Property Tax in Indiana County, Pennsylvania

What the Indiana County numbers mean

The median is the midpoint of the county's actual bills: half of Indiana County homeowners pay more than $2,271 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 $145,400, the median bill works out to a derived effective rate of 1.56%. 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.

The key figures for Indiana 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.

Indiana County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Pennsylvania: #35 of 67 counties
• Median home value rank in Pennsylvania: #52 of 67
• Population rank in Pennsylvania: #34 of 67 (83,213 residents)
• Population density rank: #40 of 67 (101 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Pennsylvania: #20 of 67 (827 sq mi, 1.8% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $189; per $1,000 of home value: $1.56

How Indiana County compares

Of the 67 Pennsylvania counties with published data, 34 have a higher median property tax bill than Indiana County's $2,271, putting the county at #35 in the state. Its bill is about 30% lower than the state median of $3,241 and about 24% 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 1.56%, versus 0.98% derived nationally, and the median home value ranks #52 within Pennsylvania.

Some extra context for Indiana County: the median bill works out to about $189 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $1,562 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 83,213 people — the #34 most populous county in Pennsylvania, spread over 827 square miles, a density of about 101 people per square mile. Its median home value, $145,400, ranks #52 among the state's 67 counties with data.

Zooming out: of 3133 counties nationwide with published Census figures, only 854 record a higher median tax bill than Indiana County — it sits in the top 27% nationally. The county holds roughly 0.6% of Pennsylvania's people. Its homes are worth less than the state norm (median $145,400 versus $240,500), and a decade at the derived rate of 1.56% adds up to about 15.62% of the median home's value in tax. The cheapest county in the state, Forest County, medians $1,162 — $1,109 less than Indiana County per year.

Counties nearest Indiana County in the Pennsylvania ranking

Indiana County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Indiana County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 83,213 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Indiana County's median bill of $2,271 is #3 of 9.

The closest population match is Bullitt County, Kentucky (83,209 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $1,994 on a median home value of $233,700 — $277 more than Indiana County pays.

Staying within Pennsylvania, the counties nearest Indiana County by population are Northumberland County (90,925 residents, median tax $1,778 on a median value of $151,600); Lawrence County (85,423 residents, median tax $1,983 on a median value of $136,700); Crawford County (83,189 residents, median tax $2,099 on a median value of $143,400); Clearfield County (78,902 residents, median tax $1,488 on a median value of $125,000). 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

Think of the final bill as three ingredients: the assessed value of the property, the exemptions subtracted from it, and the combined rate of every district the property sits in. Indiana County's medians imply a derived rate of 1.56%; applied illustratively, a $400,000 home would owe about $6,248 a year, or around $521 a month spread evenly. Individual properties depart from the illustration in both directions.

Illustrative bills in Indiana County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 1.56% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Indiana 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 Indiana County

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

• Crawford County, PA — $2,099
• Lawrence County, PA — $1,983
• Clearfield County, PA — $1,488
• Northumberland County, PA — $1,778
• Somerset County, PA — $1,449
• Carbon County, PA — $2,914

Frequently asked questions