Most adults in the United States strive to own their own home. However, this ownership comes at a price. Not only will you have an auto loan or mortgage, insurance, and repair costs, but you also have to pay property taxes. Unfortunately, every state has property tax, but some states have very low property taxes.
Property taxes are a real estate ad-valorem tax levied by the jurisdiction in which the property is located and paid for by the property owner. Property taxes are paid to your state and contribute to the state’s revenue. This revenue is used for various purposes, including building schools, repairing roads, and building other critical infrastructure. Property taxes are paid on an annual basis, and the amount you pay varies by state.
Here are the 10 states with the highest median property taxes:
The average American household spends about $2,375 on property taxes for their homes each year.
Property Taxes by State
For this article, we are going to look at the median property tax rate of each state. This is calculated by dividing each state’s median tax payment by the median home price.States with the Highest Property Taxes
New Jersey has the highest property tax rate of 2.47%. With a median home value of $327,900, annual property taxes come out to about $8,104. Even with a home valued at $205,000, New Jersey property owners would pay $5,064 annually. Illinois follows New Jersey with an effective real-estate property tax rate of 2.30%. However, Illinois’s average is much lower than New Jersey’s at $187,200, resulting in about $4,299 in annual property taxes. New Hampshire has the third-highest property tax rate at 2.20%. A property owner with a median-valued house of $252,800 could expect to pay $5,550 in property taxes annually. Connecticut is the fourth and final state to have property taxes above 2.00% at 2.11%. Connecticut’s annual taxes priced at its median home value are the second-highest in the country at $5,746.States with the Lowest Property Taxes
Despite some states having property tax rates above 2.00%, 28 states have rates below 1.00%. Hawaii has the lowest property tax rate in the United States at just 0.27%. However, because Hawaii’s median home value is $587,700, the highest in the country, median property taxes come out to about $1,607 annually. Alabama follows with a tax rate of 0.42%. Coupled with a low median home value of $137,200, Alabama property owners with a median-valued home can expect to pay on $572 in property taxes annually, the lowest in the U.S. Alabama and Hawaii are the only two states with property tax rates below 0.50%. Colorado has the third-lowest property tax rate at 0.53%. Colorado residents could expect to pay $1,076 for a home valued at $205,000 and $1,647 for a median-valued home at $313,600. Louisiana has the same real estate property tax rate as Colorado of 0.53%; however, because Louisiana’s median home value is significantly lower at $157,800, its property taxes are lower. The annual property taxes a homeowner with a home valued at the median would pay around $840, almost half of that in Colorado. The District of Columbia has the fifth-lowest property tax rate in the U.S. at 0.55%. However, similar to Hawaii, D.C.’s median home value is very high at $568,400, the second-highest in the United States. This means that a property owner with a home valued at D.C.’s median home value would pay about $3,113 annually in property taxes. For a $205,000 home, the property owner would pay $1,122 annually.- New Jersey ($7,840)
- Connecticut ($5,582)
- New Hampshire ($5,388)
- New York ($4,915)
- Massachusetts ($4,309)
- Illinois ($4,157)
- Vermont ($4,040)
- Rhode Island ($4,013)
- California ($3,818)
- Wisconsin ($3,286)
