Land Lead Directory

Tennessee Land Ownership Statistics 2026

How much of Tennessee is vacant land, how many of its property owners live away from what they own, and which counties stand out — counted from Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury parcel records for 86 counties (2026-06 monthly export).

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. 2,330,053

    Tennessee has 2,330,053 parcels on record across the 86 counties with published parcel rolls.

    Scope: 86 counties with published parcel rolls.

  2. 23%

    530,567 Tennessee parcels — 23% of all parcels — are vacant land with no building on them.

    Scope: 86 counties with published parcel rolls.

  3. 59%

    59% of Tennessee property owners — 1,353,709 ownership records — are absentee: their mailing address is not the parcel's.

    Scope: 85 counties that publish owner mailing addresses.

  4. 9%

    204,840 Tennessee property owners (9%) have a mailing address in another state.

    Scope: 85 counties that publish owner mailing addresses.

  5. 80%

    The highest absentee-owner share in Tennessee is Grundy County at 80%, followed by Pickett County (79%) and Perry County (79%).

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

  6. 29%

    The highest out-of-state owner share in Tennessee is Sevier County at 29%, followed by Pickett County (27%) and Van Buren County (22%).

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

  7. 34,927

    Cumberland County has the most vacant land parcels in Tennessee: 34,927, followed by Sevier County (21,658) and Sullivan County (14,019).

    Scope: 86 counties with published parcel rolls.

  8. 5 ac

    In the typical Tennessee county, the median vacant parcel is 5 acres; county medians run from 0.7 to 50 acres.

    Scope: 86 counties with published parcel rolls.

  9. 184

    184 Tennessee vacant-land owners are behind on their property taxes, per the 2 counties whose delinquent-tax lists we track.

    Scope: 2 counties with a current delinquent-tax list.

By county

86 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
Anderson County41,4985,64214%50%4%1.5
Bedford County25,5423,53414%52%3%7.7
Benton County17,3047,04841%74%12%6.2
Bledsoe County12,6345,49844%75%21%5
Blount County72,01910,04114%46%7%1.8
Bradley County53,7747,99315%54%5%2.7
Campbell County30,6459,27930%73%21%1.4
Cannon County8,8431,42616%49%3%16.5
Carroll County20,7706,03829%65%6%11
Carter County34,6586,01517%55%8%1.8
Cheatham County23,6943,74716%48%3%5.2
Claiborne County24,5077,09929%70%14%1.3
Clay County7,4732,39332%76%16%3.5
Cocke County27,9658,27930%67%15%4.4
Coffee County34,2457,91623%55%6%3.9
Crockett County10,6293,28031%72%4%28.4
Cumberland County70,48134,92750%70%20%3.2
Decatur County14,8865,75039%77%6%6.5
DeKalb County19,0667,18938%70%7%2.1
Dickson County31,3395,30217%53%4%5
Dyer County22,7955,16623%66%4%29.5
Fayette County27,6805,95021%54%5%8.2
Fentress County17,4546,25236%72%12%5
Franklin County28,5855,34219%60%6%5.1
Gibson County32,4227,72224%59%4%26
Giles County19,9633,75219%63%9%12.2
Grainger County18,2733,48519%68%11%1.7
Greene County46,0219,30820%62%10%2.2
Grundy County12,3464,36435%80%11%4.7
Hamblen County33,4155,21516%49%5%1.2
Hancock County6,3611,93330%71%12%9.8
Hardeman County21,6968,99141%77%10%11.7
Hardin County29,84811,47938%78%11%4.9
Hawkins County42,12110,67725%59%10%3
Haywood County12,1373,62030%70%7%36.7
Henderson County19,1895,19427%70%5%6.5
Henry County27,2578,16030%69%9%9.9
Houston County7,1862,15330%68%8%6.5
Humphreys County14,6314,15228%66%9%5.9
Jackson County9,5452,41225%64%8%6.3
Jefferson County38,8249,02823%66%11%2.5
Johnson County15,2104,73531%71%21%2.5
Lake County4,0951,38334%73%7%50
Lauderdale County14,4913,91827%70%10%19.3
Lawrence County26,8185,84722%61%5%6.2
Lewis County9,2052,54028%59%8%7.6
Lincoln County20,4843,44317%52%9%11.2
Loudon County38,4548,00321%50%6%0.7
Macon County15,9053,12720%59%3%5.1
Madison County54,9059,09217%55%6%6
Marion County24,2698,32934%72%15%3.1
Marshall County21,7233,50716%51%3%5
Maury County56,9707,86614%43%8%5.1
McMinn County32,7026,93221%5
McNairy County20,1546,16131%66%8%5
Meigs County10,1252,71227%73%11%5.5
Monroe County30,8187,57725%63%11%2.5
Moore County4,51089020%55%5%8
Morgan County17,5646,00034%74%11%5
Obion County21,1414,99324%74%6%25.9
Overton County16,2064,29727%61%7%6.1
Perry County10,3344,34742%79%15%7.6
Pickett County6,3582,03832%79%27%2.5
Polk County13,8703,82528%65%16%4.2
Putnam County41,7737,50018%51%4%4.1
Rhea County23,9426,29926%63%8%2.5
Roane County38,0549,19724%62%7%1.9
Robertson County40,4945,96315%46%4%5
Scott County17,1826,27937%76%12%4.4
Sequatchie County13,2625,24240%73%15%3.7
Sevier County85,18321,65825%74%29%1.4
Smith County14,0663,28723%56%4%6.3
Stewart County13,4645,11938%72%12%5.5
Sullivan County95,27314,01915%47%6%0.7
Sumner County94,79211,20212%45%7%1
Tipton County32,8075,93818%50%4%8.4
Trousdale County5,7671,07819%61%4%5.8
Unicoi County13,7592,27217%52%7%3.6
Union County15,7874,81631%66%13%1.7
Van Buren County7,8213,14140%76%22%3.5
Warren County25,5865,11520%55%3%5.1
Washington County65,3907,99312%51%4%3.7
Wayne County13,8384,70834%75%10%14.3
Weakley County21,0095,85728%63%6%28.5
White County19,1974,76425%58%5%4.6
Wilson County75,5754,8076%39%7%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, "Tennessee Land Ownership Statistics 2026", Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury (2026-06 monthly export). https://landleaddirectory.com/statistics/tennessee
  • The same county files for every state we cover are also on Kaggle, Hugging Face and GitHub.

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