Property Tax in Bradley County, Tennessee

What the Bradley County numbers mean

A median is the middle household: half of owner-occupied households in Bradley County pay more than $1,174, 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 0.51% for Bradley 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 Bradley County

For context, the Tennessee medians are $1,400 of tax on $256,800 of value, and the US medians are $2,969 on $303,400. *Derived figures are estimates from Census medians, not official rates.

Bradley County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Tennessee: #25 of 95 counties
• Median home value rank in Tennessee: #23 of 95
• Population rank in Tennessee: #13 of 95 (109,743 residents)
• Population density rank: #12 of 95 (334 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Tennessee: #67 of 95 (328 sq mi, 0.8% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $98; per $1,000 of home value: $0.51

How Bradley County compares

Of the 95 Tennessee counties with published data, 24 have a higher median property tax bill than Bradley County's $1,174, putting the county at #25 in the state. Its bill is about 16% lower than the state median of $1,400 and about 60% 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 0.51%, versus 0.98% derived nationally, and the median home value ranks #23 within Tennessee.

Some extra context for Bradley County: the median bill works out to about $98 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $509 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 109,743 people — the #13 most populous county in Tennessee, spread over 328 square miles, a density of about 334 people per square mile. Its median home value, $230,800, ranks #23 among the state's 95 counties with data.

Zooming out: of 3133 counties nationwide with published Census figures, only 2144 record a higher median tax bill than Bradley County — it sits in the top 68% nationally. The county holds roughly 1.6% of Tennessee's people. Its homes are worth less than the state norm (median $230,800 versus $256,800), and a decade at the derived rate of 0.51% adds up to about 5.09% of the median home's value in tax. The cheapest county in the state, Fentress County, medians $519 — $655 less than Bradley County per year.

Counties nearest Bradley County in the Tennessee ranking

Bradley County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Bradley County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 109,743 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Bradley County's median bill of $1,174 is the lowest.

The closest population match is Mercer County, Pennsylvania (109,852 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $1,943 on a median home value of $153,600 — $769 less than Bradley County pays.

Staying within Tennessee, the counties nearest Bradley County by population are Blount County (137,747 residents, median tax $1,387 on a median value of $275,700); Washington County (134,693 residents, median tax $1,278 on a median value of $231,700); Maury County (104,855 residents, median tax $1,476 on a median value of $307,500); Madison County (98,845 residents, median tax $1,161 on a median value of $189,700). 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. Bradley County's medians imply a derived rate of 0.51%; applied illustratively, a $400,000 home would owe about $2,036 a year, or around $170 a month spread evenly. Individual properties depart from the illustration in both directions.

Illustrative bills in Bradley County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 0.51% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Bradley County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 0.55% 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 Bradley 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 Bradley 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 Tennessee counties

• Maury County, TN — $1,476
• Madison County, TN — $1,161
• Sevier County, TN — $815
• Washington County, TN — $1,278
• Blount County, TN — $1,387
• Putnam County, TN — $1,299

Frequently asked questions