Property Tax in Washington County, Utah

What the Washington County numbers mean

The median is the midpoint of the county's actual bills: half of Washington County homeowners pay more than $2,076 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 $465,600, the median bill works out to a derived effective rate of 0.45%. 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 Washington County

For context, the Utah medians are $2,412 of tax on $455,000 of value, and the US medians are $2,969 on $303,400. *Derived figures are estimates from Census medians, not official rates.

Washington County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Utah: #9 of 29 counties
• Median home value rank in Utah: #8 of 29
• Population rank in Utah: #5 of 29 (189,827 residents)
• Population density rank: #6 of 29 (78 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Utah: #15 of 29 (2,427 sq mi, 2.9% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $173; per $1,000 of home value: $0.45

How Washington County compares

Set against its state, Washington County's median bill of $2,076 is about 14% lower than the Utah median ($2,412). Against the country as a whole it is about 30% lower than the US median ($2,969). That places the county #9 of 29 Utah counties ranked by median taxes paid.

Remember what drives the ranking: bills follow home values as much as rates. Washington County's median home, at $465,600, ranks #8 by value in Utah, while its derived rate of 0.45% compares with a derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Washington County: the median bill works out to about $173 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $446 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 189,827 people — the #5 most populous county in Utah, spread over 2,427 square miles, a density of about 78 people per square mile. Its median home value, $465,600, ranks #8 among the state's 29 counties with data.

Nationally, Washington County's median bill of $2,076 ranks #1014 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 32% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 5.7% of Utah's population, its median home value is about 2% above the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 4.46% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Washington County to the most expensive county, Summit County ($3,469), is $1,393 a year.

Counties nearest Washington County in the Utah ranking

Washington County and its population peers

Population is a useful lens on these figures, so the table below sets Washington 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, Washington County's $2,076 bill is #6 of 9.

The closest population match is Cass County, North Dakota (189,286 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $3,449 on a median home value of $284,700 — $1,373 less than Washington County pays.

Staying within Utah, the counties nearest Washington County by population are Davis County (366,742 residents, median tax $2,546 on a median value of $470,500); Weber County (266,183 residents, median tax $2,415 on a median value of $389,200); Cache County (137,031 residents, median tax $1,929 on a median value of $392,800); Tooele County (76,648 residents, median tax $2,303 on a median value of $391,300). 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

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 0.45%, each $100,000 of value corresponds to about $446 of tax a year, and a $400,000 home to roughly $1,784. 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 Washington County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 0.45% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Washington County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 0.53% 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 Washington 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 Washington 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 Utah counties

• Cache County, UT — $1,929
• Weber County, UT — $2,415
• Tooele County, UT — $2,303
• Iron County, UT — $1,444
• Box Elder County, UT — $1,828
• Summit County, UT — $3,469

Frequently asked questions