Property Tax in Pitt County, North Carolina

What the Pitt County numbers mean

The median is the midpoint of the county's actual bills: half of Pitt County homeowners pay more than $1,649 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 $194,300, the median bill works out to a derived effective rate of 0.85%. 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.

Pitt County by the numbers

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

Pitt County at a glance

• Median tax rank in North Carolina: #26 of 100 counties
• Median home value rank in North Carolina: #56 of 100
• Population rank in North Carolina: #16 of 100 (172,279 residents)
• Population density rank: #22 of 100 (264 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in North Carolina: #21 of 100 (652 sq mi, 1.3% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $137; per $1,000 of home value: $0.85

How Pitt County compares

Of the 100 North Carolina counties with published data, 25 have a higher median property tax bill than Pitt County's $1,649, putting the county at #26 in the state. Its bill is about 9% lower than the state median of $1,815 and about 44% 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 0.85%, versus 0.98% derived nationally, and the median home value ranks #56 within North Carolina.

Some extra context for Pitt County: the median bill works out to about $137 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $849 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 172,279 people — the #16 most populous county in North Carolina, spread over 652 square miles, a density of about 264 people per square mile. Its median home value, $194,300, ranks #56 among the state's 100 counties with data.

Nationally, Pitt County's median bill of $1,649 ranks #1453 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 46% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 1.6% of North Carolina's population, its median home value is about 25% below the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 8.49% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Pitt County to the most expensive county, Orange County ($4,105), is $2,456 a year.

Counties nearest Pitt County in the North Carolina ranking

Pitt County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Pitt County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 172,279 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Pitt County's median bill of $1,649 is #6 of 9.

The closest population match is Aiken County, South Carolina (171,949 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $862 on a median home value of $199,500 — $787 more than Pitt County pays.

Staying within North Carolina, the counties nearest Pitt County by population are Iredell County (191,800 residents, median tax $1,843 on a median value of $292,300); Alamance County (174,286 residents, median tax $1,440 on a median value of $221,200); Davidson County (171,063 residents, median tax $1,262 on a median value of $200,100); Catawba County (162,051 residents, median tax $1,319 on a median value of $218,100). 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

As an illustration of the arithmetic: at Pitt County's derived rate of 0.85%, a home valued at $400,000 would carry a tax bill of roughly $3,396 a year. That is only an illustration using the derived rate — a real bill is computed from the property's assessed value, its exemptions, and the combined rates of its specific taxing districts, so it can be higher or lower.

The usual sequence is: the local assessor values the property; exemptions are applied; the taxable value is multiplied by the combined local rates; and the county bills and collects the tax, distributing it to the schools, municipalities and districts that levied it.

Illustrative bills in Pitt County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 0.85% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Pitt 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 Pitt 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 Pitt 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 North Carolina counties

• Davidson County, NC — $1,262
• Alamance County, NC — $1,440
• Catawba County, NC — $1,319
• Iredell County, NC — $1,843
• Rowan County, NC — $1,411
• Orange County, NC — $4,105

Frequently asked questions