Property tax by state and county
The median American homeowner pays $2,969 a year in property tax on a home worth $303,400, an effective rate of 0.98%. New Jersey is the highest at 2.23% and Hawaii the lowest at 0.27%.
Nobody publishes a property tax rate
This is worth understanding before reading the table. In the United States property tax is levied by counties, cities, school districts and special districts, each setting its own millage, applied to an assessed value that is often well below what a house would sell for. There is no single rate for a state, and frequently not even for a county.
So the figures here are derived rather than quoted: median property taxes actually paid, divided by median home value. That gives the effective rate a typical owner faces, which is the number people mean when they ask. It is an approximation, because the two medians describe different distributions, and it is far more useful than any posted millage.
The rate and the bill tell different stories, and both are in the table. A high rate on cheap housing can produce a smaller bill than a low rate on expensive housing, which is why the states at the top of one column are rarely at the top of the other.
Every state ranked
| # | State | Effective rate | Median bill | Median home | Income | Price to income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | 2.23% | $9,541 | $427,600 | $101,050 | 4.23× |
| 2 | Illinois | 2.07% | $5,189 | $250,500 | $81,702 | 3.07× |
| 3 | Connecticut | 1.92% | $6,575 | $343,200 | $93,760 | 3.66× |
| 4 | New Hampshire | 1.77% | $6,505 | $367,200 | $95,628 | 3.84× |
| 5 | Vermont | 1.71% | $4,956 | $290,500 | $78,024 | 3.72× |
| 6 | New York | 1.60% | $6,450 | $403,000 | $84,578 | 4.76× |
| 7 | Texas | 1.58% | $4,111 | $260,400 | $76,292 | 3.41× |
| 8 | Wisconsin | 1.51% | $3,746 | $247,400 | $75,670 | 3.27× |
| 9 | Nebraska | 1.50% | $3,350 | $223,800 | $74,985 | 2.98× |
| 10 | Iowa | 1.43% | $2,795 | $195,900 | $73,147 | 2.68× |
| 11 | Ohio | 1.36% | $2,712 | $199,200 | $69,680 | 2.86× |
| 12 | Pennsylvania | 1.35% | $3,241 | $240,500 | $76,081 | 3.16× |
| 13 | Rhode Island | 1.32% | $4,854 | $368,800 | $86,372 | 4.27× |
| 14 | Kansas | 1.30% | $2,643 | $203,400 | $72,639 | 2.8× |
| 15 | Michigan | 1.28% | $2,795 | $217,600 | $71,149 | 3.06× |
| 16 | Alaska | 1.14% | $3,785 | $333,300 | $89,336 | 3.73× |
| 17 | Massachusetts | 1.11% | $5,813 | $525,800 | $101,341 | 5.19× |
| 18 | Maine | 1.10% | $2,926 | $266,400 | $71,773 | 3.71× |
| 19 | South Dakota | 1.09% | $2,590 | $236,800 | $72,421 | 3.27× |
| 20 | Minnesota | 1.04% | $3,184 | $305,500 | $87,556 | 3.49× |
| 21 | Maryland | 1.00% | $3,989 | $397,700 | $101,652 | 3.91× |
| 22 | North Dakota | 0.99% | $2,392 | $241,100 | $75,949 | 3.17× |
| 23 | Missouri | 0.88% | $1,887 | $215,600 | $68,920 | 3.13× |
| 24 | Washington | 0.84% | $4,361 | $519,800 | $94,952 | 5.47× |
| 25 | Oregon | 0.83% | $3,767 | $454,200 | $80,426 | 5.65× |
| 26 | Oklahoma | 0.82% | $1,520 | $185,900 | $63,603 | 2.92× |
| 27 | Georgia | 0.81% | $2,214 | $272,900 | $74,664 | 3.66× |
| 28 | Florida | 0.79% | $2,555 | $325,000 | $71,711 | 4.53× |
| 29 | Kentucky | 0.77% | $1,472 | $192,300 | $62,417 | 3.08× |
| 30 | Montana | 0.75% | $2,535 | $338,100 | $69,922 | 4.84× |
| 31 | Indiana | 0.74% | $1,496 | $201,600 | $70,051 | 2.88× |
| 32 | Mississippi | 0.74% | $1,189 | $161,400 | $54,915 | 2.94× |
| 33 | Virginia | 0.74% | $2,686 | $360,700 | $90,974 | 3.96× |
| 34 | New Mexico | 0.72% | $1,669 | $232,200 | $62,125 | 3.74× |
| 35 | California | 0.71% | $4,926 | $695,400 | $96,334 | 7.22× |
| 36 | North Carolina | 0.70% | $1,815 | $259,400 | $69,904 | 3.71× |
| 37 | District of Columbia | 0.58% | $4,180 | $724,600 | $106,287 | 6.82× |
| 38 | Wyoming | 0.58% | $1,659 | $285,100 | $74,815 | 3.81× |
| 39 | Arkansas | 0.57% | $1,003 | $175,300 | $58,773 | 2.98× |
| 40 | Louisiana | 0.55% | $1,146 | $208,700 | $60,023 | 3.48× |
| 41 | Tennessee | 0.55% | $1,400 | $256,800 | $67,097 | 3.83× |
| 42 | West Virginia | 0.54% | $835 | $155,600 | $57,917 | 2.69× |
| 43 | Delaware | 0.53% | $1,731 | $326,800 | $82,855 | 3.94× |
| 44 | Idaho | 0.53% | $2,006 | $376,000 | $74,636 | 5.04× |
| 45 | Utah | 0.53% | $2,412 | $455,000 | $91,750 | 4.96× |
| 46 | Arizona | 0.52% | $1,858 | $358,900 | $76,872 | 4.67× |
| 47 | South Carolina | 0.51% | $1,199 | $236,700 | $66,818 | 3.54× |
| 48 | Colorado | 0.49% | $2,448 | $502,200 | $92,470 | 5.43× |
| 49 | Nevada | 0.49% | $1,970 | $406,100 | $75,561 | 5.37× |
| 50 | Alabama | 0.38% | $738 | $195,100 | $62,027 | 3.15× |
| 51 | Hawaii | 0.27% | $2,183 | $808,200 | $98,317 | 8.22× |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2023 five-year estimates. Retrieved 2026-09-09.
Counties at the extremes
Counties over 50,000 people, so the comparison is between places a meaningful number of people live.
Highest effective rates
Frequently asked questions
Which state has the highest property taxes?
By effective rate, New Jersey at 2.23% of home value. By actual bill the answer differs, because a moderate rate on an expensive home beats a high rate on a cheap one. Both are published in the table below.
Which state has the lowest property taxes?
Hawaii at 0.27%. Low-rate states usually fund schools from other sources, most often sales or severance taxes, so the money is still collected somewhere.
Where does this rate come from?
It is derived, not published. No agency publishes a single property tax rate for a county, because a bill is the sum of county, city, school district and special district levies applied to an assessed value. This works backwards from the outcome: median taxes actually paid divided by median home value, from the ACS 2023 five-year estimates. The two medians come from different distributions, so it approximates the typical rate rather than describing any one household.
Why do counties inside one state vary so much?
Because school funding is local. A district with a small tax base has to levy a higher rate to raise the same money, so poor counties frequently show higher rates than wealthy ones in the same state. The spread inside a state is often wider than the spread between states.