Guilford County property owners who spent much of this year wondering what their 2026 tax bills were going to look like can stop wondering.

And some of them might want to sit down before they look.

The county’s 2026 property tax bills have been arriving after an unusually confusing tax season that included a countywide revaluation, a new state law stopping that revaluation from being used this year and sizeable tax rate increases adopted by both Guilford County and the City of Greensboro.

The important thing for taxpayers to remember is that the large new property values Guilford County sent out earlier this year aren’t being used on the bills arriving now.

Senate Bill 889, signed into law in June, placed a one-year moratorium on Guilford County’s 2026 revaluation. As a result, the 2026 bills are being calculated using the same assessed property values that were used for the 2025 tax bills.

That, however, doesn’t mean the tax bills stayed the same. Far from it.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners raised the countywide property tax rate from 73.05 cents to 78.95 cents for every $100 of assessed value – an increase of 5.9 cents.

The Greensboro City Council went much further.

Greensboro’s property tax rate was 67.25 cents per $100 of assessed value last year. For the new fiscal year, the City Council raised that to 79.85 cents – an increase of 12.6 cents.

Put the two together and a Greensboro property owner who paid a combined city and county rate of $1.403 per $100 of valuation last year is now paying $1.588.

That’s an increase of about 13.2 percent in the combined city and county property tax rate even though the value of the property used to calculate the bill hasn’t changed.

For a Greensboro house assessed at $250,000, the city and county property tax portions of the bill would have totaled about $3,507.50 at last year’s rates.

At this year’s rates, the same $250,000 valuation produces a city and county tax bill of about $3,970 – an increase of $462.50.

On a $300,000 house, the increase is $555.

On a $400,000 house, it’s $740.

Those examples cover the basic Greensboro and Guilford County property tax rates but they don’t include any other taxes, fees or special assessments that might apply to a particular property.

Property owners outside Greensboro are seeing different totals depending on the municipality and, in some areas, fire district or other applicable tax rates. But everyone in Guilford County is subject to the county’s 5.9-cent increase in the general county property tax rate.

The bills are arriving later than usual because of the legislative scramble over the revaluation.

Before the General Assembly intervened, Guilford County had completed its 2026 revaluation and sent property owners notices showing their new assessed values. Many of those values were considerably higher than the values used in 2025.

The county and local municipalities initially developed their proposed budgets assuming those new values would take effect.

Then the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 889, which as signed into law on June 19. That forced Guilford County and its municipalities to go back to the old values and reconsider the tax rates needed to fund their budgets.

Greensboro, for instance, initially discussed a substantially lower tax rate based on the higher revalued tax base. Once the new assessments were taken off the table for this year, the City Council ultimately adopted the 79.85-cent rate against the existing values.

Guilford County did much the same thing. Before the moratorium, County Manager Victor Isler had recommended a 61.9-cent rate based on the revalued tax base. After the General Assembly stopped the revaluation from being used, commissioners adopted the 78.95-cent rate against the old values instead.

So, taxpayers shouldn’t compare the 78.95-cent county rate or Greensboro’s 79.85-cent rate with the much lower rates discussed earlier in the budget process without also taking into account that those lower proposed rates would have been applied to substantially higher assessments.

What taxpayers can compare directly is this year’s bill with last year’s.

And for Greensboro homeowners whose taxable property value didn’t otherwise change, that comparison is pretty simple: The combined city and county rate is about 13.2 percent higher.

But this strange tax year isn’t over yet.

The 2026 reappraisal values weren’t thrown away: Under the moratorium, those values are expected to be used for the 2027 property tax bills, and Guilford County says there won’t be another reappraisal next year.

The next countywide reappraisal after that is scheduled for 2032.

That means that taxpayers could be going through another round of tax-rate arithmetic next summer when the higher assessments finally take effect.  If the city and the county don’t lower the new tax rates when those higher values are used, property owners are likely to show up at county commissioner and city council meetings with pitchforks.

Guilford County says the bills were scheduled to be mailed by Saturday, Aug. 15. Property owners can also look up their bills through the county’s online tax system.

There’s at least one small consolation for taxpayers who are really eager to get the experience over and done with.

Anyone who pays by Monday, Aug. 31 gets a whopping 1 percent early-payment discount.

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