13 States With the Lowest Property Tax Rates

Related: 13 States With the Highest Property Tax Rates

Some $14 billion in property taxes go unpaid each year, personal finance website WalletHub reported Wednesday, citing data from the National Tax Lien Association. This perhaps is not surprising when you consider that the average American household pays annual property taxes of $2,690, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Depending on where homeowners live, their property tax burden can be next to nothing, or a heavy lift, eclipsing $8,500 in the most expensive state. To find out where property taxes are lightest, WalletHub sifted through real estate tax data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. To do an apples-to-apples comparison, researchers divided the median real estate tax payment by the median home price in each state, then used the resulting rates to calculate the dollar amount paid as real estate tax on a house worth $244,900, the median value for a home in the U.S. as of 2021, according to the Census Bureau. In addition, WalletHub also compared the taxes paid on the cost of a median-priced home in each state or district. In our gallery, we used this figure to break ties. Notably, while Washington, D.C., has the seventh lowest tax rate, it has the second highest median home value, so homeowners are likely to pay a higher dollar amount in property taxes than the national average. See the gallery for the 13 states with the lowest property tax rates, according to WalletHub.