Property Taxes in Wilmington
Wilmington's property tax picture is genuinely low on a blended-effective-rate basis (0.78%, per Ownwell, matching Delaware's own statewide median and below the ~1.02% national median) but structurally layered: property owners pay three separate, stacked levies -- the City of Wilmington, New Castle County, and a school district -- and the county layer is itself mid-adjustment following a real 2025 reassessment and a separate 2026 rate increase.
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Learn moreThe City's Own Rate
The City of Wilmington set its FY2025-2026 property tax rate at $3.7413 per $1,000 of assessed value for residential property (0.37413%) and $5.8276 per $1,000 for non-residential property (rental apartments, commercial, utility, and industrial), per the city's own approved ordinance.
New Castle County's Rate: Reassessed, Then Raised Again
New Castle County completed a real, court-ordered countywide property reassessment effective for tax year 2025, resetting unincorporated-area nominal rates to $0.1575 per $100 (residential) and $0.2380 per $100 (non-residential) -- sharply down in nominal-rate terms from a prior flat $0.8054 rate, though designed to be revenue-neutral overall since assessed values rose to offset the lower nominal rate. A separate, further 17% county tax-rate increase was approved in 2026 amid a wider county budget deficit, moving 2026 rates to $0.1846 per $100 (residential) and $0.279 per $100 (non-residential) -- layered ON TOP of the reassessment, not a reversal of it.
A Third Layer: The School District
Wilmington-area properties also pay a separate levy from their assigned public school district -- Red Clay Consolidated or Christina, depending on the specific address. Ownwell's own ZIP-code-level analysis found this school-district layer was the PRIMARY driver of the wide $929-to-$7,930 median-tax-bill range across Wilmington ZIP codes, not the city or county rates alone.
The Blended Effective Rate: A Real, Genuine Advantage
Ownwell's cited 0.78% median effective rate for Wilmington -- which blends all three layers into one comparable figure -- runs genuinely below this project's ~1.02% national comparison figure, and matches Ownwell's own cited Delaware statewide median exactly. This record uses that blended figure as its primary citation since none of the three individual layers alone represents what a typical Wilmington property owner actually pays.
Key takeaways
- Wilmington property tax is genuinely low on a blended basis (0.78% effective rate, per Ownwell) but structurally layered across three separate levies: city ($3.7413/$1,000 residential), county (reassessed for 2025, then raised 17% for 2026 to $0.1846/$100 residential), and school district.
- New Castle County's reassessment (2025) and separate rate increase (2026) mean a prior year's bill is not a reliable predictor of a current bill -- confirm the current combined rate directly.
- The assigned school district (Red Clay Consolidated or Christina) was cited as the primary driver of Wilmington's wide $929-$7,930 ZIP-code-level tax-bill range, not the city or county rates alone.
- Wilmington's 0.78% blended effective rate matches Delaware's own statewide median and runs below the ~1.02% national median -- a real, genuine advantage.
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