Property Tax in Blair County, Pennsylvania

What the Blair County numbers mean

A median is the middle household: half of owner-occupied households in Blair County pay more than $1,711, 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 1.09% for Blair 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.

The key figures for Blair County

For context, the Pennsylvania medians are $3,241 of tax on $240,500 of value, and the US medians are $2,969 on $303,400. *Derived figures are estimates from Census medians, not official rates.

Blair County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Pennsylvania: #53 of 67 counties
• Median home value rank in Pennsylvania: #45 of 67
• Population rank in Pennsylvania: #28 of 67 (121,854 residents)
• Population density rank: #24 of 67 (232 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Pennsylvania: #43 of 67 (525 sq mi, 1.2% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $143; per $1,000 of home value: $1.09

How Blair County compares

The median tax bill in Blair County is about 47% lower than the state median ($3,241 for Pennsylvania) and about 42% lower than the US median ($2,969 nationally). By median taxes paid, the county ranks #53 out of 67 Pennsylvania counties with published Census data — 52 counties in the state have a higher median bill.

Comparisons cut both ways: a county can have a modest rate but high bills because homes are expensive, or a high rate but modest bills because homes are cheaper. Blair County's derived rate of 1.09% sits above the derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Blair County: the median bill works out to about $143 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $1,092 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 121,854 people — the #28 most populous county in Pennsylvania, spread over 525 square miles, a density of about 232 people per square mile. Its median home value, $156,700, ranks #45 among the state's 67 counties with data.

Nationally, Blair County's median bill of $1,711 ranks #1375 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 44% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 0.9% of Pennsylvania's population, its median home value is about 35% below the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 10.92% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Blair County to the most expensive county, Chester County ($6,191), is $4,480 a year.

Counties nearest Blair County in the Pennsylvania ranking

Blair County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Blair County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 121,854 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Blair County's median bill of $1,711 is #4 of 9.

The closest population match is Flagler County, Florida (121,710 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $2,628 on a median home value of $333,400 — $917 less than Blair County pays.

Staying within Pennsylvania, the counties nearest Blair County by population are Cambria County (132,355 residents, median tax $1,487 on a median value of $115,900); Fayette County (126,967 residents, median tax $1,516 on a median value of $126,900); Lycoming County (113,570 residents, median tax $2,647 on a median value of $195,600); Mercer County (109,852 residents, median tax $1,943 on a median value of $153,600). 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 Blair County's derived rate of 1.09%, a home valued at $400,000 would carry a tax bill of roughly $4,368 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 Blair County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 1.09% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Blair County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 1.35% 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 Blair 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 Blair 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 Pennsylvania counties

• Fayette County, PA — $1,516
• Lycoming County, PA — $2,647
• Cambria County, PA — $1,487
• Mercer County, PA — $1,943
• Adams County, PA — $3,569
• Schuylkill County, PA — $2,147

Frequently asked questions