How Property Taxes Work in Anacortes, WA
Washington's property tax system is a genuinely different animal from Oregon's or California's, and a buyer relocating from either state should not assume familiar rules apply. There is no assessed-value growth cap on an individual property the way California's Prop 13 provides, and there is no state income tax offsetting the property tax bill the way some other states structure things. What Washington has instead is a 1% annual cap on how fast a taxing district's total levy can grow, market-value assessments meant to track current conditions, and a stack of overlapping taxing districts -- city, county, school, state, port, library -- each billing separately into one combined statement.
Washington's 1% Levy Limit: What It Actually Caps
Since Washington voters passed Initiative 747 in 2001, state law has generally limited how much a taxing district's total property tax levy -- the aggregate dollar amount a city, county, or other district can collect -- may grow year over year to 1%, before adding revenue attributable to new construction added to the tax rolls. This is a critical distinction for a buyer to understand correctly: the 1% cap applies to a district's total levy amount, not to any individual property's assessed value or tax bill. A specific home's assessed value can rise or fall by far more than 1% in a given year if the local real estate market moves that much, and its individual tax bill moves with that assessed value relative to the rest of the tax base -- the 1% limit constrains the taxing district's total collections, not what happens to any one parcel.
This is meaningfully different from California's Prop 13 system, where an individual property's assessed value is capped and generally only resets to full market value at sale, and from Oregon's Measure 50 system, which caps assessed-value growth per property at 3% annually with periodic voter-approved exceptions. Washington ties assessments to actual market value, reassessed by the county assessor, and constrains the total levy growth of the taxing district instead -- a structurally different mechanism that a buyer moving from either neighboring state should not assume works the same way.
The City's Rate: Second-Lowest in Skagit County
For 2025, the City of Anacortes' own municipal property tax rate was $1.34 per $1,000 of assessed value -- a rate the city itself describes as the second-lowest of any city or town in Skagit County. That city rate represents only a portion of a property owner's full combined tax bill, generally described by the city as roughly 15% of the total, with the balance flowing to Skagit County's own levy, the Anacortes School District's maintenance-and-operations and any voter-approved bond levies, Washington's statewide school levy, the Port of Anacortes, the local library district, and any other overlapping special-purpose district that applies to a specific parcel.
For 2026, the Anacortes City Council approved the maximum 1% increase state law generally allows for its own levy, adding an estimated $85,646 in new city revenue plus roughly $55,000 attributable to new construction, bringing total city collections to about $8.7 million. Translated to an individual bill, that meant roughly $10 more in city taxes for 2026 on an average Anacortes home assessed around $750,000, for a total average city-portion bill of about $984 for the year -- illustrating concretely how the 1% cap constrains total district collections rather than an individual bill's percentage change, since a $750,000 home's city-tax bill moved by roughly 1% in dollar terms in this specific example.
Assessment: Skagit County Values Property at Market, Not a Fixed Formula
The Skagit County Assessor's Office is responsible for valuing real property across the county, including Anacortes, generally aiming to keep assessed values reflective of current market value rather than working from a fixed, capped formula. That means a hot real estate market -- and Anacortes, like much of the Puget Sound coastal market, has seen real price appreciation in recent years even as different price-tracking sources disagree on the exact current median -- can push assessed values up meaningfully at the next reassessment cycle, which in turn changes the tax bill even if the applicable rate per $1,000 stays flat or falls slightly.
A property owner who believes their assessed value overstates actual market value has a formal right to appeal through the Skagit County Board of Equalization, generally within a defined window after assessment notices go out; that process typically requires the owner to present comparable sales evidence or other documentation supporting a lower value, rather than simply asserting disagreement. Confirm the current appeal deadline and required documentation directly with the Skagit County Assessor's Office, since these windows are time-limited and specific to each assessment cycle.
No Special Break for Waterfront or Historic Property
A common misconception among buyers moving to a coastal town is that waterfront or historically significant property gets some automatic tax discount. It does not, as a matter of Washington's base assessment system -- a Fidalgo Bay waterfront home or a historic downtown Anacortes building is assessed on the same market-value basis as any comparable inland property, adjusted for its own actual market characteristics (which, for genuine waterfront, typically means a higher assessed value reflecting real market demand, not a lower one). Washington does offer certain statewide property tax relief programs unrelated to waterfront or historic status -- for senior citizens and disabled persons meeting income thresholds, and for property enrolled in current-use programs like open space or agricultural classification -- but eligibility, current income limits, and program specifics should be confirmed directly with the Skagit County Assessor's Office rather than assumed from general state-level information, since thresholds are adjusted periodically.
Anacortes' land-use and shoreline regulations, covered in more depth on this site's Waterfront vs. Non-Waterfront and Dock & Pier Guide pages, can add real cost and complexity to any waterfront property's renovation or dock work -- but that is a separate permitting cost from the property tax bill itself, and the two should not be conflated when budgeting.
How This Compares to a Buyer Coming From Oregon or California
For a buyer relocating from Oregon, the most important adjustment is mental as much as mathematical: Oregon has a state income tax and Washington does not, but Washington's property tax system does not offer the assessed-value protection Oregon's Measure 50 provides on an individual parcel, meaning a rapidly appreciating Anacortes home can see its assessed value -- and its tax bill -- rise faster in a strong market than an equivalent Oregon property's capped assessment would. For a buyer coming from California, the adjustment is more dramatic: Prop 13's assessed-value cap and the 2% annual growth limit it enforces on existing owners simply do not exist in Washington, so a longtime owner in Anacortes should expect their assessed value, and their bill, to track actual market conditions much more closely than a comparable long-held California property would.
Neither of these comparisons should be read as "Washington is more or less expensive" in a simple sense -- the City of Anacortes' own $1.34-per-$1,000 rate is genuinely low relative to many jurisdictions nationally, and the absence of a state income tax is a real, ongoing savings for most household income profiles. The honest takeaway is that the mechanism is different, and a buyer should evaluate Anacortes' actual current combined tax bill on its own terms rather than translate an Oregon or California mental model onto it.
What This Page Does Not Know
This page does not have a confirmed, complete combined property tax rate (city plus county plus school plus all overlapping districts) for a specific Anacortes parcel -- the roughly $10.00-per-$1,000 countywide effective rate commonly cited for the 2025 levy year is directional context, not a guaranteed figure for any individual address, since exact taxing-district overlap varies by location within Anacortes. It also does not have confirmed, current income thresholds for Washington's senior/disabled property tax relief program as applied in Skagit County specifically.
Confirm the full, current combined tax bill for a specific parcel directly with the Skagit County Assessor's Office before making a purchase decision, and don't rely on a prior owner's tax bill or a listing sheet's estimate, since assessed values are meant to track a market that has moved meaningfully in recent years.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data sourced from: the City of Anacortes' own website (anacorteswa.gov) for the 2025 city levy rate, its description as the second-lowest in Skagit County, and the city's share of a typical combined tax bill; goskagit.com (Skagit Valley Herald) reporting on the city's 2026 budget and the 1% levy increase's dollar impact on an average home; the Washington Department of Revenue for the statewide 1% property tax levy limit under Initiative 747 and general assessment principles; and general, widely available comparative reporting on California's Prop 13 and Oregon's Measure 50 assessed-value cap systems, cited here for contrast rather than as Washington-specific claims. Facts not independently confirmed and not invented here include: a confirmed complete combined tax rate (all overlapping districts) for a specific Anacortes parcel; current income thresholds for Washington's senior/disabled property tax exemption as applied in Skagit County; and current-use or open-space program enrollment details for any specific Anacortes property. Confirm the full current combined tax bill for a specific parcel directly with the Skagit County Assessor's Office before making a purchase decision. Nothing on this page is legal or tax advice.