Property Tax in Lauderdale County, Mississippi

What the Lauderdale County numbers mean

The median is the midpoint of the county's actual bills: half of Lauderdale County homeowners pay more than $1,223 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 $124,500, the median bill works out to a derived effective rate of 0.98%. 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.

Lauderdale County by the numbers

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

Lauderdale County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Mississippi: #17 of 82 counties
• Median home value rank in Mississippi: #30 of 82
• Population rank in Mississippi: #9 of 82 (71,984 residents)
• Population density rank: #12 of 82 (102 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Mississippi: #18 of 82 (703 sq mi, 1.5% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $102; per $1,000 of home value: $0.98

How Lauderdale County compares

Of the 82 Mississippi counties with published data, 16 have a higher median property tax bill than Lauderdale County's $1,223, putting the county at #17 in the state. Its bill is about the same as the state median of $1,189 and about 59% 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 0.98%, versus 0.98% derived nationally, and the median home value ranks #30 within Mississippi.

Some extra context for Lauderdale County: the median bill works out to about $102 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $982 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 71,984 people — the #9 most populous county in Mississippi, spread over 703 square miles, a density of about 102 people per square mile. Its median home value, $124,500, ranks #30 among the state's 82 counties with data.

Zooming out: of 3133 counties nationwide with published Census figures, only 2059 record a higher median tax bill than Lauderdale County — it sits in the top 66% nationally. The county holds roughly 2.4% of Mississippi's people. Its homes are worth less than the state norm (median $124,500 versus $161,400), and a decade at the derived rate of 0.98% adds up to about 9.82% of the median home's value in tax. The cheapest county in the state, Issaquena County, medians $314 — $909 less than Lauderdale County per year.

Counties nearest Lauderdale County in the Mississippi ranking

Lauderdale County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Lauderdale County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 71,984 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Lauderdale County's median bill of $1,223 is #6 of 9.

The closest population match is Franklin County, North Carolina (71,962 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $1,732 on a median home value of $240,900 — $509 less than Lauderdale County pays.

Staying within Mississippi, the counties nearest Lauderdale County by population are Lee County (83,138 residents, median tax $1,356 on a median value of $187,800); Forrest County (78,027 residents, median tax $1,284 on a median value of $152,900); Jones County (66,839 residents, median tax $1,116 on a median value of $126,800); Lamar County (65,081 residents, median tax $1,459 on a median value of $218,700). 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

The bill is built in stages. First the assessor puts a market value on the property. Exemptions — a homestead exemption above all — then reduce the taxable amount. Finally the combined local rate is applied. To see the scale: at the county's derived rate of 0.98%, each $100,000 of value corresponds to about $982 of tax a year, and a $400,000 home to roughly $3,928. Real bills use the official assessment and district rates, not this derived figure, so treat the example as a sense of scale only.

Illustrative bills in Lauderdale County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 0.98% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Lauderdale County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 0.74% 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 Lauderdale County

Most successful appeals are won on facts, not arguments. Start with the property record card held by the Lauderdale 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 Mississippi counties

• Jones County, MS — $1,116
• Forrest County, MS — $1,284
• Lamar County, MS — $1,459
• Lee County, MS — $1,356
• Lowndes County, MS — $1,008
• Lafayette County, MS — $1,672

Frequently asked questions