United States Property Tax Calculator

What this property tax calculator does

Property tax is the part of homeownership that surprises people. It arrives every year for as long as you own the place, it does not shrink as your mortgage does, and in some states it can rival the interest on the loan.

This calculator gives you a first estimate. Pick your state, enter your home value, and it returns the state's average effective rate along with an annual and a monthly figure. The monthly one is what matters if your lender collects taxes through escrow, because it is going straight onto your payment.

Treat it as a planning number rather than a bill. Property tax is set locally, not by states, and two houses on opposite sides of a county line can pay very different amounts. What this gives you is the right order of magnitude and a fair basis for comparing one state against another.

Before you type anything, there is one question about which value to enter, and getting it wrong can put you out by a factor of ten.

Which value to enter, and why it matters most

The rates in this tool are effective rates, meaning taxes actually paid as a percentage of a home's market value. That is the standard way state property tax burdens are published, and it exists precisely so that states can be compared despite assessing property completely differently.

So the number to enter is what your home is worth, not the assessed value printed on your tax notice.

The difference is not cosmetic. Some states assess at full market value. Others assess at a fraction of it, sometimes as low as ten percent, and then apply a much higher nominal rate to that smaller base. Both arrive at a similar bill by different routes, which is why effective rates exist in the first place.

Watch what happens if you enter an assessed value instead, using Texas at 1.80 percent on a home worth 400,000:

Someone in a ten percent assessment state who dutifully copies the figure from their assessment notice gets a bill estimate ten times too small, and it looks entirely plausible.

The field is currently labelled assessed value, which invites exactly that mistake. We are relabelling it. In the meantime: enter your home's market value, or your purchase price if you bought recently.

How to use it

1. Select State. Where the property is.
2. Property value. Market value, as above. Purchase price works if the sale was recent.

Press Calculate. Press Reset to clear it.

You get three lines back: the average effective rate for the state, the estimated annual tax, and that figure divided by twelve. Most people care most about the monthly one, because that is the shape it takes in a mortgage payment.

One thing the tool does not know is when its rates were compiled. Effective property tax rates move slowly, so a figure a year or two old is still useful for comparison, but for anything you are actually budgeting against, get the current millage from your county assessor.

The formula

Annual property tax = home value × (effective rate ÷ 100)

Monthly = annual ÷ 12

That is deliberately simple, and it hides the machinery your county actually uses, which goes something like this. An assessor sets a market value. An assessment ratio converts that into an assessed value. Exemptions come off. Then a millage rate is applied, made up of separate levies for the county, the city, the school district, and often a fire district, a library district and a water district on top.

Millage is expressed in mills, where one mill is one dollar per thousand of assessed value. So 20 mills is 2 percent of assessed value, and a total millage of 20 might be built from 8 for schools, 6 for the county, 4 for the city and 2 for special districts.

The effective rate rolls all of that up into one percentage of market value, which is why it is the useful number for comparison and the useless number for predicting your exact bill.

A worked example

A home worth 400,000 in Texas, where the tool holds an effective rate of 1.80 percent.

400,000 × 0.018 = 7,200 a year

7,200 ÷ 12 = 600 a month

Six hundred a month, every month, for as long as you own it. On a mortgage where the principal and interest might be two thousand, property tax is adding thirty percent to the payment, and unlike the mortgage it never gets paid off.

It also affects how much house you can buy. Lenders include property taxes in the debt to income calculation, alongside principal, interest and insurance. A high tax state reduces the loan you qualify for on the same income.

The spread across states is nearly nine to one

Using the rates in this tool, on the same 400,000 home:

New Jersey to Hawaii is a difference of 737 a month on the identical house. Over thirty years, before any investment return on the difference, that is more than a quarter of a million dollars.

Two patterns worth noticing. The high rate states cluster in the Northeast and Midwest, where property taxes carry most of the cost of public schools. And states with no income tax, Texas being the obvious case, tend to lean harder on property tax instead. There is no free state; the money comes from somewhere.

Hawaii is the instructive one. It has the lowest rate in the country and some of the highest home values, so the actual bill on a typical house is not as low as the rate suggests. A low rate on an expensive property can easily exceed a high rate on a cheap one, which is why comparing rates alone can mislead you about where housing costs are actually lower.

Why published rates disagree with each other

Look up your state's property tax rate in three places and you will get three answers. This is worth understanding rather than assuming somebody is wrong.

For New Jersey, depending on which source and which methodology, published effective rates recently range from about 1.88 percent to 2.49 percent. That is a spread of nearly a third on the same state in the same year.

Three reasons for it.

Median versus aggregate. Some sources divide the median tax bill by the median home value. Others divide total taxes collected by total housing value. Those give different answers whenever the distribution of homes is skewed, which it always is.

Different vintages. The underlying data is American Community Survey estimates from the Census Bureau, published with a lag. A table labelled 2026 may be built on 2024 survey data.

What is included. Owner occupied housing only, or all residential, or all property including commercial. Each produces a different figure.

The national effective rate has been drifting down, from a peak around 1.15 percent in 2012 to under 0.9 percent recently, largely because home values rose faster than assessments were updated. That lag is itself a source of disagreement between sources measuring at different points.

So use any state rate, including the ones here, for comparison between states, which is what they are built for. For a number you will actually pay, the county assessor is the only authority.

What moves your actual bill

Several things sit between a state average and the figure on your notice, and some of them are worth money.

Local variation. Rates are set by counties, municipalities and school districts. Within one state the range can be wider than the range between states. A well funded school district costs more, which is often exactly why people move there.

Homestead exemptions. Most states offer a reduction on a primary residence, and in the great majority of cases you have to apply. It is not automatic and nobody will chase you. This is the single most commonly missed saving in American property tax, and it recurs every year you fail to claim it.

Other exemptions. Seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and agricultural land all attract relief in many states. A number of states exempt totally disabled veterans from property tax on a primary residence entirely.

Assessment caps. California's Proposition 13 limits how fast an assessed value can rise, capping increases at 2 percent a year until the property changes hands. The result is that two identical neighbouring houses can pay wildly different taxes depending on when each was bought. Several other states have their own versions.

Buying mid-year. In states that reassess on sale, you can receive a supplemental bill for the difference between the previous owner's assessment and your purchase price. It is usually billed directly rather than through escrow, and it catches new buyers out.

Appeals. Assessments can be challenged, and the process is generally free or cheap. If comparable homes nearby are assessed lower than yours, that is the argument. Success reduces every future year's bill, not just this one.

Questions people ask

Do I enter my assessed value or my home's value?

Your home's market value. The rates here are effective rates measured against market value, so entering an assessed value from your tax notice will understate the answer, sometimes dramatically.

How accurate is this?

It is a state average, so treat it as an estimate for comparison and budgeting. Your actual rate is set by your county, city and school district, and can differ substantially from the state figure.

Which state has the highest property tax?

New Jersey by most measures, with Illinois close behind. Hawaii has the lowest rate, though its high home values mean the bills are not as small as the rate implies.

Why does the monthly figure matter?

Because most lenders collect property tax through escrow and add it to your monthly payment. It also counts toward the debt to income ratio that decides how much you can borrow.

Does it account for exemptions?

No. Homestead, senior, veteran and disability exemptions all reduce the real bill, and in most states you have to apply for them. Check what you qualify for.

Why does this differ from another calculator?

Different sources use different methodologies and different data years. Published rates for the same state can vary by a third. See the section above.

Can I reduce my property tax?

Two routes. Claim every exemption you qualify for, and appeal the assessment if comparable properties nearby are valued lower. Both are worth the paperwork because the saving repeats annually.

References

A note on sourcing and dates. State level effective property tax rates are derived from American Community Survey estimates published by the Census Bureau and compiled by organisations including the Tax Foundation, and published figures vary by methodology and data vintage as described above. Property tax is levied locally, so no state average is authoritative for an individual property. For an actual bill, the county assessor or tax collector is the only reliable source, and rates should be checked annually.

1. Tax Foundation, State Tax Maps. https://taxfoundation.org/datamaps/state-maps/
2. Tax Foundation, State Tax Data. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/sales-tax-rates/
3. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, the underlying source for owner-occupied housing values and property taxes paid.