by Will Michaels, NCLocal
May 28, 2026
A statewide review from NC Local shows a patchwork property tax system that might be difficult to overhaul across 100 counties and nearly 700 cities or towns that levy additional taxes.
Key findings from our analysis this month include:
- Some localities, including coastal cities and towns, fund local government services by applying relatively low property taxes because the area benefits from seasonal tourism, which brings in substantial sales tax revenue.
- Post-COVID, many counties are not adopting “revenue-neutral” tax rates, which would usually keep property tax bills level or even lower year-to-year in places where home values surged.
- In major North Carolina cities, where local governments tend to spend the most due to population size, property tax rates tend to fall in the middle of the pack statewide. Generally, tax rates are lowest in the western mountainous region and the southeastern corner of the state.
Keep reading for a closer look at how property taxes are determined locally, the impact of population growth and rising home values, and details on which parts of North Carolina tend to levy the highest taxes on residents.
How do property taxes work?
Two numbers determine your property tax bill: the value of your property and the tax rate.
Local governments usually express the rate in cents per $100 of value. If your county’s property tax rate is 50 cents, that means a homeowner pays $500 in property taxes for every $100,000 in their home’s value.
But a home’s value – and therefore the property taxes it generates for a local government – depends on where it is. A low tax rate on a million-dollar beach house, for example, can produce a larger tax bill than what an owner would pay on an average-value home in a rural area with relatively high taxes.
For example, Emerald Isle has one of the lowest property tax rates in the state. When property tax bills are sent to Emerald Isle homeowners each year, they pay about 32.5 cents per $100 of assessed property value. Outside town limits, Carteret County’s base tax rate is even lower.
But – with dozens of multi-million-dollar beachfront properties – the average home value in Emerald Isle is $807,000, according to town manager Frank Rush.
That means the average homeowner has a yearly local property tax bill of $2,623.
Rush told NC Local Emerald Isle “is blessed” to be able to depend on seasonal tourism to bring in additional sales tax revenue, which can help pay for local government services without requiring immediate property tax increases. There are about 7,000 housing units in Emerald Isle, but only about 2,000 permanent residents.
“That enables us to share the cost of local government among a much larger group of property owners,” Rush said. “In the summertime, we operate like a city of 50,000. But in the wintertime, we have about 5,000 people here.”
Conversely, the Richmond County town of Hamlet has one of the highest combined county and city property tax rates at $1.53 per $100 of value – almost five times the tax rate in Emerald Isle. But the median home value in Hamlet was $112,600 from 2020-2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
So, Hamlet property owners are paying a higher tax rate to fund local government operations compared to those on the coast, but the average tax bill is nearly $1,000 less in the small town of less than 6,000 people.
Some municipalities also use “special districts,” or assign groups of properties to special tax districts where the county or city levies an additional tax for special added services. In Emerald Isle, for example, beachfront properties are part of a special tax district that pays an additional 2 cents per $100 to cover the cost of beach nourishment – the process of pumping sand onto the shoreline to combat erosion.
How does property revaluation work?
What you owe in property tax can change even if your local city, town, or county doesn’t change its local tax rate.
To match the tax assessed value closely to dynamic property values, each county reassesses property values on a regular cycle. State law requires a revaluation at least every eight years, though many counties do it more often than that.
In quickly growing areas, revaluation can capture years of rising demand and higher home sales prices. When property values skyrocketed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, many local governments lowered their property tax rates, but still raised the same amount of money, or more.
A proposal separate from the constitutional amendment would pause revaluations until 2027. It passed the state Senate, but is currently stalled in a House committee.
What is a revenue-neutral tax rate?
After a revaluation, state law says local governments have to inform their residents what a countywide revenue-neutral tax rate would be. In other words, a revaluation could mean that most home values in the tax base are significantly higher. In that case, a “revenue-neutral” rate, if elected leaders chose it, would actually require a vote to lower the effective tax rate.
Or, if a county has lost substantial value from its tax base – such as a large corporate entity shutting down, or a declining housing market depressing values – a revenue-neutral rate could equate to higher taxes, paid for by a smaller share of taxpayers.
Local governments have to calculate that “revenue-neutral” number, but elected leaders don’t have to use it when authorizing taxes and approving annual municipal spending budgets.
UNC School of Government tax expert Chris McLaughlin found that of the 29 counties with property revaluations in 2025, 23 of them adopted property tax rates above revenue-neutral.
In Durham County, for instance, higher projected tax revenue from substantially higher property values led county commissions to adopt an overall lower tax rate last year. But county commissioners still approved a rate 3.5 cents above the revenue-neutral baseline, in an effort to bring in more money for public schools, to fund salary increases for county workers, and to pay salaries for new positions in county EMS and sheriff’s offices.
That helps explain a confusing experience for homeowners: local governments can cut property taxes, and tax bills can still go up.
Where are property tax rates higher and lower?
NC Local’s review of local property tax rates found some broad regional patterns.
County tax rates tend to be lower in Western North Carolina and the southeastern coast. Rates tend to be higher in northeastern North Carolina, inland eastern counties, and parts of the Fayetteville metro area. Counties in and around the Triangle, Triad and Charlotte fall squarely in the middle range.
County rates (per $100 of assessed value) vary from a low of 22.5 cents in Carteret County to a high of 99 cents in Scotland County. But city taxes tend to widen the gap.
For example, Sharpsburg – a town of less than 2,000 people that straddles Edgecombe, Nash and Wilson counties – has a combined effective rate for its Edgecombe residents of $1.61 per $100 of value, the highest in the state. Bogue, a coastal town with less than 1,000 people in Carteret County, has the lowest rate in the state at 27 cents, according to the North Carolina Department of Revenue.
City/County Property Taxes in North Carolina's 10 Largest Cities
| Rank | City | County | County rate | City rate | Combined effective tax rate* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | High Point | Multiple | 53.52 - 73.05 | 64.75 | 80.2 cents - $1.20 |
| 2 | Winston-Salem | Forsyth | 53.52 | 56.7 | $1.12 |
| 3 | Durham | Multiple | 51.71 - 63.83 | 43.71 | 91 cents - $1.06 |
| 4 | Greensboro | Guilford | 73.05 | 67.25 | 95.83 |
| 5 | Fayetteville | Cumberland | 49.9 | 44.95 | 95.71 |
| 6 | Concord | Cabarrus | 57.6 | 42 | 93.69 |
| 7 | Raleigh | Multiple | 51.71 - 55.42 | 35.5 | 83.2 - 91.1 |
| 8 | Cary | Multiple | 51.71 - 60 | 34 | 81.8 - 89.6 |
| 9 | Charlotte | Mecklenburg | 49.27 | 27.41 | 68.08 |
| 10 | Wilmington | New Hanover | 30.6 | 28.25 | 58.74 |
Data source: North Carolina Department of Revenue, rates effective from 2025
*Property tax rates are shown in cents per $100 of value unless indicated as more than one dollar. The county and city rates are the rates local elected leaders actually adopted. The "combined effective" rate adjusts those rates based on how property revaluations compare with market values, making it easier to compare counties that revalue property on different schedules. The county and city rates might not add up exactly to the combined effective rate.
What could the property tax amendment mean for cities and counties?
These patterns raise different issues for different local governments when it comes to a statewide cap on property taxes.
Towns with higher tax rates tend to have a smaller tax base and lower-wealth households. They might need higher rates to pay for basic services.
On the other hand, towns with low rates tend to have stronger housing markets and wealthier tax bases. But, tax bills can still feel hefty to homeowners if their property values are high.
In addition, fast-growing suburban towns often face a different set of challenges altogether: Quickly rising costs for schools, roads, and emergency services that could prompt local leaders to vote for a tax hike.
Lawmakers who support the constitutional amendment say it would protect homeowners from rising tax bills after sharp increases in property values. Higher home values can hit older homeowners and those on fixed incomes particularly hard.
Opponents say a statewide limit could restrict the main revenue source local governments use to pay for public safety, infrastructure, and supplemental funding for public schools.
This is the language voters will see on their ballots this November:
If it passes, the amendment will authorize a ceiling on property tax rates – but the wording stops short of detailing how and when that would take effect.
To implement the constitutional amendment, state lawmakers would have to write a bill that would set out municipal taxation limits. And the details will matter.
A cap tied to inflation, for example, might affect a quickly growing community differently than a shrinking rural town. A cap that limits total revenue growth could affect places where people are moving in, and new construction is expanding the local tax base.
Rush, the town manager in Emerald Isle, told NC Local that without those details, it’s too soon for him to give an opinion on the amendment. But he did stress the importance of local autonomy.
“The people of each of these local communities elect their local leaders to make decisions for them,” Rush said. “And so if a community wants to raise taxes, cut taxes, keep taxes the same, or invest in particular services or improvements, then that's really up to the leaders in that community.”
This article first appeared on NCLocal and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.