Property Tax in Craven County, North Carolina

What the Craven County numbers mean

A median is the middle household: half of owner-occupied households in Craven County pay more than $1,372, and half pay less. Your own bill is set by your home's assessed value, the exemptions you qualify for, and the local taxing districts your property sits in — so individual bills vary widely around the median.

Dividing the median tax by the median home value gives a derived effective rate of 0.67% for Craven County. It is an estimate built from two survey medians, not the county's official rate, but it is a fair way to compare the local tax burden with other counties where home values are very different.

Craven County by the numbers

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

Craven County at a glance

• Median tax rank in North Carolina: #39 of 100 counties
• Median home value rank in North Carolina: #50 of 100
• Population rank in North Carolina: #28 of 100 (101,074 residents)
• Population density rank: #41 of 100 (143 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in North Carolina: #15 of 100 (706 sq mi, 1.5% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $114; per $1,000 of home value: $0.67

How Craven County compares

Set against its state, Craven County's median bill of $1,372 is about 24% lower than the North Carolina median ($1,815). Against the country as a whole it is about 54% lower than the US median ($2,969). That places the county #39 of 100 North Carolina counties ranked by median taxes paid.

Remember what drives the ranking: bills follow home values as much as rates. Craven County's median home, at $206,200, ranks #50 by value in North Carolina, while its derived rate of 0.67% compares with a derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Craven County: the median bill works out to about $114 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $665 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 101,074 people — the #28 most populous county in North Carolina, spread over 706 square miles, a density of about 143 people per square mile. Its median home value, $206,200, ranks #50 among the state's 100 counties with data.

Nationally, Craven County's median bill of $1,372 ranks #1834 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 59% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 1.0% of North Carolina's population, its median home value is about 21% below the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 6.65% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Craven County to the most expensive county, Orange County ($4,105), is $2,733 a year.

Counties nearest Craven County in the North Carolina ranking

Craven County and its population peers

Population is a useful lens on these figures, so the table below sets Craven 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, Craven County's $1,372 bill is the lowest.

The closest population match is Columbiana County, Ohio (101,203 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $1,488 on a median home value of $139,100 — $116 less than Craven County pays.

Staying within North Carolina, the counties nearest Craven County by population are Robeson County (116,858 residents, median tax $799 on a median value of $88,600); Moore County (102,840 residents, median tax $1,784 on a median value of $315,300); Cleveland County (100,170 residents, median tax $1,240 on a median value of $180,200); Nash County (95,451 residents, median tax $1,320 on a median value of $171,100). 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 0.67%, each $100,000 of value corresponds to about $665 of tax a year, and a $400,000 home to roughly $2,660. 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 Craven County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 0.67% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Craven County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 0.70% 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 Craven County

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

• Cleveland County, NC — $1,240
• Moore County, NC — $1,784
• Nash County, NC — $1,320
• Rockingham County, NC — $1,230
• Lincoln County, NC — $1,660
• Burke County, NC — $1,191

Frequently asked questions