The 10 Highest Property Tax ZIP Codes in America (2024 Data)

Every year, data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey allows researchers and data analysts to identify the ZIP codes with the highest property tax burdens in the United States. The results are striking — and remarkably consistent from year to year. The same clusters of communities in the same regions appear at the top of both the effective-rate rankings and the dollar-amount rankings.

Understanding which areas carry the highest property tax burdens — and why — is valuable for anyone comparing housing costs across metro areas, evaluating a relocation decision, or simply trying to understand why homeownership in certain regions costs so much more than the list price suggests.

Note on methodology: The most meaningful comparison for this list uses effective tax rate — annual taxes paid as a percentage of home value. This normalizes for differences in home prices and allows meaningful comparison across markets. A $20,000 annual tax bill on a $2 million home (1.0% effective rate) represents a lower relative burden than a $7,000 bill on a $250,000 home (2.8% effective rate).

The Highest-Tax Region: Northern New Jersey

Northern New Jersey consistently produces the highest effective property tax rates in the nation. Counties like Bergen, Morris, Essex, Union, and Passaic have statewide-average effective rates well above 2.0%, with many individual communities and ZIP codes exceeding 2.5% to 3.0%.

ZIP codes in the Millburn/Short Hills area of Essex County, the Ridgewood/Glen Rock area of Bergen County, and communities in Morris County routinely appear at the top of national property tax rankings. On a $700,000 median-priced home in these areas, annual property taxes commonly exceed $18,000 to $22,000.

What drives these extreme rates: New Jersey funds local government — especially schools — almost entirely through property taxes with minimal state equalization. New Jersey's hundreds of small, independent school districts each levy their own rates. Districts serving affluent communities with expensive homes and high per-pupil spending aspirations levy rates that compound with already high county and municipal taxes. The result: some of the highest combined tax rates anywhere in the United States.

Long Island, New York: Nassau and Suffolk Counties

Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island rank among the highest in both effective rates and absolute dollar amounts nationally. ZIP codes in communities like Great Neck, Garden City, Manhasset, and Syosset in Nassau County see median annual taxes of $12,000 to $20,000 on homes that average $700,000 to $1.5 million in value.

Long Island's property tax structure is characterized by extreme fragmentation — hundreds of separate school districts, fire districts, water districts, library districts, and village governments, each with its own levy. A single Long Island property might contribute to 10 or more separate taxing jurisdictions. The school district levy alone often represents 60–70% of the total bill.

Suffolk County communities in the Hamptons have different dynamics: extremely high home values ($1 million to $10 million+) and somewhat lower effective rates than Nassau County, but dollar amounts that can exceed $30,000 to $50,000 per year on median Hamptons properties.

Westchester County, New York: Consistent Top-10 Territory

Westchester County communities north of New York City consistently rank among the highest in the nation for both effective rates and dollar amounts. ZIP codes in Scarsdale, Bronxville, Larchmont, Mamaroneck, and parts of White Plains see effective rates of 1.5% to 2.5% on home values of $700,000 to $3 million — producing annual tax bills of $15,000 to $50,000 on upper-tier properties.

Westchester's high rates reflect the combination of very high school spending per pupil (among the highest in the nation), high municipal service costs in densely developed communities, significant county government services, and limited commercial and industrial tax base relative to the residential population. The school district structure, with dozens of separate districts across the county, produces highly variable rates even within neighboring ZIP codes.

Northern Chicago Suburbs: Lake County, Illinois

Lake County, Illinois — home to communities like Lake Forest, Winnetka (technically in Cook County, but adjacent), Highland Park, and Deerfield — consistently ranks among the highest-rate areas in the nation. Effective rates of 2.0% to 2.8% are common, and with median home values of $400,000 to $1.5 million, annual tax bills of $10,000 to $30,000 are typical.

Illinois's property tax structure produces these extreme rates through the same mechanism as New Jersey and New York: heavy reliance on local property taxes for school funding, hundreds of independent taxing districts, and pension obligations that add to local levies. Cook County collar counties (DuPage, Lake, Kane, Will) have some of the highest combined tax rates in Illinois, while also having some of the highest home values in the state.

Bergen County, New Jersey: Consistent National Leader

Bergen County, New Jersey — just across the Hudson River from New York City — is home to some of the highest-rate ZIP codes in the nation. Communities like Alpine, Cresskill, Demarest, and Saddle River have median home values exceeding $1 million and annual property taxes routinely above $20,000.

Alpine, NJ is frequently cited as one of the highest absolute-dollar-amount property tax communities in the nation. On a $3 million median home value, even a "modest" effective rate of 1.5% produces a $45,000 annual tax bill. The effective rate in Alpine has historically been somewhat lower than Bergen County's overall average (because the home values are so extreme), but the dollar amounts are among the highest anywhere in the United States.

Essex County, New Jersey: High Rates Across All Income Levels

Essex County, NJ presents an interesting contrast: communities like Millburn, Livingston, and West Orange have high home values and high effective rates (2.0–2.8%), producing large dollar-amount bills. But Essex County also includes Newark and other urban communities with high effective rates applied to lower home values — still producing significant tax burdens on more modestly priced homes.

This pattern — high effective rates across both wealthy and less wealthy communities within the same county — is characteristic of New Jersey overall, and is one reason New Jersey so consistently leads national rankings for property tax burden at both the median and upper tiers.

What High-Tax ZIP Codes Have in Common

Reviewing the areas that consistently appear at the top of property tax rankings reveals several shared characteristics:

• Proximity to major coastal metros: Virtually all of the highest-rate areas are in the New York, Chicago, or (to a lesser extent) Boston metropolitan regions. These areas have high costs of public services, strong public sector unions, and long histories of local government fragmentation.
• High-quality school systems: High-tax ZIP codes often have high-performing school districts. The relationship is causal: residents demand expensive schools, and expensive schools require high property tax levies. But as we noted in our school district article, high rates do not always mean high per-pupil spending — the property wealth of the district matters.
• Independent taxing jurisdictions: Areas with the most fragmented local government — the most separate taxing entities each with their own levy — tend to have the highest cumulative rates. New Jersey's 21 counties with 565+ municipalities and 600+ school districts exemplify this.
• Limited commercial tax base: In many high-tax residential communities, the tax base is primarily residential. Without commercial and industrial property sharing the burden, homeowners bear a larger proportion of the total levy.
• Strong public services: High-tax areas typically offer high-quality public infrastructure: excellent schools, well-maintained roads, responsive emergency services, well-staffed parks and libraries. Whether these services justify the cost is a value judgment, but the correlation is real.

Data Source

Community profiles in this article are based on U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2019-2023 5-Year Estimates at the ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) level, as analyzed by PropertyTaxByZip. Effective rates are derived by dividing median real estate taxes paid by median home value. Rankings reflect median values within each ZCTA and may not capture the highest-value properties, which often pay substantially more than the median.