Data from the Tax Foundation reveals that New Jersey continues to have the highest effective property tax rate in the United States. The 2023 statewide rate was 2.23% of home values, a slight decrease from 2.33% in 2022, yet it remains the highest nationally.
Illinois follows with a property tax rate of 2.07%, while Connecticut's rate is at 1.92%. Other states with high rates include New Hampshire (1.71%), Vermont (1.75%), New York (1.60%), and Texas (1.58%).
Conversely, Hawaii boasts the lowest median effective property tax rate at 0.27%, followed by Alabama (0.38%), Nevada and Colorado both at 0.49%, South Carolina (0.46%), and Arizona (0.52%).
The Tax Foundation, based in Washington D.C., utilized data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey for these rankings, focusing on owner-occupied housing to determine median tax bills as a percentage of home value.
“Some states with high property taxes, like New Hampshire and Texas, rely heavily on them in lieu of other major tax categories,” stated Andrey Yushkov, senior policy analyst at the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation. “Other states, like New Jersey and Illinois, impose high property taxes alongside high rates in the other major tax categories.”
Property taxes vary significantly within states as well as between them. Menominee County in Wisconsin has the nation's highest county-level effective property tax rate at 3.64%, based on a median tax bill of $3,527 and a median home value of $97,000.
In New Jersey, Camden County ranks among the top ten counties nationwide for high effective property tax rates at 3.08%, with Salem County following closely at 3.03% and Gloucester County at 2.81%.
Despite higher tax bills in some areas such as Bergen County where they exceed $10,000 annually, higher home values result in lower effective rates—Bergen County's being just 1.66% due to its median home value of $593,200.
