States with the highest property tax bills
Ranked by median annual property tax paid (Census ACS B25103). Higher means a heavier annual tax bill for the typical homeowner.
Property tax is the only major homeownership cost that does not move with your mortgage paydown. It scales with your assessed value and your county's millage rate, which means the bill at the top end of this list can rival a second mortgage on its own. The Census ACS publishes the median annual property tax paid by homeowners in every county, and rolling those medians up to the state level produces this ranking. States at the top tend to combine three things: high home values, a heavy reliance on property tax for school and municipal funding, and limited use of state income tax to offset the local burden. The number reported here is what households actually pay according to the survey, not a posted millage rate, so it captures the dollar bill including any local exemptions and homestead reductions that already apply. For federal returns, the SALT deduction caps state and local tax write-offs at $10,000 per filer under current law, which means homeowners in the highest-tax states often cannot deduct their full property tax bill against federal income. Each entry links to the state property tax page with county rankings, IRS deduction averages, and effective-rate context.
Top 20: highest median property tax
Bars show median annual property tax paid per homeowner, averaged across counties in the state.
Top 50 sortable table
Click any column to sort. Effective rate normalizes tax against the local median home value.
| # | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | $8,423 | $378,657 | 2.22 | $12,160 |
| 2 | Connecticut | $6,350 | $335,222 | 1.89 | $10,692 |
| 3 | New Hampshire | $5,531 | $287,100 | 1.93 | $10,282 |
| 4 | Rhode Island | $5,170 | $399,980 | 1.29 | $7,083 |
| 5 | Massachusetts | $4,980 | $543,707 | 0.92 | $9,206 |
| 6 | New York | $4,612 | $253,185 | 1.82 | $12,801 |
| 7 | Vermont | $4,543 | $254,557 | 1.78 | $8,839 |
| 8 | District of Columbia | $3,957 | $705,000 | 0.56 | $6,712 |
| 9 | California | $3,834 | $534,350 | 0.72 | $10,041 |
| 10 | Maryland | $3,246 | $333,004 | 0.97 | $6,011 |
| 11 | Wisconsin | $3,022 | $202,124 | 1.50 | $7,084 |
| 12 | Washington | $2,867 | $361,767 | 0.79 | $8,142 |
| 13 | Illinois | $2,720 | $139,829 | 1.95 | $10,014 |
| 14 | Oregon | $2,629 | $323,097 | 0.81 | $6,272 |
| 15 | Pennsylvania | $2,606 | $187,894 | 1.39 | $7,700 |
| 16 | Maine | $2,525 | $215,438 | 1.17 | $6,659 |
| 17 | Texas | $2,075 | $158,253 | 1.31 | $10,537 |
| 18 | Iowa | $2,073 | $149,558 | 1.39 | $5,839 |
| 19 | Alaska | $2,068 | $252,357 | 0.82 | $7,350 |
| 20 | Ohio | $2,053 | $169,108 | 1.21 | $7,082 |
| 21 | Minnesota | $2,043 | $207,495 | 0.98 | $6,004 |
| 22 | Michigan | $2,018 | $168,482 | 1.20 | $6,994 |
| 23 | Virginia | $1,894 | $261,678 | 0.72 | $6,510 |
| 24 | Kansas | $1,877 | $124,449 | 1.51 | $6,126 |
| 25 | Nebraska | $1,863 | $141,087 | 1.32 | $7,044 |
| 26 | Florida | $1,757 | $231,560 | 0.76 | $9,948 |
| 27 | Montana | $1,734 | $229,793 | 0.75 | $4,934 |
| 28 | South Dakota | $1,700 | $152,567 | 1.11 | $6,699 |
| 29 | Hawaii | $1,694 | $707,525 | 0.24 | $3,797 |
| 30 | Utah | $1,677 | $337,238 | 0.50 | $4,328 |
| 31 | Delaware | $1,594 | $302,900 | 0.53 | $4,135 |
| 32 | Wyoming | $1,571 | $291,909 | 0.54 | $8,225 |
| 33 | Colorado | $1,450 | $359,531 | 0.40 | $4,905 |
| 34 | Idaho | $1,449 | $273,573 | 0.53 | $4,395 |
| 35 | Georgia | $1,447 | $165,626 | 0.87 | $5,464 |
| 36 | North Dakota | $1,411 | $162,140 | 0.87 | $6,589 |
| 37 | Nevada | $1,388 | $266,259 | 0.52 | $5,744 |
| 38 | North Carolina | $1,373 | $194,595 | 0.71 | $4,801 |
| 39 | Arizona | $1,295 | $217,293 | 0.60 | $4,229 |
| 40 | Missouri | $1,157 | $151,083 | 0.77 | $5,316 |
| 41 | Indiana | $1,131 | $164,273 | 0.69 | $4,451 |
| 42 | Kentucky | $1,050 | $139,648 | 0.75 | $4,488 |
| 43 | New Mexico | $993 | $169,015 | 0.59 | $4,342 |
| 44 | Tennessee | $979 | $182,359 | 0.54 | $5,079 |
| 45 | Oklahoma | $911 | $132,219 | 0.69 | $4,601 |
| 46 | Mississippi | $903 | $120,972 | 0.75 | $3,427 |
| 47 | South Carolina | $893 | $165,220 | 0.54 | $3,972 |
| 48 | Louisiana | $708 | $154,388 | 0.46 | $4,076 |
| 49 | West Virginia | $683 | $133,593 | 0.51 | $2,759 |
| 50 | Arkansas | $680 | $124,300 | 0.55 | $3,493 |
Methodology
- Source: Census ACS 5-year B25103, real estate taxes paid for owner-occupied housing units with a mortgage.
- State value here is the average of county medians, computed across counties in the state.
- Effective rate is the median tax divided by the median home value. Two states can have similar dollar tax but very different effective rates if home values differ.
- The IRS deduction column is the average property tax deduction claimed by filers in the state, from IRS Statistics of Income (SOI), tax year 2022.
- Under current federal law, the SALT deduction caps state and local taxes at $10,000 per filer. High-tax states often see filers exceed the cap.
- For a per-county view of the lowest-tax counties in the country, see lowest property tax counties.