Property Tax Calculator
With market value of the home 400000 usd, assessment ratio 100 percent, homestead or other exemption 0 usd, tax rate 1.2 percent, property tax comes to $4,800 — property tax a year. It is reached in 7 steps, the last of which is 400000 * 1.2 / 100, and each one is printed on the page with its numbers filled in. The formula is the one published by Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, not an approximation fitted to it.
Property tax from a home value, with the two things most calculators skip: the assessment ratio, and the exemption that comes off the value rather than the tax.
Formula and sources checked · How we check
Market value of the home 400000, Assessment ratio 100, Rate is given as A percentage, Tax rate 1.2
$4,800
Property tax a year for the example below. Editing a field recomputes the calculator below; this figure holds the answer the page was loaded with.
It is written into the HTML rather than drawn by a script, so a search engine reading this page without running JavaScript still finds an answer.
- Assessed value
400000 * 100 / 100400,000- Taxable value after exemption
max(0, 400000 - 0)400,000- Rate applied
1 * 1.2 + 0 * 20 / 101.2 %- Property tax a year
400000 * 1.2 / 1004,800- Monthly, as an escrow payment
4800 / 12400- Effective rate against market value
4800 / 400000 * 1001.2 %- What the exemption saves you a year
min(0, 400000) * 1.2 / 1000
Worked example
A $400,000 home at 1.2% is $4,800 a year, or $400 a month into escrow. Apply a $50,000 homestead exemption and it falls to $4,200 — the exemption saves $600, which is the rate times the exemption, not the exemption itself.
How to work it out yourself
- 1.Find the assessed value on your assessment notice rather than assuming it equals what the house would sell for. Many states assess at a fraction of market value, and a few reassess only on sale.
- 2.Subtract any homestead, senior, veteran or disability exemption. It comes off the value, so what it saves you is the exemption multiplied by the rate — a $50,000 exemption at 1.2% is worth $600, not $50,000.
- 3.Enter the rate as a percentage or in mills. One mill is $1 per $1,000 of assessed value, so 20 mills and 2% are the same rate written two ways.
- 4.Divide by twelve for the escrow figure your lender collects each month alongside the mortgage payment.
The formula
- Assessed value
400000 * 100 / 100 - Taxable value after exemption
max(0, 400000 - 0) - Rate applied
1 * 1.2 + 0 * 20 / 10 - Property tax a year
400000 * 1.2 / 100 - Monthly, as an escrow payment
4800 / 12 - Effective rate against market value
4800 / 400000 * 100 - What the exemption saves you a year
min(0, 400000) * 1.2 / 100
Source: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy — 50-state property tax comparison study, Census Bureau — Quarterly Summary of State and Local Tax Revenue
Questions people actually ask
- Why is my assessed value lower than what my house is worth?
- Because most states tax a fraction of market value rather than the whole of it. South Carolina assesses an owner-occupied home at 4% of market value, Ohio at 35%, Louisiana at 10%. The rate is set against that smaller figure, so comparing rates between states without comparing assessment ratios is meaningless.
- What is a mill?
- One dollar of tax per $1,000 of assessed value — a tenth of a percent. A 20-mill rate is 2%. Districts publish rates in mills because they can then be added: a county at 8 mills, a school district at 14 and a city at 6 make 28 mills in total, which is what you pay.
- Does a homestead exemption cut my tax by that amount?
- No, and this is the commonest misreading of a tax bill. The exemption reduces the value being taxed, not the tax. A $50,000 exemption where the rate is 1.2% saves $600 a year. Some exemptions also cap how fast assessed value can rise, which is worth more over time than the exemption itself.
- Why did my payment go up when my rate did not?
- A reassessment. Districts set a budget and divide it by the total assessed value in the district, so when values rise the rate usually falls — but not by enough, and not evenly. A house that appreciated faster than its neighbours pays more even at an unchanged rate.
Related
- Home Affordability CalculatorThe house price your income supports under the 28/36 rule, with property tax, insurance and HOA inside the limit rather than added on top.
- Mortgage Payment CalculatorMonthly principal-and-interest payment on a fixed-rate mortgage, plus total interest paid over the full term.
- Sales Tax CalculatorTax and total from a pre-tax price, plus the reverse — the pre-tax price hidden inside a total you already paid.
- Capital Gains Tax CalculatorFederal tax on a sale, with the long-term rate stacked on top of your other income the way the law does it — and the 3.8% surtax most calculators forget.
- Salary CalculatorPay converted between every period — hourly, daily, weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, monthly and annual — with unpaid holidays and days off taken out.
- Tip CalculatorTip and total from a bill, and what each person owes once it is split — including the rounding that makes the split come out even.
Put this calculator on your site
Free, no attribution required beyond the link.
<iframe src="https://rulecalculators.com/embed/property-tax" width="100%" height="420" style="border:1px solid #e7e4de;border-radius:12px" title="Property Tax Calculator"></iframe>