Property Tax in Winnebago County, Wisconsin

What the Winnebago County numbers mean

The median is the midpoint of the county's actual bills: half of Winnebago County homeowners pay more than $3,573 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 $208,600, the median bill works out to a derived effective rate of 1.71%. 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 Winnebago County

For context, the Wisconsin medians are $3,746 of tax on $247,400 of value, and the US medians are $2,969 on $303,400. *Derived figures are estimates from Census medians, not official rates.

Winnebago County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Wisconsin: #21 of 72 counties
• Median home value rank in Wisconsin: #38 of 72
• Population rank in Wisconsin: #7 of 72 (171,357 residents)
• Population density rank: #8 of 72 (394 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Wisconsin: #62 of 72 (434 sq mi, 0.8% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $298; per $1,000 of home value: $1.71

How Winnebago County compares

The median tax bill in Winnebago County is about 5% lower than the state median ($3,746 for Wisconsin) and about 20% higher than the US median ($2,969 nationally). By median taxes paid, the county ranks #21 out of 72 Wisconsin counties with published Census data — 20 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. Winnebago County's derived rate of 1.71% sits above the derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Winnebago County: the median bill works out to about $298 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $1,713 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 171,357 people — the #7 most populous county in Wisconsin, spread over 434 square miles, a density of about 394 people per square mile. Its median home value, $208,600, ranks #38 among the state's 72 counties with data.

Nationally, Winnebago County's median bill of $3,573 ranks #297 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 9% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 2.9% of Wisconsin's population, its median home value is about 16% below the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 17.13% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Winnebago County to the most expensive county, Dane County ($6,276), is $2,703 a year.

Counties nearest Winnebago County in the Wisconsin ranking

Winnebago County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Winnebago County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 171,357 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Winnebago County's median bill of $3,573 is #4 of 9.

The closest population match is Midland County, Texas (171,496 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $3,697 on a median home value of $293,000 — $124 less than Winnebago County pays.

Staying within Wisconsin, the counties nearest Winnebago County by population are Racine County (196,888 residents, median tax $4,071 on a median value of $239,400); Outagamie County (191,537 residents, median tax $3,580 on a median value of $244,100); Kenosha County (168,413 residents, median tax $4,180 on a median value of $247,800); Rock County (163,944 residents, median tax $3,652 on a median value of $215,900). 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 1.71%, each $100,000 of value corresponds to about $1,713 of tax a year, and a $400,000 home to roughly $6,852. 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 Winnebago County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 1.71% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Winnebago County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 1.51% 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 Winnebago County

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

• Kenosha County, WI — $4,180
• Rock County, WI — $3,652
• Outagamie County, WI — $3,580
• Racine County, WI — $4,071
• Marathon County, WI — $3,108
• Washington County, WI — $3,795

Frequently asked questions