El Paso homeowners are getting a closer look at their property tax bills, and the median number is not exactly small talk material. The typical owner pays $3,677 a year in property taxes, which works out to about 1.592% of owner-occupied home value. That puts El Paso roughly in the middle of the U.S. metros analyzed, even as local officials juggle tight budgets and residents grumble about rising bills after the early-2020s housing surge.
Those figures come from a national review that found property taxes were the fastest-growing source of state and local revenue, increasing by roughly $96 billion between 2022 and 2024, according to Construction Coverage. Using U.S. Census Bureau data, the report calculated effective property tax rates and median tax bills at the state, county, and city levels.
Local coverage by KFOX14 highlighted El Paso’s median $3,677 bill, the 1.592% effective rate for owner-occupied homes, and the city’s roughly 53rd place ranking among about 650 cities in the study. That breakdown also underscored how statewide averages can conceal big differences from one Texas city to another.
How El Paso Stacks Up Inside Texas
In the same analysis, Texas overall landed with an effective property tax rate near 1.245%. El Paso’s 1.592% sits above that statewide average, which helps explain why some local homeowners feel their bills are running hotter than those of neighbors in other parts of Texas. The gap shows how a city’s tax burden depends not only on the tax rate but also on the property values used to calculate it.
Why Bills Keep Climbing Even as the Market Cools
Property tax assessments often lag behind real-time market prices, so local governments are still catching up to the big value spikes from earlier in the decade. That lag can push tax bills higher even when the housing market itself has cooled, according to the Tax Policy Center. States can try to cushion the blow with assessment caps and similar limits, which vary widely in a patchwork of rules detailed by Kiplinger.
What Local Officials Say and What Homeowners Can Expect
City officials have floated a lower property tax rate, citing a proposed $0.759649 per $100 valuation that they describe as the lowest in a decade. Even so, rising assessed values mean the typical homeowner may still end up paying about $83 more per year, according to KVIA. With multiple taxing entities on each bill, including the city, county, school districts, and others, individual totals can vary significantly depending on local rates and exemptions…