All 159 Georgia counties ranked by effective tax rate, tax bill, home value, and appeal savings. Rates range from 0.41% to 1.85% with $18.3B collected statewide.
# Georgia Property Tax Rates by County: All 159 Counties Ranked (2026)
Last Updated: March 2026
Georgia homeowners don't pay one property tax rate. They pay 159 different ones. And the gap between the cheapest and most expensive county is wider than most people realize.
Dougherty County's effective tax rate of 1.85% is 4.5 times higher than Fannin County's 0.41%. A homeowner with a $300,000 house would pay $5,550 a year in Dougherty County and just $1,230 in Fannin County, a difference of $4,320 on the exact same home value.
Across all 159 counties, Georgia collected roughly $18.3 billion in property tax revenue in 2024, funding schools, fire departments, and county services. Statewide, assessed home values have doubled since 2013, and property tax collections grew 41% between 2018 and 2022 alone.
This guide ranks every Georgia county by effective tax rate, median tax bill, home value, and appeal savings potential, all from 2024 American Community Survey and county tax digest data.
Effective tax rate measures what homeowners actually pay as a percentage of their home's market value. It accounts for Georgia's 40% assessment ratio plus all applicable millage rates.
Two patterns stand out. Rural South Georgia counties (Dougherty, Randolph, Calhoun, Clay) rank near the top despite low home values because their millage rates are high relative to property values. Metro Atlanta's largest counties (DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett) appear because rapidly rising assessments push effective rates higher even as values climb.
Dougherty County's 1.85% effective rate is the highest in Georgia. A homeowner there pays $1,781 a year on a $134,400 home, nearly double the state median tax bill of $1,439.
The tax bill ranking reshuffles dramatically compared to effective rate. Wealthy suburban counties dominate because high home values multiply even moderate rates into large dollar amounts.
Forsyth County is the clearest example of how the bill ranking differs from the rate ranking. Its 0.98% effective rate doesn't crack the top 50, but its $550,400 median home value pushes the median bill to $4,020, second highest in the state.
Fulton County homeowners pay a median of $4,033 per year in property taxes. That's 2.8 times the statewide median of $1,439 and nearly $1,000 more than the typical U.S. homeowner pays.
Home values drive tax bills more than any other single factor. The counties with the highest median values are overwhelmingly in metro Atlanta's northern and eastern suburbs.
Greene County stands out for having the eighth highest median home value ($394,800) paired with the fourth lowest effective rate (0.62%). That combination results in a median tax bill of just $2,425, while a comparable home in DeKalb County ($357,800) generates a $3,310 bill.
Appeal savings estimates reflect the annual tax reduction a homeowner could achieve through a successful appeal. These combine each county's FMV reduction percentage with its millage rate, applied to the median home value.
Every county in this top 10 is either in metro Atlanta or the Savannah metro area, and all carry FMV reduction percentages of 10% or higher. Forsyth and Fulton counties stand apart with 12% reduction rates. Under Georgia's 299(c) freeze provision, a successful appeal locks in the reduced value for two additional years, turning Forsyth County's $743 annual savings into $2,229 over three years.
In Forsyth County, a successful property tax appeal saves the typical homeowner an estimated $743 per year, or $2,229 over three years under Georgia's assessment freeze.
Note that FMV reduction percentages are higher in counties with greater appeal volume and more comparable sales data. Rural counties with 5% reduction rates tend to have fewer recent sales, which limits the evidence available to support larger reductions.
Metro Atlanta's eight core counties hold roughly 40% of Georgia's population. Their tax profiles vary significantly.
DeKalb County's 4.379 millage rate is the highest of any metro county. Its combined rate has remained unchanged since 2015, but rising assessments have pushed bills higher every year.
Forsyth County is the inverse: lowest rate (0.98%) and lowest millage (2.461) of the eight, but its $550,400 median home value produces the second highest bill ($4,020).
The revenue these counties generate is substantial. Gwinnett County collected over $928 million in property tax revenue in 2024, Cobb County about $1.34 billion, and DeKalb County roughly $1.8 billion. Fulton County's county-only revenue is approximately $879 million, though total levy including schools and cities exceeds $2 billion.
Metro Atlanta homeowners pay an average property tax bill of $2,736, nearly double the statewide median of $1,439.
Rising assessments, not rising millage rates, drive higher bills. According to county Board of Assessors data, Fulton County's residential market value hit $141.66 billion in 2025, up 5.9%. Gwinnett's residential taxable value grew 7.9%. Independent analysis of assessment records vs. MLS data shows 49% of Gwinnett homes and 41% of Fulton homes are overvalued, both well above the 25% national average.
Georgia assessors rely on sales data that's one to two years old. When prices cool (Cherokee down 8.0%, Clayton down 7.2% year-over-year per Georgia MLS data), assessments don't adjust immediately.
The counties with the lowest effective rates are concentrated in the North Georgia mountains and a handful of rural Central Georgia areas.
Fannin County's 0.41% effective rate means a homeowner with a $300,000 property pays about $1,230 a year. The same home in Dougherty County would cost $5,550.
Several mountain counties combine low rates with high home values: Fannin ($306,600 median), Towns ($316,100), and Dawson ($406,700). These areas attract retirees and vacation-home buyers, pushing up values without the high millage rates common in urban school districts.
Fannin County's 0.41% effective rate is the lowest in Georgia, 4.5 times lower than Dougherty County's 1.85%.
Georgia's 159 counties divide into five broad regions with distinct tax profiles. This table uses county-level averages within each region.
South Georgia has the second highest average effective rate (1.20%) despite the lowest average home values ($130,329). High millage rates in Dougherty (4.623 mills), Randolph (3.767 mills), and Calhoun (3.423 mills) offset lower property values. Property taxes consume a larger share of housing costs there than in wealthier areas.
North Georgia's 0.84% average effective rate is 30% below the state average, led by Fannin (1.020 mills), Towns (1.074 mills), and Union (1.181 mills).
Metro Atlanta generates the highest average bills ($2,736) and accounts for 55% of Georgia's population.
Georgia sits in the middle of the national pack on property taxes. The Tax Foundation's 2025 analysis puts Georgia's effective property tax rate at approximately 0.79-0.83% of home value, compared to a national average of about 1.02%.
That 0.79-0.83% statewide figure can be misleading, though. It's an average that smooths over the 4.5x variation between Fannin County (0.41%) and Dougherty County (1.85%). Several individual Georgia counties have effective rates that exceed New Jersey's 2.21% statewide average, which is the highest in the nation.
Georgia's 40% assessment ratio (O.C.G.A. 48-5-7) also complicates cross-state comparisons. A 30-mill rate on 40% of a $400,000 home produces the same $4,800 bill as a 12-mill rate on 100% of that value. The effective rate is the only apples-to-apples metric.
Nationally, state and local governments collected $797 billion in property taxes in 2024, up 8.2% over the prior year. Georgia's $18.3 billion represents about 2.3% of that total.
This table summarizes the distribution across all 159 Georgia counties.
The gap between the median ($1,439) and mean ($1,610) tax bill reflects the upward pull of high-value metro counties. The same pattern appears in home values, where the $198,523 average is 15% higher than the $172,350 median.
Wheeler County ($554 median tax bill, $65,100 median home value) and Forsyth County ($4,020 median bill, $550,400 median home value) represent the absolute extremes, with a 7.3x difference in annual property tax costs.
Two legislative developments are reshaping Georgia property taxes in 2026.
The Homeowner Tax Relief Grant (HTRG), funded at $850 million in the amended FY 2026 budget, will provide a one-time assessed value reduction for homesteads, estimated at roughly $500 per home.
The HB 581 floating homestead exemption, which voters approved in November 2024, caps annual assessment increases at the CPI inflation rate (2.7% for 2026) for counties that opted in. But 68% of school districts and 30% of counties opted out, and most of the largest jurisdictions are in that group.
SB 382, currently moving through the General Assembly, would eliminate the local opt-out and make the CPI cap mandatory statewide.
Effective tax rates, median home values, and median tax bills come from American Community Survey (ACS) 2024 estimates cross-referenced with county tax digest data reported to the Georgia Department of Revenue. Millage rates come from county tax digest filings. FMV reduction percentages and annual savings estimates are derived from county-level appeal outcome data and comparable sales analysis. Population figures are U.S. Census Bureau 2024 estimates. National data comes from the Tax Foundation and the Census Bureau Quarterly Summary of State and Local Taxes.
Georgia assesses all property at 40% of fair market value. The effective tax rate equals median annual tax bill divided by median home value, capturing assessment ratio, all millage rates, and exemptions. Savings estimates assume a successful appeal at the FMV reduction percentage for each county, applied to median home value and multiplied by total millage rate.
This article shows the top 20 and bottom 20 rankings. The full dataset covers all 159 counties from the 2024 tax digest.