Property Tax in Fayette County, Georgia

What the Fayette County numbers mean

The median is the midpoint of the county's actual bills: half of Fayette County homeowners pay more than $3,168 a year and half pay less. The exact bill for any one home depends on its assessed value, exemptions, and which school, municipal and special districts cover it.

Set against the median home value of $405,600, the median bill works out to a derived effective rate of 0.78%. That rate is an estimate computed from the two medians — no county publishes a rate calculated this way — but it adjusts for home prices, which makes comparisons between counties more meaningful.

Fayette County by the numbers

*Estimate derived from Census medians (tax ÷ value), not an official rate.

Fayette County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Georgia: #4 of 159 counties
• Median home value rank in Georgia: #4 of 159
• Population rank in Georgia: #21 of 159 (120,689 residents)
• Population density rank: #16 of 159 (620 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Georgia: #142 of 159 (194 sq mi, 0.3% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $264; per $1,000 of home value: $0.78

How Fayette County compares

The median tax bill in Fayette County is about 43% higher than the state median ($2,214 for Georgia) and about 7% higher than the US median ($2,969 nationally). By median taxes paid, the county ranks #4 out of 159 Georgia counties with published Census data — 3 counties in the state have a higher median bill.

Comparisons cut both ways: a county can have a modest rate but high bills because homes are expensive, or a high rate but modest bills because homes are cheaper. Fayette County's derived rate of 0.78% sits below the derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Fayette County: the median bill works out to about $264 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $781 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 120,689 people — the #21 most populous county in Georgia, spread over 194 square miles, a density of about 620 people per square mile. Its median home value, $405,600, ranks #4 among the state's 159 counties with data.

Nationally, Fayette County's median bill of $3,168 ranks #399 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 13% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 1.1% of Georgia's population, its median home value is about 49% above the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 7.81% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Fayette County to the most expensive county, Fulton County ($3,847), is $679 a year.

Counties nearest Fayette County in the Georgia ranking

Fayette County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Fayette County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 120,689 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Fayette County's median bill of $3,168 is #4 of 9.

The closest population match is Allegan County, Michigan (120,913 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $2,799 on a median home value of $247,000 — $369 more than Fayette County pays.

Staying within Georgia, the counties nearest Fayette County by population are Clarke County (129,267 residents, median tax $2,444 on a median value of $271,900); Carroll County (122,187 residents, median tax $1,420 on a median value of $227,500); Lowndes County (119,055 residents, median tax $1,643 on a median value of $197,900); Newton County (115,530 residents, median tax $2,133 on a median value of $233,300). The spread in their median bills — all under the same state framework — shows how much of the property tax burden is decided county by county and district by district.

How the tax is worked out

Think of the final bill as three ingredients: the assessed value of the property, the exemptions subtracted from it, and the combined rate of every district the property sits in. Fayette County's medians imply a derived rate of 0.78%; applied illustratively, a $400,000 home would owe about $3,124 a year, or around $260 a month spread evenly. Individual properties depart from the illustration in both directions.

Illustrative bills in Fayette County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 0.78% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Fayette County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 0.81% and the US figure of 0.98%:

Illustration only: real bills are computed from the assessed value, exemptions, and the combined rates of the property's actual taxing districts.

Checking your assessment in Fayette County

If your bill looks wrong, work through these steps:

1. Get your property record card from the assessor and check the basics — living area, lot size, bedrooms, condition, and any exemptions you should have.
2. Compare your assessed value with recent sale prices of similar homes in Fayette County.
3. Talk to the assessor's office informally first; clear errors are often fixed without a hearing.
4. If needed, file a formal appeal with the local review board before the deadline on your assessment notice, with your evidence attached.
5. Keep paying the bill as issued while the appeal runs, unless your notice says otherwise — unpaid taxes accrue penalties regardless of an appeal.

More Georgia counties

• Carroll County, GA — $1,420
• Lowndes County, GA — $1,643
• Newton County, GA — $2,133
• Clarke County, GA — $2,444
• Bartow County, GA — $1,901
• Whitfield County, GA — $1,339

Frequently asked questions