results sheet records $156,433.01 in delinquent tax due against $4,342,068.93 in sold price, with $3,864,356.74 shown due back to owners through that process. A buyer pricing a parcel should know the premium they pay over the tax debt does not stay with the county as profit.
• Parcels nobody bids on are struck off to the county, and the county is then the seller. Property offered for which there is no purchaser is struck off to the county by the auditor and fee simple title vests in the county (section 59-2-1351.3). The county legislative body may later dispose of or lease that property under section 59-2-1351.5, which is a second, quieter sales channel: Box Elder County reoffered a county held parcel in a dated October 2026 sale under that section, and Tooele County's two unsold 2026 parcels were struck to the county for a later surplus decision by its council. Parcels struck off in a county with valuable leftovers are worth watching after the headline sale, because the county's disposal terms are ordinance terms and can differ sharply from sale day terms.
• The title quiets on a four year clock that runs outside the tax code. An action or defense to recover, take possession of, quiet title to, or determine ownership of real property may not be commenced against the holder of a tax title after four years from the date of the sale, conveyance or transfer of the tax title, except for a legal title owner who actually occupied or possessed the property inside those four years and except for a city or town defense based on an equal or superior lien (section 78B-2-206). Buyers who need marketable, insurable title sooner than four years price a quiet title action into the purchase; buyers who can wait let the statute do the work. Either way the four year horizon, not the deed date, is the real ownership timeline in Utah.

One Utah fact decides most purchases: the sale is the end of the road, in both directions. The owner cannot redeem afterward, so a listed parcel that survives to sale day is really for sale; and the buyer cannot unwind anything either, taking a deed that is prima facie evidence rather than a warranty, with challenges barred only after four years (section 78B-2-206). Utah prices preparation: the bidders who do the title and condition work before sale day are buying a different product from the bidders who plan to figure it out after.

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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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. Utah 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.