Property Tax in Stearns County, Minnesota

What the Stearns County numbers mean

The median is the midpoint of the county's actual bills: half of Stearns County homeowners pay more than $2,617 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 $256,500, the median bill works out to a derived effective rate of 1.02%. 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.

The key figures for Stearns County

For context, the Minnesota medians are $3,184 of tax on $305,500 of value, and the US medians are $2,969 on $303,400. *Derived figures are estimates from Census medians, not official rates.

Stearns County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Minnesota: #24 of 87 counties
• Median home value rank in Minnesota: #23 of 87
• Population rank in Minnesota: #8 of 87 (159,358 residents)
• Population density rank: #13 of 87 (119 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Minnesota: #14 of 87 (1,342 sq mi, 1.7% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $218; per $1,000 of home value: $1.02

How Stearns County compares

Of the 87 Minnesota counties with published data, 23 have a higher median property tax bill than Stearns County's $2,617, putting the county at #24 in the state. Its bill is about 18% lower than the state median of $3,184 and about 12% lower than the national median of $2,969.

Rates and values pull in opposite directions: an expensive housing market can produce big bills at ordinary rates. Here the derived rate is 1.02%, versus 0.98% derived nationally, and the median home value ranks #23 within Minnesota.

Some extra context for Stearns County: the median bill works out to about $218 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $1,020 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 159,358 people — the #8 most populous county in Minnesota, spread over 1,342 square miles, a density of about 119 people per square mile. Its median home value, $256,500, ranks #23 among the state's 87 counties with data.

Nationally, Stearns County's median bill of $2,617 ranks #623 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 20% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 2.8% of Minnesota's population, its median home value is about 16% below the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 10.20% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Stearns County to the most expensive county, Carver County ($4,380), is $1,763 a year.

Counties nearest Stearns County in the Minnesota ranking

Stearns County and its population peers

Population is a useful lens on these figures, so the table below sets Stearns County beside the counties closest to it in population anywhere in the country — communities of a similar scale operating under different state and local tax systems. Ranked by median tax paid within this peer group of 9, Stearns County's $2,617 bill is #2 of 9.

The closest population match is Schenectady County, New York (159,603 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $5,486 on a median home value of $223,100 — $2,869 less than Stearns County pays.

Inside Minnesota itself, the counties closest to Stearns County in population are St. Louis County (200,056 residents, median tax $2,142 on a median value of $208,500); Olmsted County (163,425 residents, median tax $3,314 on a median value of $304,500); Scott County (152,957 residents, median tax $4,195 on a median value of $393,500); Wright County (145,270 residents, median tax $3,319 on a median value of $332,800). Same state, same broad tax framework — yet the median bills still differ, because assessed values and the mix of county, municipal and school-district rates are set locally.

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. Stearns County's medians imply a derived rate of 1.02%; applied illustratively, a $400,000 home would owe about $4,080 a year, or around $340 a month spread evenly. Individual properties depart from the illustration in both directions.

Illustrative bills in Stearns County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 1.02% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Stearns County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 1.04% 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 Stearns County

Most successful appeals are won on facts, not arguments. Start with the property record card held by the Stearns County assessor: wrong square footage, an extra room, or a missing homestead exemption are common and fixable. Next, line your assessed value up against recent sales of genuinely similar homes nearby. Many disputes end at an informal conversation with the assessor's office; if yours does not, file the formal appeal with the review board named on your notice before its deadline, evidence attached, and keep paying the bill in the meantime so penalties do not build up.

More Minnesota counties

• Olmsted County, MN — $3,314
• Scott County, MN — $4,195
• Wright County, MN — $3,319
• St. Louis County, MN — $2,142
• Carver County, MN — $4,380
• Sherburne County, MN — $3,311

Frequently asked questions