Property Taxes in Virginia
Virginia's property taxes are a genuine, modest statewide positive -- a 0.78% effective average that sits below the national average without being dramatically low -- but with real, disclosed county/city-level variation nearly threefold wide, from Brunswick and Lunenburg counties' roughly 0.40% up to the city of Falls Church's roughly 1.15%.
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Learn moreA modest, below-national-average statewide effective rate
Virginia's statewide average effective property tax rate runs roughly 0.78% (Tax Foundation, 2026) on owner-occupied housing value -- below commonly cited national average figures (roughly 0.90%-1.08% depending on source) without being dramatically low the way Colorado's (~0.50%) or South Carolina's (~0.51%) rates are in this dataset. It sits close to Georgia's 0.79%, which received the same LOW_PROPERTY_TAX tag treatment.
Real, disclosed county/city variation -- confirm your specific target locality
County/city-level rates range from roughly 0.40% in Brunswick and Lunenburg counties up to roughly 1.15% in the independent city of Falls Church -- a nearly threefold spread that a single statewide figure does not capture. This range comes from a single secondary aggregator (propertytaxrates.org) not independently re-verified against a primary Virginia Dept. of Taxation dataset, and should be treated as directional rather than precise. Confirm your specific target locality's current rate directly with the local assessor.
The median Virginia homeowner pays a real, modest annual amount
The same source cites a $2,686 median annual property tax paid statewide (2026) -- a directional figure, not independently re-verified, but broadly consistent with Virginia's below-national-average effective rate.
Property tax is one piece of a genuinely regional Virginia tax picture
A comparatively low property-tax bill in a rural Southside Virginia county does not offset Northern Virginia's real housing-price premium, nor does Falls Church's higher rate offset its access to the DC-commuter-belt job market -- confirm your target locality's specific property-tax rate alongside its housing costs, not property tax in isolation.
Key takeaways
- Virginia's statewide average effective property tax rate is roughly 0.78% -- below the national average without being dramatically low.
- County/city rates range roughly 0.40% (Brunswick and Lunenburg counties) to roughly 1.15% (Falls Church) -- a nearly threefold spread; confirm your specific target locality directly.
- The cited $2,686 median annual property tax paid statewide is a single-source, directional figure, not independently re-verified against a primary state dataset.
- Weigh your target locality's specific property-tax rate alongside its housing costs and regional job market, not in isolation.
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Get local guidanceRead the full Virginia overview for the complete picture, or explore individual cities and towns we've researched.
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