Find your best tax rate without losing your people
Taxes in Manor Lords are a balancing act: every point of land tax chips away at approval, and the penalty quietly compounds the longer the tax stays on. Set it too high and families stop arriving — or start leaving. This tax & approval calculator turns that opaque math into a live readout: enter your settlement, drag the tax slider, and watch your predicted approval tier, monthly income, and a revenue-vs-tax curve update instantly.
How land tax and approval interact
Community testing puts the land-tax penalty at roughly -6 approval per 10% tax per month, and crucially it stacks — month two is worse than month one, and so on, with only slow decay. That is why a flat “set 20% and forget” strategy quietly bleeds your town. Use the months taxed continuously input to see how a rate that looks fine on day one degrades over a season, and lean on short tax bursts instead.
Approval tiers and immigration
Your approval percentage maps to a tier — Reviled, Despised, Disliked, Respected, Liked, Admired, Revered — and the tier decides what happens. Reach Liked and families start arriving; hit Admired or Revered and they pour in. Drop too low and immigration stops or reverses, and the game even collects less of your tax. The tier bands and their family and tax-collection effects in this tool are read straight from the Manor Lords approval data table.
Royal tax and your real net income
Land tax is only half the story. The annual royal (King’s) tax scales with game year — nothing before year 5, then 1, 2, and finally 3 gold per citizen as the years pass. The calculator shows your land-tax income, your annual royal-tax burden, and your net per month together, so you can plan a war chest without being surprised at year-end.
How to use the calculator
- Set your families and burgage-plot tiers — these drive both wealth and royal tax.
- Toggle your amenities: food variety, fuel, church, tavern, and clothing.
- Drag the land-tax slider and set how many months it has been running.
- Read your predicted approval tier, income, and the recommended safe tax rate.
- Hit Share to copy a link that encodes your exact setup for Reddit or Discord.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best tax rate in Manor Lords?
There is no single best rate — it depends on your approval headroom. Each 1% of land tax costs roughly 0.6 approval per month, and the penalty stacks the longer the tax stays on. This calculator finds the highest rate that keeps your approval at or above your safety threshold (75% by default), so well-supplied towns can sustain more tax than struggling ones. The penalty values are community-tested estimates, not extracted game values.
How is approval calculated in Manor Lords?
Approval sits near a 50% neutral baseline and rises with amenities — food variety, fuel, a church, a tavern with ale, and clothing — and falls with land tax and homelessness. The game then maps your approval percentage to a tier (Reviled, Despised, Disliked, Respected, Liked, Admired, Revered) that controls immigration and tax collection. The tier bands come from the game files; the per-amenity weights in this tool are community estimates.
What approval do I need for families to move in?
From the game's approval tiers: at the Liked band (about 55–79%) you gain roughly +1 family per month, at Admired (80–94%) about +2, and at Revered (95–100%) up to +3. Below the Disliked threshold families stop arriving, and at the lowest bands they leave. These family-per-month values are read directly from the Manor Lords approval data table.
How does the royal (King's) tax work?
The royal tax is an annual charge per citizen that scales with game year: nothing before year 5, then roughly 1 gold per citizen in years 5–9, 2 in years 10–14, and 3 from year 15 onward. With about 3 citizens per family, a 30-family town in year 12 owes around 180 gold a year. This calculator shows that alongside your land-tax income so you can see your net.
Why does my approval keep dropping while taxes are on?
The land-tax approval penalty is not a one-time hit — it compounds month over month while the tax stays on, decaying only slowly. That is why experienced players use short tax 'bursts' rather than leaving a high rate permanently. The 'months taxed continuously' input models this stacking so you can see how a rate that looks fine in month one becomes painful by month three.
Are these formulas official?
No. The approval tier bands and their family/tax-collection effects are transcribed from the Manor Lords game files (v0.8.048), but the tax penalty, the per-amenity approval weights, the stacking decay and the difficulty multipliers are community-tested estimates — not values extracted from the game. This is a fan-made calculator, not affiliated with Slavic Magic or Hooded Horse, and every estimate is labelled as such.