Hospitals benefit from billions in property tax exemptions
This is part one of a three-part series examining key takeaways from our 2025 Hospital Property Tax Report.
Most nonprofit hospitals are exempt from federal, state, and local taxes, a benefit worth billions per year. One of the most substantial parts of these exemptions is for property taxes. With many communities struggling to fund their schools and other local services, it’s important to understand how much tax revenue is being foregone.
Our research finds that hospitals own a total of $170 billion in assessed real property value and benefit from a total of $4.3 billion in real estate tax exemptions–and that’s just in 18 states.
The 20 hospitals with the greatest property tax exemptions avoided $965 million in taxes. Nearly half of these hospitals are in Boston or New York, with the rest split among other major metro areas like Orlando, Cleveland, and San Francisco.
Top 20 hospitals by property tax exemption
From Lown Institute analysis of 1,485 hospitals across 18 states
| Hospital | City | Value of property tax exemption | Number of parcels | Assessed property value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York-Presbyterian Hospital* | New York | $173 M | 69 | $1.6 B |
| The Mount Sinai Hospital* | New York | $78 M | 64 | $724 M |
| Massachusetts General Hospital | Boston | $75 M | 59 | $3.0 B |
| Tisch Hospital* | New York | $65 M | 197 | $602 M |
| Cleveland Clinic Main Campus | Cleveland | $61 M | 58 | $747 M |
| Stanford Hospital | Stanford | $52 M | 64 | $4.4 B |
| Boston Children’s Hospital | Boston | $49 M | 13 | $1.9 B |
| AdventHealth Orlando* | Orlando | $44 M | 182 | $2.0 B |
| Advocate Christ Medical Center | Oak Lawn | $41 M | 50 | $404 M |
| Brigham and Women’s Hospital | Boston | $36 M | 19 | $1.5 B |
| CPMC Van Ness Campus | San Francisco | $34 M | 4 | $2.9 B |
| Mount Sinai Morningside-West* | New York | $33 M | 6 | $304 M |
| Montefiore Hospital Moses Campus* | Bronx | $29 M | 72 | $271 M |
| Cedars-Sinai Medical Center | Los Angeles | $29 M | 43 | $2.5 B |
| Long Island Jewish Medical Center* | New Hyde Park | $29 M | 33 | $266 M |
| RUSH University Medical Center | Chicago | $28 M | 185 | $406 M |
| Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center | Boston | $28 M | 15 | $1.1 B |
| The Johns Hopkins Hospital | Baltimore | $28 M | 10 | $1.2 B |
| Mount Carmel East* | Columbus | $27 M | 57 | $329 M |
| Houston Methodist Hospital | Houston | $27 M | 55 | $1.1 B |
*Includes more than one hospital campus within same CMS ID
Location, location, location: Some hospitals on this list enjoy large property tax exemptions because they own real estate in some of the highest-value areas in the country. In the San Francisco area, for example, Stanford owns over $4 billion worth of property and CPMC Van Ness owns nearly $3 billion.
For other hospitals, high property tax rates landed them at the top of the list, despite owning less in property value than other hospitals. According to the Tax Foundation, areas like Long Island (home to Long Island Jewish Medical Center) and the Chicago area (home to Advocate Christ Medical Center and RUSH University Medical Center) are among the regions with the greatest amount of property taxes paid nationally.
Read our report on property tax breaks to learn more.