Property Tax & Income in Durham County, North Carolina
Durham County has an effective property tax rate of 0.79%. On the median home value of $389,400, that's roughly $3,092 per year. Median household income is $82,316.
What you'll pay, at a glance
Property taxes are the largest local tax most homeowners pay. The effective rate measures the real tax bill as a share of home value — a more useful number than the nominal “mill rate,” because assessment practices vary county to county.
| Metric | Durham County | North Carolina (state context) |
|---|---|---|
| Effective property tax rate1 | 0.79% | 0.64% |
| Median home value1 | $389,400 | — |
| State income tax3 | top rate 3.99% | top rate 3.99% |
| State sales tax3 | 7.10% combined | 7.10% combined |
How this is calculated
The effective property tax rate is the median real-estate tax bill divided by the median home value — both for owner-occupied homes, from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS 5-year estimates)1. Median income is also from the ACS1. Federal and state income-tax figures use IRS2 and Tax Foundation3 data.
About Durham County, NC
Durham County's effective property tax rate of 0.794% sits above North Carolina's statewide median of 0.644%, placing it 18th among the state's 100 counties. That gap signals a county where local levies and service demands run higher than in much of the state. Against the national median, though, Durham County lands exactly at 0.794%, so its rate is squarely in line with what homeowners pay across the country as a whole. A median home value of $389,400 produces an annual real-estate tax bill of about $3,092. With median household income at $82,316 and per-capita income of $49,447, that bill equals roughly 3.8% of household earnings. The county's principal cities include Durham, Raleigh, and Bahama, with Durham the largest and the anchor of its tax base. Homeowners here should expect a rate that outpaces most North Carolina counties but matches the national norm.