The short answer
Outside New York City, a typical homeowner in New York pays somewhere between 1.3% and 3% of market value a year in property tax, depending almost entirely on the school district. New York City is far lower, at roughly 0.7% to 0.8% for one- to three-family homes.
The rate printed on your bill won't help you compare places. Every New York town assesses at its own percentage of market value, from 100% in Buffalo and Rochester to 0.14% in the Town of Hempstead. So a "rate per $1,000 of assessed value" in Hempstead and one in Buffalo measure completely different things.
The fix is the full-value tax rate: tax per $1,000 of actual market value. That's what the tables below show. Divide by 10 to get a percent. A full-value rate of 22.31 means about 2.23% of what the house is worth.
Full-value tax rates in New York's cities
These are the combined county, city and school rates for fiscal years ending in 2025 (the 2024 assessment roll), the latest year the state has published. They don't include village taxes or special districts such as fire, library, water or sewer, which can add a dollar or two per $1,000 in some places.
| City | County | County | City | School | Total per $1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Binghamton | Broome | combined | 44.05 | ||
| Troy | Rensselaer | combined | 29.56 | ||
| Mount Vernon | Westchester | 3.20 | 9.98 | 15.80 | 28.98 |
| Utica | Oneida | 4.60 | 13.25 | 10.76 | 28.61 |
| Niagara Falls | Niagara | combined | 28.14 | ||
| Schenectady | Schenectady | 4.86 | 9.19 | 13.65 | 27.70 |
| Albany | Albany | 2.78 | 8.59 | 16.22 | 27.59 |
| White Plains | Westchester | 3.20 | 5.86 | 17.26 | 26.32 |
| New Rochelle | Westchester | 3.20 | 5.12 | 16.74 | 25.06 |
| Rochester | Monroe | 6.33 | 5.84 | 10.14 | 22.31 |
| Syracuse | Onondaga | 3.95 | 8.08 | 9.77 | 21.80 |
| Long Beach | Nassau | combined | 20.66 | ||
| Yonkers | Westchester | 3.20 | 6.33 | 10.52 | 20.05 |
| Buffalo | Erie | 3.72 | 5.36 | 3.77 | 12.85 |
On a $250,000 house, that's about $3,200 a year in Buffalo, $5,600 in Rochester, $6,900 in Albany and $11,000 in Binghamton before exemptions. Buffalo looks cheap partly because its school district is funded mostly through the city budget and state aid rather than a large separate school levy.
Two caveats. Buffalo, Rochester and several other cities use a "homestead" option that taxes homes at a lower rate than commercial property, so a homeowner's real rate can be somewhat lower than the blended figure above. And these figures are before STAR and other exemptions.
Long Island and suburban towns
In a town, your total depends on which school district you're in, and the gap between districts in the same town can be enormous. These are the county + town + school full-value rates per $1,000 for the 2024 roll:
| Town | County | Range across school districts | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hempstead | Nassau | 10.54 to 31.56 | Hempstead UFSD 15.59, East Meadow 23.33, Baldwin 26.23, Levittown 31.56 |
| North Hempstead | Nassau | 13.44 to 26.16 | Manhasset 13.44, Great Neck 13.82, Port Washington 18.26 |
| Oyster Bay | Nassau | 13.28 to 26.41 | Hicksville 16.65, Syosset 23.00, Massapequa 24.97, Plainedge 26.41 |
| Brookhaven | Suffolk | about 14.1 to 24.26 | Sachem 17.21, Longwood 20.37, Middle Country 20.39, Three Village 21.07 |
| Islip | Suffolk | 15.80 to 23.59 | Brentwood 15.80, Bay Shore 21.35, Islip UFSD 21.78, Central Islip 23.51 |
| Huntington | Suffolk | 14.70 to 20.33 | Northport 14.70, Half Hollow Hills 16.46, Huntington UFSD 16.77, Commack 20.33 |
| Babylon | Suffolk | 18.08 to 23.96 | Babylon UFSD 22.22, West Babylon 22.32, Lindenhurst 22.69 |
| Smithtown | Suffolk | n/a | Smithtown CSD 20.41 |
| Ramapo | Rockland | n/a | East Ramapo 16.19, Suffern 22.42 |
| Clarkstown | Rockland | n/a | Clarkstown CSD 25.85, Nanuet 29.90 |
| Amherst | Erie | n/a | Williamsville 21.25, Sweet Home 21.74, Amherst CSD 22.56 |
| Cheektowaga | Erie | 22.45 to 27.59 | |
| Greece | Monroe | n/a | Hilton 25.36, Spencerport 27.08, Greece CSD 28.15 |
| Colonie | Albany | n/a | North Colonie 18.74, South Colonie 19.82 |
In Hempstead alone, the same $600,000 house could owe about $6,300 or about $18,900 depending on which side of a school district line it sits. If you're shopping on Long Island, compare by school district, not by town. Our guide to how property taxes fund schools explains why the district matters so much.
Two more things about Long Island. Villages and special districts (fire, library, water, garbage) add more on top of these figures. And Nassau County taxes homes and commercial property differently under its class system, so a homeowner's real rate can differ from the blended number.
Why the assessed rate fools people
Here's how far apart New York's assessment levels are, using the state's 2025 equalization rates (the percentage of market value each place assesses at):
| Place | Assesses at about |
|---|---|
| Buffalo, Rochester | 100% of market value |
| Albany | 96% |
| Greece | 61% |
| Syracuse | 57.5% |
| Utica | 37% |
| Ramapo | 7.5% |
| Islip | 6.7% |
| Yonkers, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, White Plains | 1.7% to 2.2% |
| Babylon, Brookhaven, Huntington | 0.45% to 0.6% |
| Hempstead, Oyster Bay | 0.12% to 0.14% |
In Brookhaven, where homes are assessed at under half a percent of value, the rate on the bill is several hundred dollars per $1,000 of assessed value. It looks alarming and means nothing on its own. To check your own home, divide your assessed value by your town's equalization rate (as a decimal) to get the market value the town thinks you have. If that number is well above what you could sell for, you may have grounds to grieve.
New York City is different
NYC has four property classes with separate rates. For fiscal year 2026 (July 2025 to June 2026) they are:
| Class | What it covers | FY2026 rate | FY2025 rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | 1–3 family homes | 19.843% | 20.085% |
| Class 2 | Co-ops, condos, rental buildings | 12.439% | 12.500% |
| Class 3 | Utilities | 11.108% | 11.181% |
| Class 4 | Commercial | 10.848% | 10.762% |
A 19.8% rate sounds brutal, but it applies to assessed value, and Class 1 homes are assessed at only 6% of market value. On top of that, a home's assessed value can rise no more than 6% a year or 20% over five years, so in most neighborhoods the taxable value is well below 6% of what the house would sell for.
Take a $500,000 house at the full 6%: $30,000 × 19.843% = about $5,950, or 1.19% of value. Most homeowners pay less than that because of the caps. Across the whole city, Class 1 homes have a combined market value of about $782 billion and an assessed value of about $27 billion, which works out to roughly 0.7% of market value before exemptions. That's why a house in Queens can pay less tax than a comparable house a few miles away in Nassau County. For ZIP-level detail, see our New York County page.
County comparison
The state's most recent county-wide figures (2021, all taxing purposes including villages and special districts) give a sense of the regional pattern, per $1,000 of full value:
| County | Full-value rate | County | Full-value rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broome (highest) | 42.40 | Albany | 27.40 |
| Monroe | 38.20 | Westchester | 27.20 |
| Nassau | 36.90 | Erie | 25.40 |
| Onondaga | 34.00 | Suffolk | 18.90 |
| Oneida | 31.90 | Hamilton (lowest) | 16.10 |
| Schenectady | 30.90 | All counties outside NYC | 27.70 |
| Rockland | 30.60 | New York City (Class 1) | 7.53 |
Upstate counties with lower home values carry the highest rates. Suffolk's rate is low because values are high and a lot of its tax base is expensive second homes on the East End.
How to lower your New York bill
- Get STAR. The Basic STAR credit is for homeowners with income of $500,000 or less. Enhanced STAR is for owners 65 or older with income of $110,750 or less for 2026 ($113,550 for 2027). New homeowners get STAR as a check from the state rather than as an exemption on the bill. Our guide to New York's senior freeze, STAR and SCHE covers all three programs.
- Grieve your assessment. In most towns and cities, Grievance Day is the fourth Tuesday in May (the third Tuesday in Suffolk towns). Westchester towns are usually in June, and Nassau's deadline is March 1. The RP-524 form has to be received by that day. A postmark doesn't count.
- In NYC, file with the Tax Commission. The 2026 deadlines were March 2 for Classes 2, 3 and 4 and March 16 for Class 1 homes. There are no extensions.
Our appeal guide explains what evidence works, and how to find comparable sales covers the hardest part.
Where these numbers come from
City and town full-value rates are from the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance dataset Real Property Tax Rates Levy Data by Municipality (fiscal years ending 2025; Long Beach and Glen Cove from the prior roll). Equalization rates and residential assessment ratios are the state's 2025 figures. County rates are from the Office of Real Property Tax Services' full-value tax rate reports (2021). NYC rates are from the NYC Department of Finance, and the citywide Class 1 values are from its FY2026 tentative assessment roll. STAR limits are from the Department of Taxation and Finance. For ZIP-level data, start from our New York page.