What is the Puna TMK?

Puna TMK stands for Puna Tax Map Key. Everybody is always talking about the TMK number and maybe you are still wondering why this number is so important. The state of Hawaii installed the Tax Map Key to describe the exact location of a property.

But why is this number so important for you?

Because with that number you can get information about the owner of the property, its address, sales history, exact size, permits and tax bill history. This is especially important if you would rather talk to the owner of a property than with a realtor. And what’s really good about it: You can do anytime! It’s all online! Just click here.

How to read the Puna TMK?

The Tax Map Key consists of 5 number codes that are usually separated by dashes.
Let’s take the example of TMK 3-1-1-34-133, (most people will write only 1-1-34-133, because the first number 3 is the Island number and because usually people only look for properties on one island, it’s usually left out).

Here are the other parts of the TMK:

1-1-34-133
Zone – Section – Plat – Parcel
In this example:
Zone 1, Section 1, Plat 34, Parcel 133

Puna is Zone number 1. The Puna district is divided into 9 sections.

If you want to use the Puna TMK number to search for information on a property online, you need to follow the below mentioned instructions. The Hawaii County Office kindly offers the property search online and for free at www.hawaiipropertytax.com

Don’t use any dashes.
Make sure that you have the right amount of digits.

To find a parcel you need to use the following format:
Z-S-PPP-ppp-CCCC (but of course without the dashes!)

Again in our example: the TMK you would use is 110341330000 (so don’t use island number 3 in your search, because you are already searching on a Hawaii county website, so it’s a given that you look for information on island number 3 – which is the Big Island)

Z - Zone Number (one digit) there are 9 zones on the Big Island and Puna is zone 1.
S - Section Number (one digit) there are 9 sections in Puna.
PPP - Plat Number (three digits) Every subdivision is divided into plats, which does not mean one block.
ppp - Parcel Number (three digits) this is the precise location of the property within the plat.
CCCC - CPR or Condominium Number (four digits) there are basically no condominiums in Puna at this time, so usually you would type in 4 zeros here.

Additional example

Parcel Number 3-7-5-128-43 is entered as 751280430000. Again you drop the Island Number, the plat number already has 3 digits so it’s used as is. The Parcel number has only 2 digits, so you have to add a leading 0 (instead of 43 you use 043). In the back you add four zeros, because the property is not a condominium.

And you can even find out more about a certain area by not using the full Puna TMK:

To find all parcels within a certain zone/section, just type the zone and section number: in our example that would be 75.
To find all parcels within a certain zone/section/plat, just type the zone, section and plat number: in our example that would be 75128.
To find all parcels that start with a certain number, just type the zone, section, plat and indicating part of parcel number. For our example that means that if you would like to find all parcels that start with 04 then you would have to type 7512804.

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