Travis Bunn
Founder, AppealDesk · Published March 1, 2026
How Much Can Property Taxes Increase in North Carolina? 2026 Complete Guide
Updated July 2026
Quick Answer
North Carolina has no cap on how much your assessed value can rise and no statewide limit on how much local governments can raise the tax levy or rate. Property is assessed at market value, and under G.S. 105-286 every county must conduct a general reappraisal at least once every 8 years, with many counties choosing shorter cycles. Two things changed in 2026: Session Law 2026-8 (Senate Bill 889) froze the reappraisals that took effect January 1, 2026 for one year, and a constitutional amendment on the November 2026 ballot would require the legislature to enact levy limits for the first time.
The only standing relief is targeted programs like the elderly and disabled homestead exclusion, plus your right to appeal the assessed value itself.
Most homeowners never challenge their assessment, usually because nobody tells them they can or shows them how. That gap is the whole reason AppealDesk exists: see what your county has your home on record at, free, and if the number looks wrong we build the case for $49.
Is There a Cap on Property Tax Increases in North Carolina?
No. North Carolina caps neither side of the property tax equation. On the assessment side, your home is valued at market value, and there is no annual limit on how much that assessed value can jump when your county revalues. On the levy side, counties and municipalities face no statewide restriction on how much revenue they collect from property taxes or how high they set the rate. If your county revalues and your assessment rises sharply, nothing in state law softens that number, and nothing requires your county commissioners to lower the rate to offset it.
This puts North Carolina in a different category from cap states like California, where assessed value growth is limited to 2 percent per year, or Texas, where homesteads get a 10 percent annual appraisal cap. North Carolina homeowners have no ownership-tenure protection of any kind: there is no cap that applies while you hold the property and then resets when it sells, because there is no cap at all. Any protection you get comes from targeted exclusions or from challenging the assessed value directly.
That no-limit status is exactly why the November 2026 ballot matters. House Bill 1089, now Session Law 2026-5, places a constitutional amendment before voters that would amend Article V, Section 2 to require the General Assembly to enact limits on how much local government property tax levies can increase. The details would be left to later legislation, but if voters approve it, North Carolina would stop being a no-levy-limit state. More on that below.
How Much Do Property Taxes Go Up Each Year?
In a year with no reappraisal, your assessed value stays where it is, and your bill only moves if your county, city, or a special district such as a fire district changes its tax rate. Local boards set those rates each summer as part of the budget process, so a typical year-over-year change is whatever your local rate change works out to.
Reappraisal years are the exception, and they are where the large jumps happen. When a county conducts its general reappraisal, every parcel gets a new market value at once, reflecting years of accumulated appreciation rather than a single year of it. A county coming off a long cycle in a fast-appreciating market can hand homeowners a very large percentage increase in one step. Whether that increase reaches your bill depends on what your county does with the rate afterward, and that is a local budget decision, not a legal formula.
The arithmetic is simple. Your bill is assessed value times the combined local rate, minus any exclusions. If a $300,000 assessment rises 50 percent to $450,000 at reappraisal and the rate does not change, the bill rises 50 percent too. Every dollar of that increase traces back to one number: the assessed value the county put on your home.
Do Property Taxes Go Up Every Year in North Carolina?
Not automatically. Unlike states that adjust assessments annually, North Carolina holds your assessed value fixed between general reappraisals. G.S. 105-286 requires each county to reappraise real property at least once every 8 years, the octennial cycle, and counties may adopt a more frequent schedule by resolution. Many do, and 4-year cycles are common, but a shorter cycle is a county choice, not a statutory floor. The statutory rule is at least every 8 years.
There is one statutory trigger that forces an earlier reappraisal. Counties with a population of 75,000 or more must advance their reappraisal if the sales-assessment ratio drifts below 0.85 or above 1.15, meaning assessed values have fallen out of line with what homes are actually selling for. So in practice your assessment changes at reappraisal rather than every year, and North Carolina counties do not mail an annual assessment notice the way annual-assessment states do. The years in between are quiet, and then a revaluation year arrives carrying the whole accumulated change.
Caps and rate limits only control how fast your bill can grow. Nothing in them checks whether the number underneath is right. Assessors in North Carolina set values with mass-appraisal models that price thousands of homes at once, and nobody reviews yours unless you challenge it.
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NC Property Tax Increase: What Changed for 2026
2026 is the most consequential year for North Carolina property tax law in a long time, and two pieces of legislation drive it.
First, Session Law 2026-8, better known as Senate Bill 889, was signed June 19, 2026 and imposed a one-year moratorium on the county reappraisals that took effect January 1, 2026. Counties that revalued for 2026, a group that includes Buncombe, Guilford, Davidson, Harnett, Onslow and others, must instead use the schedule of values from their prior reappraisal for the 2026-27 fiscal year. For homeowners in those counties, the assessment increases that landed in early 2026 are paused for a year.
Second, Session Law 2026-5, House Bill 1089, puts a constitutional amendment on the November 2026 statewide ballot. If approved, it would require the General Assembly to enact limits on how much local property tax levies can increase. The amendment itself does not set the numbers; it obligates the legislature to write levy-limit legislation afterward. Together, the moratorium and the ballot measure signal that the era of fully uncapped North Carolina property taxes may be ending. As of mid-2026, though, no cap of any kind is in force.
NC Senate Bill 889: The 2026 Reappraisal Moratorium
Senate Bill 889 deserves its own explanation because it changes what many homeowners owe this year. The law targets one specific group: counties whose general reappraisal took effect January 1, 2026. Those counties must bill the 2026-27 fiscal year using the schedule of values from their previous reappraisal, not the new 2026 numbers. If you live in an affected county and watched your assessment jump this spring, your upcoming bill should be figured from the older value.
The moratorium is a one-year pause, not a cancellation. The 2026 revaluations still exist, and homeowners should expect them to come back into play when the pause ends. That makes this year useful preparation time. Reporting on the bill also describes an extended appeal window for those 2026 revaluations running through 2027, which would give affected homeowners an unusually long runway to challenge a 2026 value before it starts driving their bill. Confirm with your county assessor how your county is administering that window, since implementation details are local.
What Is North Carolina's Average Property Tax Rate in 2026?
There is no single statewide rate, because North Carolina property taxes are entirely local. Your effective rate is the sum of the rates set by your county, plus your municipality if you live in one, plus any special districts. Rates are expressed per $100 of assessed value and vary widely from county to county and town to town, so two homes with identical assessments in different places can owe very different amounts.
The mechanics work like this. A home assessed at $300,000 in a jurisdiction with a combined rate of $0.80 per $100 of value owes $2,400 before any exclusions. The same home at a combined $1.20 rate owes $3,600. To find your actual 2026 rate, look up your county's adopted budget or read your most recent tax bill, which itemizes each taxing unit's rate. Be cautious with any "average North Carolina rate" figure you find online: many are stale, and in a year when SB 889 froze some counties' values while others continue on their existing schedules, a statewide average tells you very little about your own bill.
What Makes Your Property Taxes Go Up?
Three levers move a North Carolina tax bill. The first is revaluation: a general reappraisal resets your assessed value to current market value, and in an appreciating market that is the single largest driver of increases. The second is rate changes: county commissioners, town councils, and special districts adopt rates each year, and a rate increase raises every bill in the jurisdiction even when assessments are flat. The third is changes to the property itself. Additions, finished basements, garages, and other permitted improvements add value that the assessor picks up, so a major renovation can raise your assessment between general reappraisals. Routine maintenance and repair are not supposed to move your value.
Losing an exclusion matters too. The elderly and disabled homestead exclusion removes the greater of $25,000 or 50 percent of the appraised value of a permanent residence from taxation, for owners who are 65 or older or totally and permanently disabled and whose income falls under the limit, which was $38,800 for 2025 and is indexed annually. For a qualifying owner of a $300,000 home, that exclusion shields $150,000 of value, half the taxable base. If income rises past the limit or eligibility lapses, the full value comes back onto the books and the bill jumps accordingly. If you might qualify, apply through your county assessor. It is the most substantial standing relief North Carolina offers.
Will Property Taxes Go Down in 2026?
For one specific group, effectively yes. Homeowners in counties covered by the SB 889 moratorium will be billed on their prior, lower schedule of values for the 2026-27 fiscal year instead of the new 2026 revaluation numbers, which blunts what would otherwise have been a significant increase. That is a real, legislated reduction relative to what those bills were about to become.
For everyone else, the honest answer is that a bill goes down when a rate cut, a successful appeal, or a newly granted exclusion makes it go down. The November 2026 constitutional amendment could eventually constrain future increases if voters approve it and the General Assembly follows through with levy-limit legislation, but that would shape future years, not the bill in front of you. The one lever fully in your control right now is the assessed value itself.
- California2% a year
- Florida3% homestead
- Texas10% homestead
North Carolina: No assessment cap. Nothing limits how fast your assessed value can climb, so the bars above are what protection looks like elsewhere.
North Carolina assesses at market value with no annual growth cap.
A cap limits how fast the number grows. It does not check whether the number was right to begin with.
What you can do about it
How to Appeal Your North Carolina Assessment
North Carolina gives you a two-step path. Step one is an informal review with your county assessor's office: you present evidence that the assessed value is too high, and the assessor can adjust it without a formal hearing. Step two, if the informal review does not resolve it, is a formal appeal to your county's Board of Equalization and Review, the BOER. The board convenes no earlier than the first Monday in April, and your deadline to appeal is the date the board adjourns, which each county sets for itself. That date typically falls in late April to early May; Union County's 2026 window, for example, closed May 6, 2026. Because adjournment dates vary by county, confirm yours with your county assessor rather than assuming.
If the BOER rules against you, you have 30 days from the Notice of Decision to appeal to the North Carolina Property Tax Commission. And if you are in a county covered by the SB 889 moratorium, keep the extended appeal window for the January 1, 2026 revaluations in mind, which reporting on the bill describes as running through 2027. A 2026 value you successfully knock down now becomes a lower starting point when the moratorium lifts. Winning at any level comes down to evidence: comparable sales showing what homes like yours actually sold for, and documentation of anything the assessor's model got wrong about your property, from square footage to condition.
A real AppealDesk order, Wake County
In May 2026, a homeowner in Wake County ran the check. The county had their home on record at $399,449, while recorded sales of comparable homes supported about $341,904: an over-assessment of $57,545, worth roughly $505 per year if corrected. Their packet laid out the comparable sales, the forms, and the filing steps. Nobody at the county was ever going to run that check for them.
Growth limits only help if the number they grow from is fair. If your assessment jumped after a purchase, new construction, or a revaluation, that new number is the one nobody has reviewed. Checking it is free and takes about a minute.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How much can my North Carolina property taxes increase this year?
There is no statutory limit. Your bill can rise by whatever the combination of your assessed value and your local rates produces. The one 2026 exception: if your county's reappraisal took effect January 1, 2026, the SB 889 moratorium requires your county to bill the 2026-27 fiscal year on the prior schedule of values, which holds down the revaluation-driven portion of any increase for this year.
How often is my property reassessed in North Carolina?
At least once every 8 years under G.S. 105-286. Counties may adopt shorter cycles by resolution, and many choose 4-year cycles, but 8 years is the statutory maximum interval, not a fixed schedule. Counties with 75,000 or more residents must also advance their reappraisal if the sales-assessment ratio falls below 0.85 or rises above 1.15.
What is Senate Bill 889 and does it affect me?
SB 889, signed June 19, 2026 as Session Law 2026-8, is a one-year moratorium on the county reappraisals that took effect January 1, 2026. If your county revalued for 2026, and that group includes Buncombe, Guilford, Davidson, Harnett, and Onslow, your 2026-27 bill is figured from the prior schedule of values instead. Reporting on the bill also describes an extended appeal window through 2027 for those 2026 revaluations.
Could North Carolina get a property tax cap?
Possibly. Session Law 2026-5 (House Bill 1089) puts a constitutional amendment on the November 2026 ballot that would require the General Assembly to enact limits on local property tax levy increases. If voters approve it, the legislature would then write the actual limits in later legislation. Until that happens, no assessment cap or levy limit is in force.
What is the deadline to appeal my assessment?
The date your county's Board of Equalization and Review adjourns. The board convenes no earlier than the first Monday in April, and adjournment is typically late April to early May, but each county sets its own date, so confirm with your county assessor. After a BOER decision, you have 30 days from the Notice of Decision to appeal to the North Carolina Property Tax Commission.
Related Resources
If you think your assessed value is too high, start with our step-by-step guide on how to appeal property taxes in North Carolina. If you are weighing whether the effort pays off, see is it worth appealing property taxes, and when you are ready to build your case, read what evidence you need for an appeal.
This article provides general information about North Carolina property tax laws as of July 2026. Tax laws change frequently, and local rules vary. Consult your county assessor or a tax professional for advice specific to your situation.