A typical Oregon owner-occupant pays $3,876 a year in property tax on a home worth $477,600, a ratio of 0.81 percent, per Census survey responses gathered from 2020 through 2024. Among the 36 counties that ratio runs from 0.48 percent in Curry County on the south coast to 1.01 percent in Gilliam County, with Multnomah (0.96 percent) the highest of the large metro counties. The calculator takes your county’s median payment, divides it by the median home value there, applies that share to your number, and lists the local median payment beside it. Enter real market value, meaning a realistic sale price or the RMV printed on your statement, never the much smaller assessed value.
Two examples. A $500,000 house in Multnomah County, home to most of Portland, at 0.96 percent comes to $4,800 a year, or $400 a month, which is $501 less than the county’s $5,301 median bill. A $650,000 house in Deschutes County, which includes Bend, at 0.58 percent works out to $3,770 a year, $314.17 a month, and just $37 under the local median of $3,807. Your own statement can land well away from either county average, for a reason explained next.
Oregon Property Tax Calculator (2027)
Select any of the 36 counties and key in what the home would sell for; the tool returns a yearly and monthly figure drawn from what owner-occupants in that county actually report paying, plus the local median bill. Source: Census Bureau ACS 2024 five-year survey.
A planning figure, not your statement. The math multiplies the value you enter by one ratio: the county's median real estate payment over its median owner-occupied home value (Census ACS 2024 five-year). Your own bill is set another way, as assessed value times the consolidated levy of your six to twelve taxing districts, trimmed where Measure 5 limits bite. Because assessed value is frozen to a 1997 baseline plus 3 percent a year and passes to the buyer at a sale, two houses of equal price in one county can owe very different amounts; new construction starts at market value times the changed property ratio. Not modeled: the disabled veteran and surviving spouse exemption ($27,092 or $32,512 of assessed value for 2026-27), the senior and disabled deferral, the 3 percent early payment discount, and new bonds or local option levies. The county assessor answers value questions; the county tax collector states the amount due.
Your Price Is Not Your Tax Base: Measure 50 Assessed Value
Measure 50, approved in 1997, set every property’s maximum assessed value (MAV) at 90 percent of its 1995-96 real market value and has limited MAV growth to 3 percent a year ever since, unless the property is improved or rezoned. Your assessed value (AV) is whichever is lower, MAV or real market value (RMV), and that AV is what district rates are multiplied by.
Market prices have outrun 3 percent in most years, so the two numbers drifted apart. The Oregon Department of Revenue reports statewide assessed value at 0.536 of market value for fiscal 2025-26. Taxes can still climb faster than 3 percent: levies imposed statewide grew 5.6 percent that year to $10.07 billion, as voters added bonds and local option levies and new construction joined the rolls.
Buying a Home Hands You the Seller’s Assessed Value
Oregon does not reassess at a sale. As the Multnomah County assessor puts it, values and taxes are tied to the property, not the owner. A buyer steps into the seller’s MAV and its 3 percent path, whatever the purchase price.
So two houses with equal prices in one county can get very different statements: a home in a neighborhood that has boomed since 1995 carries a low AV relative to its price, while one in a lagging area may sit near market value. New construction is handled differently. The assessor multiplies its first RMV by the county’s changed property ratio (CPR), the average MAV to RMV ratio for that class of property, so a new house joins the roll at roughly the local average discount rather than at full price.
Measure 5 Limits, Compression, and Who Levies
Measure 5, which took effect in 1991-92, caps operating taxes on each property at $5 per $1,000 of RMV for schools and $10 per $1,000 of RMV for general government. On a home with an RMV of $400,000, school operating levies cannot exceed $2,000 and all other operating levies cannot exceed $4,000. Voter-approved bonds sit outside both ceilings. When a property’s taxes would exceed a limit, local option levies are reduced first, then permanent rates shrink proportionately. This compression cut statewide taxes by $215 million in 2025-26, almost all of the general government share inside cities.
There is no state property tax. According to the department, 1,223 districts imposed levies in 2025-26, and most homes sit inside six to 12 of them. K-12 schools and education service districts took 41 percent, cities 21 percent, counties 17 percent, community colleges 4 percent, and special districts such as fire and library 15 percent. Permanent rates, which Measure 50 froze for good, supplied 73 percent.
County Ratios From Curry to Gilliam
Twenty-four counties fall below the 0.81 percent statewide ratio, 10 sit above it, and Lincoln and Morrow match it; the middle county ratio is 0.745 percent. After Curry, the lowest ratios belong to Josephine (0.52), Hood River (0.53), Wallowa (0.57), and Deschutes (0.58). Several of these are places where prices have raced ahead of the 3 percent cap: department figures put total assessed value at just 42 percent of market value in Deschutes and 45 percent in Hood River for 2025-26, against 54 percent statewide. At $400,000, the Curry ratio produces $1,920 a year and the Gilliam ratio $4,040.
The high end is mostly the Willamette Valley and Portland area: Multnomah 0.96, Benton 0.95, Linn 0.87, Clackamas 0.85, and both Marion and Washington at 0.84, joined by Umatilla at 0.90 in the northeast. Gilliam tops the list, but it is a small county where the median home is worth only $189,300, so its $1,904 median bill is modest in dollars. Multnomah owners report the largest median bill in the state, $5,301, with Clackamas close behind at $5,171 on a median value of $611,000.
The department’s own county averages cover every class of taxable property, business and farm land included. For 2025-26 it lists $12.03 per $1,000 of RMV in Multnomah, $6.98 in Deschutes, and $4.98 in Curry, against $9.40 statewide, or $17.52 per $1,000 of assessed value. The ranking broadly tracks the Census ratios, which remain the closer match for a homeowner.
No Homestead Exemption: Veterans and the Senior Deferral
The Department of Revenue states that Oregon has no general homestead exemption and no exemption based only on age or income. The main break goes to veterans certified at least 40 percent disabled and to their unremarried surviving spouses or partners. The exemption is $27,092 of assessed value, or $32,512 for a service-connected disability, on the claim form revised in November 2025 for the 2026-27 tax year, and it rises 3 percent each year. At the statewide average of $17.52 per $1,000 of AV, those amounts are worth about $474.65 and $569.61 a year. File with the county assessor by April 1. Deployed Guard and Reserve members can claim a partial exemption too.
Homeowners 62 and older, or of any age if they receive Social Security disability benefits, may qualify for tax deferral instead. The state pays the county and charges 6 percent simple interest; nothing is due until the owner dies, sells, or moves out. The household income limit is $70,000 for 2026, applications run January 1 through April 15 with late filing allowed for a fee, and a property value cap applies. Both programs are scheduled to sunset in 2032.
Appealing Real Market Value to the Property Value Appeals Board
You cannot appeal the Measure 50 arithmetic itself, only the RMV the assessor assigned as of January 1. That matters only when RMV falls below MAV, since AV is the lower of the two, or when an exemption or special assessment is at stake. Petitions go to the county Property Value Appeals Board, called the Board of Property Tax Appeals until House Bill 2031 renamed it on January 1, 2024. File between the date your statement is delivered (by October 25) and December 31 (or the next business day). Fees vary by county: Washington County charges nothing, while Lincoln County has charged $52 per petition since July 1, 2026.
If the board rules against you, file a complaint with the Magistrate Division of the Oregon Tax Court within 30 days of the date its order is mailed or handed to you.
November 15 Trimesters, the 3 Percent Discount, and Foreclosure
Values are set as of January 1, taxes become a lien on July 1, and county tax collectors mail statements by October 25. Pay in full by November 15 and you get a 3 percent discount; pay two-thirds by then and the discount is 2 percent. Otherwise, pay one-third each on November 15, February 15, and May 15. On the $4,800 Multnomah example, paying in full saves $144.
Late amounts accrue interest of 1.33 percent a month, 16 percent a year. If a bill stays unpaid for three years from the start of delinquency, the county begins foreclosure.
What 2027 Brings and When These Ratios Refresh
Statements arriving in October 2026 and October 2027 will again carry MAV growth of up to 3 percent plus whatever bonds and local options voters approve, and the veteran exemption will rise another 3 percent. The Census ratios here come from the ACS 2024 five-year release, covering bills from roughly 2020 through 2024, and will be updated when the next five-year estimates appear. For your own figure, ask the county assessor about value and exemptions and the county tax collector about the amount owed.
Sources: Census Bureau ACS 2024 five-year data (tables B25103 and B25077); Oregon Department of Revenue, Oregon Property Tax Statistics, Fiscal Year 2025-26; Oregon Department of Revenue exemption, deferral, and appeals guidance; county assessor and Property Value Appeals Board pages. Verify your bill with your county assessor and tax collector.