If You Live in One of These US Counties, You’re Paying More Property Taxes Than Everyone Else in the Country

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Buying a home is the most important and potentially profitable purchase most Americans will ever make – as well as the most expensive. In nearly all cases, you will need to save up for a down payment, then spend the next 15 to 30 years paying off the mortgage. You’ll also have to pay for home insurance and property taxes. In the latter case, the cost could be substantial.

Residential property taxes in the United States vary widely depending on where you live. The amount you pay depends on two main factors: the value of your home and the property tax rate in your county or municipality. Property tax bills are typically sent out once a year, though the exact month varies by state.

In terms of the sheer dollar amount of property tax bills, the most expensive counties in the U.S. tend to be concentrated in the Northeast – specifically New Jersey and New York. Here are 13 counties where you can expect to pay a median property tax bill of at least $10,000 a year, according to Motley Fool:

• Marin County, California (median home value of $1,146,900)
• Bergen County, New Jersey ($501,400)
• Essex County, New Jersey ($480,200)
• Hunterdon County, New Jersey ($440,100)
• Morris County, New Jersey ($480,200)
• Passaic County, New Jersey ($363,300)
• Union County, New Jersey ($396,500)
• Nassau County, New York ($567,200)
• New York County, New York ($1,029,900)
• Putnam County, New York ($383,300)
• Rockland County, New York ($471,000)
• Suffolk County, New York ($435,000)
• Westchester County, New York ($583,600)

But overall dollar amounts only tell part of the story when it comes to how much you pay in property taxes. In the counties listed above, median home values and property taxes are high – but so are median wages.

Another way to gauge who pays the highest property taxes is the property tax rate, which is typically the percentage of a home’s assessed value. By that measure, the counties with the highest property tax rates are a little more scattered in the Midwest.

An analysis published last month by ATTOM Data looked at property tax rates in counties with 10,000 or more single-family homes in 2023 and populations over 100,000. Here are the 10 counties with the highest effective property tax rates in 2023:

1. Summit County, Ohio: 3.17%
2. Saint Lawrence County, New York: 2.59%
3. De Kalb County, Illinois: 2.51%
4. Fairfield County, Ohio:  2.45%
5. Monroe County, New York: 2.34%
6. Camden County, New Jersey: 2.19%
7. Kane County, Illinois: 2.15%
8. Lake County, Illinois: 2.1%
9. Kankakee County, Illinois: 2.15%
10. Macon County, Illinois: 2.13%

In case you wonder where property taxes are cheapest, these are the five U.S. counties with the lowest rates cited by the ATTOM study: Brunswick County, North Carolina (0.13%); Sussex County, Delaware (0.19%); Maui County, Hawaii (0.23%); Bradley County, Tennessee (0.27%); Baldwin County, Alabama (0.27%).

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