New Castle County’s property tax burden has flipped onto the shoulders of residents, and there is nowhere in Delaware where this is more apparent than within Wilmington’s borders.
When every property’s tax value was reassessed in Wilmington in early 2025, the goal was to create a more equitable tax base. But, the new assessed values place the tax burden on residents while commercial values slipped. Some of this is because of the overall devaluing of commercial downtown property seen nationwide after the pandemic opened a pandora’s box of remote and hybrid work.
This kind of shift can be seen throughout New Castle County, which is why both the county and the city have introduced different tax rates for residential and nonresidential properties to find a balance. A report from Tyler Technologies, the company that assessed every property in Delaware, said about 91% of properties in New Castle County are residential…