Property Tax Calculator — Annual Bill + Monthly Escrow by State (2026)

What is Property Tax?

Property tax is the annual levy a county (and usually a city and a school district stacked on top) charges every parcel of real estate inside its boundaries. It is the single largest funding source for US public schools and the second-largest line item on most homeowners’ PITI mortgage payments — right behind principal and interest, and ahead of homeowner’s insurance and HOA dues. Unlike federal income tax, property tax does not vanish when you retire, does not phase down with age, and does not stop scaling with home value. If your county reassesses you upward, your bill goes up the next year, whether your paycheck did or not.

The headline number people quote — “Texas charges 2% property tax,” “Hawaii charges 0.3%” — is the effective tax rate: total bill divided by market value. Effective rates vary roughly 8× across the 50 states. New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut top 2% effective; Hawaii, Alabama, and Colorado sit below 0.5%. Inside a single state, county and city overlays can swing the effective rate another 30–50% — a Dallas suburb can pay 2.5%+ while rural West Texas pays 1.4%.

For homeowners with a mortgage, the practical number is the monthly escrow line. Your lender collects one-twelfth of the annual bill each month, holds it in a non-interest account, and pays the county directly when the bill is due. The escrow line is what you actually feel in your bank account. Direct-pay (no escrow) is allowed in most states but requires lender consent and usually a 20%+ equity cushion.

The Formula and Methodology

Property tax is the cleanest math in the entire US tax code: assessed value times millage rate. The complication is that both inputs are jurisdiction-specific and neither is the number you see on Zillow.

Assessed valueis the county assessor’s estimate, recorded on your annual notice. Some counties assess at 100% of market (CA, FL, TX). Others use a fraction — Mississippi assesses single-family homes at 10% of market, Georgia at 40%, parts of Massachusetts at 50% — and pair the low ratio with a higher mill rate to land at a comparable bill. If your county uses anything other than 100%, you must apply the ratio before applying the mill rate, or you will overstate your bill by 2× or more.

Millage rate is the tax rate expressed in mills per dollar of assessed value. One mill equals one one-thousandth of a dollar, so 20 mills means $20 of tax per $1,000 of assessed value, or a 2% effective rate. County, city, and school district mills stack: a 12-mill county plus a 6-mill city plus a 22-mill school district gives you a 40-mill combined rate (4% effective on assessed value). Your annual tax notice shows the breakdown.

Homestead exemptionis the most-overlooked adjustment. Most states let you knock a fixed dollar amount off the taxable assessed value on your primary residence. Texas raised its school-tax homestead exemption to $100,000 in 2023. Florida exempts $50,000 on the school portion. California’s Prop 13 is not a homestead exemption per se — it caps annual assessed-value growth at 2% so long-time owners pay tax on long-frozen base values, even when market value has tripled.

Senior, veteran, and disability exemptions stack on top of homestead in most states. A 65-year-old Texas homeowner can claim an additional $10,000 school-tax exemption plus a tax-freeze that locks the school portion forever. If the calculator’s straight-line estimate looks high, check whether you have unclaimed exemptions — most counties make the application a one-time form, but you have to know to ask.

Worked Example

Take the canonical comparison: same $400,000 home in three states.

Texas, no homestead claimed:Statewide median effective rate is roughly 1.74%. Texas counties assess at 100% of market, so assessed value equals market value at $400,000. Annual bill = $400,000 × 1.74% = $6,960. Monthly escrow = $580. This is the bill a new buyer sees in year one before filing the homestead application.

Texas, with $100,000 homestead exemption:Taxable assessed value drops to $300,000. Annual bill = $300,000 × 1.74% = $5,220. Monthly escrow = $435. The homestead application is free and takes about 15 minutes — that $1,740 annual savings is the highest-ROI form most homeowners ever file.

Florida, with $50,000 homestead:Statewide median effective rate roughly 0.86%. Taxable assessed value = $350,000. Annual bill = $350,000 × 0.86% = $3,010. Monthly escrow = $251. Florida’s Save Our Homes amendment also caps annual assessed-value growth at 3% for homesteaded properties, locking your future bills against market spikes.

Hawaii, primary residence:Effective rate around 0.27% — the lowest in the US, funded by tourism tax. Annual bill on $400,000 = $1,080. Monthly escrow = $90. Hawaii’s property tax is so low that out-of-state buyers often budget for the mainland rate and end up with a surprise surplus in escrow.

Same $400,000 house, three states, $1,080 to $6,960 annual swing. Over 30 years that’s a $176,000 gap — more than 40% of the home’s purchase price. Property tax is not a rounding error in the relocate-or-not decision; it is one of the three or four biggest variables.

Common Mistakes and Edge Cases

Property-tax planning trips up smart people in predictable ways. The expensive mistakes:

• Confusing market value with assessed value.Zillow shows market value. Your tax bill is on assessed value, which can be 10–100% of market depending on the county. Applying the mill rate to Zillow’s estimate in a fractional-assessment state overstates your bill 2× or more. Pull your most recent assessment notice for the real input.
• Forgetting to file homestead.Most states require a one-time application, usually within 60–90 days of purchase. Miss the deadline and you pay the unhomesteaded rate for an entire year. Texas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi all have material homestead exemptions — check your county assessor’s website the day after closing.
• Trusting the state median.US Census state-median effective rates are within plus or minus 25% for roughly 70% of homeowners, but the tails are brutal. New York state median is 1.4% but Westchester County hits 2.5%+. Cook County, Illinois pushes 2.3% versus the state median of 2.05%. Always cross-check your specific county on the assessor’s site.
• Ignoring special assessments.Bonds for new schools, sewer extensions, sidewalk repairs, and stormwater districts can add $200–$1,500 a year on top of your base property tax. These ride on the same bill but are separate line items. New construction in master-planned communities almost always carries 10–30 years of bond assessments.
• SALT cap surprises.The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 capped combined state and local tax deductions at $10,000. If your property tax alone is $12,000, only $10,000 is deductible (and only if you itemize). Most post-TCJA homeowners take the standard deduction and get no federal benefit at all from property tax. Don’t budget around a tax break you no longer get.
• Reassessment shocks after purchase.Many counties reassess at the purchase price the year after you close, regardless of what the previous owner was paying. If you bought a long-held home, your year-two bill can jump 30–50% versus the seller’s last bill. Always project the post-reassessment number, not the pre-sale number on the listing.

Strategy and Comparison

Property tax is one of the few major taxes you can meaningfully appeal. Every US jurisdiction has a formal appeal process, usually with a 30–60 day window after the assessment notice is mailed. Winning arguments cluster into three buckets: recent comparable sales below your assessment, square-footage or condition errors in the county record, and functional obsolescence (busy-road frontage, awkward lot shape, deferred-maintenance items the assessor’s drive-by missed). Appeals succeed in 30–50% of cases when comp data supports them. Hiring a local appraiser for $300–$500 to prepare the appeal package usually pays for itself in year one and compounds in every future year.

The relocate-for-lower-property-tax move is real but oversold. Yes, moving from Westchester to Austin saves $15,000+ a year in property tax. But Texas pairs no income tax with one of the highest property-tax rates in the country precisely because schools and counties need the revenue. Run the full stack — property plus state income plus sales tax — through the cost-of-living calculator before declaring a winner. Florida and Tennessee genuinely beat New York on the combined number; Texas and New Hampshire are close to a wash unless your income is very high.

For escrow versus direct pay: if you have the discipline to set aside the monthly amount in a high-yield savings account, direct pay earns you 4–5% on float that the lender keeps. On a $9,000 annual bill, that’s $200–$300 a year. Most lenders require a 20%+ equity cushion and a clean payment history to allow it. Not life-changing money, but free.

Mortgage shoppers consistently underweight property tax. The headline mortgage payment quoted by lenders is principal and interest only. When you fold in escrow on a high-tax property, the real monthly housing cost can be 25–40% higher. Run the mortgage calculator with the property-tax line filled in, then validate against your true affordability calculator to make sure the PITI fits inside your budget before you write the offer.

Long-Run Trajectory

Property tax has historically grown roughly 2× the rate of general inflation in the United States, driven by school-spending growth and rising local pension obligations. State-level caps slow this but rarely stop it. California’s Prop 13 holds reassessed-value growth to 2% per year for incumbent owners. Massachusetts’ Prop 2½ caps the total tax levy increase at 2.5% annually. Florida’s Save Our Homes amendment caps homesteaded assessed-value growth at 3%. Without such caps, your effective property tax line is one of the few household expenses guaranteed to grow faster than wages over a 30-year ownership horizon.

ATTOM Data Solutions and the US Census American Community Survey publish annual property-tax statistics by county and state. Reviewing the trailing 5-year growth in median bill for your specific jurisdiction is the single best forward-looking indicator. If your county has averaged 6%+ annual property-tax growth, the calculator’s today number is likely understating your year-10 bill by $1,500 to $4,000 on a typical $400K home. Budget for the trajectory, not just the starting point.

Related Calculators

Property tax is one line in a much larger housing-cost stack. Combine it with these for the full picture:

• Mortgage calculator— folds your property tax estimate into PITI for the real monthly payment.
• True home affordability calculator — runs PITI plus maintenance plus insurance against your take-home pay to confirm you can actually carry the home.
• Closing cost calculator — the first two months of property tax escrow are prepaid at closing and show up as a line item.
• Cost-of-living calculator — for relocate-or-stay decisions, property tax is one of the largest city-to-city variables and stacks against income tax and housing cost.
• Tax calculator— check how much of your property tax is actually deductible after the $10,000 SALT cap and your state income tax.