Land Lead Directory

Montana Land Ownership Statistics 2026

How much of Montana is vacant land, how many of its property owners live away from what they own, and which counties stand out — counted from Montana State Library cadastral parcel records for 56 counties (2026-06 cadastral).

Every number below is free to quote. Each one has a copy button with the sentence, the source and this page's link, and the county-level data is a one-click CSV.

Download the county data (CSV)See it on the county mapBest counties for land flipping

Key statistics

  1. 920,897

    Montana has 920,897 parcels on record across the 56 counties with published parcel rolls.

    Scope: 56 counties with published parcel rolls.

  2. 31%

    286,441 Montana parcels — 31% of all parcels — are vacant land with no building on them.

    Scope: 56 counties with published parcel rolls.

  3. 34%

    34% of Montana property owners — 302,168 ownership records — are absentee: their mailing address is not the parcel's.

    Scope: 56 counties that publish owner mailing addresses.

  4. 12%

    101,992 Montana property owners (12%) have a mailing address in another state.

    Scope: 56 counties that publish owner mailing addresses.

  5. 60%

    The highest absentee-owner share in Montana is Sanders County at 60%, followed by Lake County (60%) and Flathead County (59%).

    Scope: counties with at least 1,000 mailable owners.

  6. 27%

    The highest out-of-state owner share in Montana is Madison County at 27%, followed by Wibaux County (25%) and Park County (21%).

    Scope: counties with at least 1,000 mailable owners.

  7. 14,086

    Flathead County has the most vacant land parcels in Montana: 14,086, followed by Yellowstone County (11,843) and Fergus County (11,089).

    Scope: 56 counties with published parcel rolls.

  8. 115 ac

    In the typical Montana county, the median vacant parcel is 115 acres; county medians run from 0.4 to 320 acres.

    Scope: 56 counties with published parcel rolls.

By county

56 counties, A to Z. Owner-location columns are blank where the county's records can't support the mailing-vs-parcel comparison.

CountyParcelsVacant parcelsVacant %Absentee %Out-of-state %Median vacant acres
Beaverhead County16,1425,04931%24%10%87.9
Big Horn County14,9886,52044%27%17%156.1
Blaine County13,0017,22956%13%6%159.3
Broadwater County7,6712,71535%32%8%20
Carbon County14,9955,91939%44%19%40
Carter County8,0234,71259%4%19%180.6
Cascade County44,3239,66522%31%7%36.3
Chouteau County14,2848,74161%17%9%160
Custer County12,0195,05042%29%11%320
Daniels County5,8273,15854%15%9%156
Dawson County9,0723,83942%25%9%264.1
Deer Lodge County7,7161,63521%37%13%17
Fallon County4,7402,30949%47%10%274.7
Fergus County20,86211,08953%27%10%80
Flathead County84,00714,08617%59%17%3.5
Gallatin County53,6179,31217%45%15%9.7
Garfield County9,2835,53060%7%7%320
Glacier County13,2374,94837%16%11%79.5
Golden Valley County2,6271,69464%19%17%312.4
Granite County7,7002,33230%37%16%20
Hill County14,3216,62546%18%9%160
Jefferson County13,2894,20532%47%10%17.1
Judith Basin County7,2924,25958%11%8%80
Lake County23,7025,84225%60%14%10
Lewis and Clark County40,2087,75419%32%8%12.4
Liberty County4,7973,01663%17%6%160
Lincoln County23,3006,33627%46%17%5.1
Madison County19,2997,34338%21%27%20.1
McCone County6,7594,01759%16%10%240
Meagher County6,1333,11651%14%12%160
Mineral County5,7711,52926%51%17%4.3
Missoula County60,6917,29912%45%9%4.8
Musselshell County8,0534,01650%27%16%49.6
Park County15,8583,92025%46%21%21.8
Petroleum County4,5232,72760%10%11%153.9
Phillips County14,7026,32043%17%7%160
Pondera County8,3554,26351%24%7%110
Powder River County7,2353,95155%10%10%240
Powell County8,3472,85434%30%14%40.5
Prairie County3,7791,56942%28%7%309.3
Ravalli County33,2267,49423%36%12%9.9
Richland County11,1104,89044%21%8%120
Roosevelt County12,2986,06449%13%12%80
Rosebud County11,1416,15355%25%11%320
Sanders County15,5264,68430%60%16%12.1
Sheridan County8,3134,53955%22%11%153.5
Silver Bow County22,1593,60616%40%9%0.4
Stillwater County10,6234,55043%42%13%39.8
Sweet Grass County5,4752,47445%35%15%181.8
Teton County10,6045,39251%20%7%120
Toole County9,3435,36557%21%8%146.6
Treasure County2,1691,46167%19%13%320
Valley County18,1567,75943%17%7%120
Wheatland County4,2182,25653%27%14%171
Wibaux County2,2381,41863%22%25%300
Yellowstone County83,75011,84314%36%6%5

How these numbers are counted

  • Parcels are every record on the county's published parcel roll; vacant land is the county's own vacant land-use codes (no building value).
  • Absentee means the owner's mailing address differs from the parcel's address; out-of-state means the mailing address is in another state. Both are shares of owners with a mailable address, and are omitted for counties whose parcel addresses can't support the comparison.
  • Counts are deduplicated by owner and mailing address where the source allows it. Figures change when a county publishes a new roll.
  • Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Cite as: Land Lead Directory, "Montana Land Ownership Statistics 2026", Montana State Library cadastral (2026-06 cadastral). https://landleaddirectory.com/statistics/montana
  • The same county files for every state we cover are also on Kaggle, Hugging Face and GitHub.