District of Columbia: Homestead Exemption Amounts

Requirements one by one

Governing law

D.C. does not have a stand-alone homestead chapter. The residence exemption is one item, paragraph (14), on the list of property that D.C. Code § 15-501(a) exempts from "distraint, attachment, levy, or seizure and sale on execution or decree of any court in the District of Columbia." Subsection (b) adds a carve-out for certain unpaid-wage debts. (A completely separate law, the property-tax "homestead deduction" administered by the Office of Tax and Revenue, uses the same word but only lowers your annual property-tax bill; it has nothing to do with protecting the home from a judgment creditor.)

Exemption amount

There is no dollar cap. Paragraph (14) protects "the debtor's aggregate interest in real property used as the residence of the debtor" without stating any maximum value, so the entire equity in the home is exempt from an ordinary money judgment. D.C. is one of a small group of jurisdictions (with Florida, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota) that protect a residence with no value ceiling. One caution for anyone filing bankruptcy: federal law (11 U.S.C. § 522(p)) can cap the exemption at a set figure, $214,000 for cases filed April 1, 2025 through March 31, 2028, for equity in a home acquired within 1,215 days before filing, regardless of D.C.'s unlimited state rule.

Size or acreage limit

None. Unlike states that cap the exemption by the size of the land (Texas and Florida use acreage limits), the D.C. statute sets no acreage or lot-size restriction on the residence.

Automatic, or do you have to file something?

Automatic. The exemption is claimed in the execution or bankruptcy process; D.C. has no recording step and no "declaration of homestead" that you must file in advance to get the protection. (Some private form documents styled "Declaration of Homestead" exist for D.C., but recording one is not required for the § 15-501 exemption to apply, at most it serves as evidence of your residency and claim.)

Who qualifies, and can spouses double it?

The exemption runs to "the head of a family or householder residing in the District of Columbia," or to a person who earns the major portion of their livelihood in D.C. while being the head of a family or householder, regardless of where they live (§ 15-501(a)). Because the residence exemption has no dollar cap, there is nothing to "double", each qualifying resident's home is fully protected. Spouses who own their home together as tenants by the entirety also have a separate, distinct layer of protection under that form of ownership against a creditor of just one spouse, but that is a feature of the co-ownership, not of the homestead exemption itself.

What it actually protects you from

Section 15-501(a) states the residence is "free and exempt from distraint, attachment, levy, or seizure and sale on execution or decree of any court", so a judgment creditor cannot force the sale of the home to collect an ordinary money judgment, no matter how much equity is in it. The protection is against the creditor reaching the home's value; it does not erase the underlying judgment, and it does not stop a creditor from collecting out of other, non-exempt assets.

Debts that can still reach your home

Paragraph (14) says the exemption does not "impair" four kinds of debt secured against the property: a deed of trust, a mortgage, a mechanic's lien, or a tax lien. So the lender that financed the home, a contractor with a perfected mechanic's lien for work on it, and any taxing authority can still enforce against the property. On top of that, § 15-501(b) provides that the exempt property "is not exempt from attachment or execution for a debt due for the wages of servants, common laborers, or clerks", an old but still-in-force carve-out meaning an unpaid household or manual worker owed wages can reach property the exemption would otherwise protect.

Protection for sale proceeds

None stated. The statute exempts the residence itself but says nothing about protecting the cash proceeds after you sell. Once a homestead is sold voluntarily, the D.C. Code sets no fixed window during which the sale money stays exempt, a gap worth knowing if you plan to sell while a judgment or lawsuit is pending.

What trips people up

The biggest source of confusion is the word "homestead" itself. D.C.'s Office of Tax and Revenue runs a "homestead deduction" that reduces your property-tax assessment (and requires an application). That is a completely different thing from the § 15-501 creditor exemption on this page: filing, or not filing, the tax deduction has no effect on whether a judgment creditor can reach your home. Second, the unlimited protection is only as good as the equity you actually own: a mortgage, a deed of trust, a mechanic's lien, or a tax lien all sit ahead of it. Third, the unpaid-wages carve-out in subsection (b) is genuinely unusual, most people never encounter it, but a domestic worker, laborer, or clerk owed wages is in a different position than an ordinary judgment creditor.

Common questions

Is there really no limit on how much home equity D.C. protects? For an ordinary money judgment under D.C. law, correct, § 15-501(a)(14) states no dollar cap. The main exception is a bankruptcy filing on a recently acquired home, where a federal cap can apply.

Do I have to file a declaration to protect my D.C. home? No. The exemption is automatic; you assert it when a creditor tries to collect or when you file bankruptcy. There is no D.C. recording requirement.

Can my mortgage lender still foreclose? Yes. The homestead exemption does not touch a deed of trust or mortgage on the home. A lender enforcing its own security interest is expressly outside the exemption.

Statutes and sources

• D.C. Code § 15-501(a), https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/15-501 (accessed 2026-07-10)
• D.C. Code § 15-501(a)(14), https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/15-501 (accessed 2026-07-10)
• D.C. Code § 15-501(b), https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/15-501 (accessed 2026-07-10)