Property Tax in Grand Forks County, North Dakota

What the Grand Forks County numbers mean

A median is the middle household: half of owner-occupied households in Grand Forks County pay more than $2,754, 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 1.13% for Grand Forks 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.

Grand Forks County by the numbers

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

Grand Forks County at a glance

• Median tax rank in North Dakota: #4 of 53 counties
• Median home value rank in North Dakota: #9 of 53
• Population rank in North Dakota: #3 of 53 (72,764 residents)
• Population density rank: #3 of 53 (51 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in North Dakota: #17 of 53 (1,436 sq mi, 2.1% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $230; per $1,000 of home value: $1.13

How Grand Forks County compares

Set against its state, Grand Forks County's median bill of $2,754 is about 15% higher than the North Dakota median ($2,392). Against the country as a whole it is about 7% lower than the US median ($2,969). That places the county #4 of 53 North Dakota counties ranked by median taxes paid.

Remember what drives the ranking: bills follow home values as much as rates. Grand Forks County's median home, at $244,200, ranks #9 by value in North Dakota, while its derived rate of 1.13% compares with a derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Grand Forks County: the median bill works out to about $230 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $1,128 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 72,764 people — the #3 most populous county in North Dakota, spread over 1,436 square miles, a density of about 51 people per square mile. Its median home value, $244,200, ranks #9 among the state's 53 counties with data.

Nationally, Grand Forks County's median bill of $2,754 ranks #547 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 17% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 9.3% of North Dakota's population, its median home value is about 1% above the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 11.28% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Grand Forks County to the most expensive county, Cass County ($3,449), is $695 a year.

Counties nearest Grand Forks County in the North Dakota ranking

Grand Forks County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Grand Forks County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 72,764 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Grand Forks County's median bill of $2,754 is #3 of 9.

The closest population match is Boone County, Indiana (72,827 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $2,725 on a median home value of $341,800 — $29 more than Grand Forks County pays.

Inside North Dakota itself, the counties closest to Grand Forks County in population are Cass County (189,286 residents, median tax $3,449 on a median value of $284,700); Burleigh County (98,986 residents, median tax $2,764 on a median value of $314,700); Ward County (69,232 residents, median tax $2,785 on a median value of $259,100); Williams County (39,368 residents, median tax $1,913 on a median value of $267,800). 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

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 1.13%, each $100,000 of value corresponds to about $1,128 of tax a year, and a $400,000 home to roughly $4,512. 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 Grand Forks County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 1.13% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Grand Forks County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 0.99% 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 Grand Forks County

Believe your assessment is too high? The practical order of attack is: obtain your record card and audit it line by line; collect comparable recent sales in Grand Forks County; ask the assessor's office to correct anything plainly wrong; and, if the value still seems off, lodge a formal appeal ahead of the deadline printed on your assessment notice. Windows are short — often 30 to 90 days — and late appeals are usually rejected outright, however strong the case.

More North Dakota counties

• Ward County, ND — $2,785
• Burleigh County, ND — $2,764
• Williams County, ND — $1,913
• Morton County, ND — $2,562
• Stark County, ND — $2,398
• Stutsman County, ND — $2,193

Frequently asked questions