Property Tax in Greene County, Tennessee

What the Greene County numbers mean

A median is the middle household: half of owner-occupied households in Greene County pay more than $803, 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 0.43% for Greene 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.

Greene County by the numbers

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

Greene County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Tennessee: #62 of 95 counties
• Median home value rank in Tennessee: #47 of 95
• Population rank in Tennessee: #20 of 95 (70,919 residents)
• Population density rank: #30 of 95 (114 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Tennessee: #7 of 95 (622 sq mi, 1.5% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $67; per $1,000 of home value: $0.43

How Greene County compares

Set against its state, Greene County's median bill of $803 is about 43% lower than the Tennessee median ($1,400). Against the country as a whole it is about 73% lower than the US median ($2,969). That places the county #62 of 95 Tennessee counties ranked by median taxes paid.

Remember what drives the ranking: bills follow home values as much as rates. Greene County's median home, at $186,400, ranks #47 by value in Tennessee, while its derived rate of 0.43% compares with a derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Greene County: the median bill works out to about $67 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $431 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 70,919 people — the #20 most populous county in Tennessee, spread over 622 square miles, a density of about 114 people per square mile. Its median home value, $186,400, ranks #47 among the state's 95 counties with data.

Nationally, Greene County's median bill of $803 ranks #2650 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 85% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 1.0% of Tennessee's population, its median home value is about 27% below the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 4.31% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Greene County to the most expensive county, Williamson County ($2,891), is $2,088 a year.

Counties nearest Greene County in the Tennessee ranking

Greene County and its population peers

Population is a useful lens on these figures, so the table below sets Greene County beside the counties closest to it in population anywhere in the country — communities of a similar scale operating under different state and local tax systems. Ranked by median tax paid within this peer group of 9, Greene County's $803 bill is the lowest.

The closest population match is Franklin County, Massachusetts (70,922 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $4,595 on a median home value of $303,400 — $3,792 less than Greene County pays.

Staying within Tennessee, the counties nearest Greene County by population are Anderson County (78,175 residents, median tax $1,333 on a median value of $215,800); Robertson County (74,291 residents, median tax $1,547 on a median value of $296,700); Hamblen County (64,930 residents, median tax $863 on a median value of $188,800); Cumberland County (62,529 residents, median tax $699 on a median value of $228,000). 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

As an illustration of the arithmetic: at Greene County's derived rate of 0.43%, a home valued at $400,000 would carry a tax bill of roughly $1,724 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 Greene County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 0.43% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Greene 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 Greene County

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

• Robertson County, TN — $1,547
• Hamblen County, TN — $863
• Anderson County, TN — $1,333
• Cumberland County, TN — $699
• Tipton County, TN — $1,158
• Putnam County, TN — $1,299

Frequently asked questions