Property Tax & Income in Galveston County, Texas
Galveston County has an effective property tax rate of 1.41%. On the median home value of $314,600, that's roughly $4,442 per year. Median household income is $86,105.
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 | Galveston County | Texas (state context) |
|---|---|---|
| Effective property tax rate1 | 1.41% | 1.18% |
| Median home value1 | $314,600 | — |
| State income tax3 | No state income tax | No state income tax |
| State sales tax3 | 8.20% combined | 8.20% 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 Galveston County, TX
Galveston County's effective property tax rate of 1.412% sits well above both benchmarks that matter here. Texas counties average 1.183%, so homeowners in Galveston, Texas City, and Bacliff pay a higher share of their property's value than much of the rest of the state, and the gap widens further against the national median of 0.794%. Within Texas, the county ranks 66th out of 250 counties by rate, placing it in the upper quarter statewide. That ranking carries real weight given the tax base: a median home value of $314,600 generates an annual bill of about $4,442, against median household income of $86,105 and per-capita income of $44,946. The practical signal is that property taxes claim a larger slice of local earnings than they would in many comparable places, a meaningful consideration for anyone weighing a move to the Gulf Coast or budgeting for ownership there.