States with the lowest property taxes: effective rates

How Payotte measures it

The effective rate is the median property tax paid divided by the median home value, both for owner-occupied housing units with the same state and the same period.

• Tax paid: table B25103, median real estate taxes paid in the past year.
• Value: table B25077, median value of owner-occupied homes, as reported by the owner.
• Period: ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. A 5-year estimate pools 60 months of survey responses, which makes state figures more stable than 1-year data but older on average (Census Bureau).

This is the ratio of two medians, not the median of each home’s own rate. It is an approximation. It also describes the typical owner who answered the survey, not a bill on a house you plan to buy. Rates in a local tax district can differ a lot inside one state.

The ten lowest states

West Virginia (0.53%), Arkansas (0.55%) and Louisiana (0.55%) follow. The District of Columbia, at 0.58%, is in the same file but is not a state.

The highest, for comparison

A low rate is not a low bill

Look at the first two columns of the table before drawing a conclusion.

• Hawaii has the lowest rate, but a median home worth $839,100 gives a median bill of $2,239, higher than in Alabama or Tennessee.
• Alabama has a bill of $788 a year, the lowest in dollars among the ten, on homes worth $209,900.
• Colorado and Utah pay about $2,500 a year with rates near 0.5%, because their homes are expensive.

For the US as a whole, the median owner paid $3,119 on a median value of $332,700, a rate of 0.94% (Census Bureau, as processed by Payotte). For a rough budget, multiply a purchase price by the rate of the state. A $400,000 home at 0.48% is about $1,920 a year; at 2.01% it is about $8,040. These are illustrations of the arithmetic, not forecasts.

What the Census data leaves out

• Exemptions and caps. The tax paid already reflects the homestead exemptions and assessment caps owners receive, so a new buyer who does not qualify for them may pay more. See the homestead exemption guide.
• Income and other taxes. Low property tax often comes with higher sales or income tax. This guide compares property tax only.
• Newly sold homes. Where assessed values reset on sale, the new owner usually pays more than the median long-time owner.
• Margin of error. Each state figure carries a margin of error, listed in the data (for example plus or minus $6 on Alabama’s median tax). Small gaps, such as between Arizona, Colorado and South Carolina, are not meaningful.

Where to look next

The state-by-state table with how each value is set, the homestead exemption and any cap is at /usa/by-state/property-tax. For a state page, use /usa/{state}/property-tax, for example Hawaii, Alabama or Nevada. County rates are at property tax by county. Add the figure to the full picture with the cost of buying a home, the mortgage calculator and the property tax deduction guide.