Property taxes in Seattle area ranked 10th highest in 2024

Property taxes in the Seattle metro area ranked 10th highest among 216 other U.S. metros with a population of at least 200,000, according to data from Attom, a leading provider of property and real estate data. Its report shows property taxes have jumped 57% since 2016.

This area’s average property tax bill in 2024 was $7,508, which was 80% higher than the national average. Collectively, owners of single family homes in the Seattle metro area paid $6.83 billion in property taxes.

Statewide, the average property tax homeowners paid last year was $5,767. That marked a 2.25% increase from 2023. Together, they paid more than $10.65 billion in property taxes in 2024.

Pierce County had the highest effective tax rate, at 0.89%. Despite that, the average property tax was higher in both King and Snohomish counties.

Attom’s data showed home values rose to $910,139 in 2024, up from the year prior when it was $900,764. Its analysis shows values peaked in 2022. Nationwide, the average home value was $486,456, up 4.8% from 2023.

Although Seattle’s effective tax rate fell from 2023 figure of 0.84% to 0.79%. Attom noted that rate is higher than other expensive metros, including Miami (0.77%), San Francisco (0.72%) and Honolulu (0.34%).

Bastrop County, located in Central Texas, and part of the Austin-Round Rock metro statistical area, had the country’s highest average property tax at $28,297. That far surpassed the runners up, Marin County in California, where homeowners paid an average of $15,881, and Essex County in New Jersey ($13,989).

In a news release, Attom CEO Rob Barber noted rising home values can influence property taxes, but they don’t automatically lead to higher bills for homeowners. “In many areas, we’ve seen taxes increase not just due to property appreciation, but also because of growing costs to operate local governments and schools or shifts in how tax burdens are distributed.”

Its 2024 property tax analysis covered 85.7 million U.S. single-family homes. It showed the average tax on these owners paid rose 2.7% from 2023, rising to last year’s average of $4,172.

Attom’s assessor data covers more than 155 million properties in more than 3,000 U.S. counties across the country. (New York was not included in the latest analysis due to “data availability limitations” from its third-party provider.

The company’s multi-sourced real estate data includes property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, neighborhood and geospatial boundary information. In addition to providing data, Attom publishes Housing News Report, a free publication with market insights and analysis.