Barrington, RI Property Tax: Above the State Median
Barrington is Rhode Island’s highest-income town in its population class, and a buyer’s first instinct is often to assume that a wealthy, top-ranked-schools suburb must also be a low-tax town. Barrington’s own numbers say otherwise. Its confirmed FY2026 property tax rate runs above the statewide median and noticeably higher than next-door Bristol’s — a genuinely useful, counterintuitive data point for anyone comparing East Bay Rhode Island towns on cost rather than reputation alone. This page lays out the confirmed rate, how it stacks up statewide and against Bristol, and a pending $250 million school bond referendum that is directly relevant to where the rate could go next.
The Confirmed Rate: $15.34 per $1,000, One Rate for Homes and Businesses
Per the Rhode Island Division of Municipal Finance’s own FY2026 tax rate document — titled “2025 Tax Rates,” with an assessment date of December 31, 2024 — Barrington’s FY2026 property tax rate is $15.34 per $1,000 of assessed value. As in neighboring Bristol, that rate is applied identically to residential and commercial real estate; Barrington does not split its rate between the two, so a buyer evaluating a home, a small commercial building, or a mixed-use property in town is working with a single number rather than two.
Converting the mill-rate language into plain dollars: at $15.34 per $1,000 of assessed value, a property assessed at $500,000 would owe roughly $7,670 a year in town property tax before any exemptions; a property assessed at $800,000 (near Zillow’s reported average Barrington home value) would owe roughly $12,272; a property assessed at $1,000,000 would owe roughly $15,340. These are illustrative calculations from the confirmed rate, not quoted assessed values for any specific property — actual assessed value, which is not the same thing as market value or sale price, determines the real bill. Barrington’s own assessor’s office is the authority on how a specific parcel is currently assessed.
Statewide Context: Barrington Sits Well Above the Median
Per seaportre.com’s 2026 report on Rhode Island town tax rates — a secondary, aggregator source rather than the state’s own primary document, and treated that way here — FY2026 town rates across Rhode Island reportedly range from a low of $4.79 per $1,000 in Little Compton to a high of $21.52 per $1,000 in Foster on the residential side, with commercial rates running as high as $29.20 per $1,000 in Providence, and a statewide median of roughly $12.70 per $1,000.
Against that range, Barrington’s $15.34 rate sits well above the statewide median of $12.70 — not at the extreme high end occupied by Foster or Providence, but clearly on the higher-tax side of the distribution rather than near the middle or the low end where a wealthy suburb might be assumed to land.
Higher Than Bristol, Despite a Much Higher Household Income
The more pointed comparison for anyone researching this stretch of the East Bay is Barrington against Bristol, its immediate neighbor just across the Barrington River. Bristol’s own FY2026 rate is $10.61 per $1,000 — meaningfully lower than Barrington’s $15.34, a difference of roughly $4.73 per $1,000 of assessed value, or about $4,730 a year on a $1,000,000 assessment.
That gap runs counter to a natural assumption. Per Neilsberg’s analysis of Census data, Barrington’s 2023 median household income was $150,542, roughly 1.74 times the Rhode Island state average and reportedly the highest among Rhode Island municipalities in its population band — well above Bristol’s own median household income, which published figures place roughly in the $94,000-to-$96,000 range. A town with a substantially higher household income than its neighbor is not automatically the lower-tax town; Barrington is the clear counterexample here, and that is worth stating plainly rather than assuming wealth and tax rate move together.
The $250 Million School Bond: Future-Tax Context Worth Watching
Barrington’s current $15.34 rate is not the end of the story for anyone thinking beyond a single tax year. Per EastBayRI.com and WPRI reporting, Barrington’s school committee is bringing a $250 million bond referendum to voters this fall (2026) to fund elementary school expansions and a modernization of Barrington High School. The district — Rhode Island’s #1-ranked public school system per Niche’s 2026 rankings, and a core part of Barrington’s identity as a market — is currently relying on modular buildings and improvised classroom space, including converted closets, cafeteria space, and an auditorium stage, to handle enrollment growth, per school committee chair Patrick McCrann.
McCrann has noted that the state would reimburse up to 55% of project costs, which would lessen the burden on local taxpayers relative to the bond’s full $250 million size, and that a successful referendum would require the district to submit its next application stage to the Rhode Island Department of Education by February. None of this changes Barrington’s confirmed FY2026 rate of $15.34 per $1,000 — but it is a concrete, dated, currently pending factor that could affect future town tax rates, and it belongs in any serious evaluation of long-term ownership costs in Barrington, separate from the school-quality reputation that draws buyers to the town in the first place.
Before You Rely on This Number, Verify It Directly
The $15.34 figure is time-stamped: it is the FY2026 rate, tied to an assessment date of December 31, 2024, per the Rhode Island Division of Municipal Finance’s own tax rate document. Rhode Island municipalities set new rates on their own annual budget cycles, and Barrington in particular has a large, pending bond referendum on the fall 2026 ballot that could factor into future rate-setting — so this figure should be reconfirmed directly against municipalfinance.ri.gov before it is used as the basis for a purchase decision, particularly once FY2027 figures are set and once the outcome of the school bond vote is known.
The statewide range and median cited above ($4.79 low, $21.52 high, $12.70 median) come from seaportre.com, a secondary aggregator rather than the state’s own primary rate document, and are presented here as useful comparative context rather than as independently re-verified state data. Anyone weighing Barrington against Bristol, Warren, or another Rhode Island town should pull each town’s own current rate directly, since aggregator figures can lag or differ slightly from a town’s own published schedule. And because assessed value — not market value — is what the rate is actually applied to, a specific property’s current assessment should be confirmed with Barrington’s own tax assessor’s office, and a Rhode Island-licensed tax professional or real estate attorney consulted before relying on any of these figures for a real financial decision.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Barrington, RI’s FY2026 property tax rate of $15.34 per $1,000 of assessed value, applied identically to residential and commercial real estate, is per the Rhode Island Division of Municipal Finance’s own “2025 Tax Rates” document (municipalfinance.ri.gov), with an assessment date of December 31, 2024. Statewide comparative figures (FY2026 town rates reportedly ranging from $4.79 per $1,000 in Little Compton, the lowest residential rate, to $21.52 per $1,000 in Foster on the residential side and $29.20 per $1,000 in Providence on the commercial side, with a statewide median of roughly $12.70 per $1,000) are per seaportre.com’s 2026 report, a secondary aggregator source rather than the state’s own primary rate document, and are disclosed as such. Bristol, RI’s own FY2026 rate of $10.61 per $1,000 is drawn from the same municipalfinance.ri.gov document. Household income context (Barrington’s 2023 median household income of $150,542, roughly 1.74 times the Rhode Island state average, is per Neilsberg’s analysis of Census data; Bristol’s comparative median household income, roughly $94,000 to $96,000 depending on source and year, is drawn from Wikipedia and City-Data figures) is presented as hedged, sourced context rather than a single reconciled figure. The $250 million school construction bond referendum, reported as scheduled for fall 2026 to fund elementary school expansions and a Barrington High School modernization, along with the reported up-to-55% state reimbursement share and the February application deadline to the Rhode Island Department of Education, is per EastBayRI.com and WPRI reporting and is presented as pending, currently-scheduled civic context rather than a completed or certain outcome. Illustrative dollar calculations shown above (for example, a $500,000 or $800,000 assessed property) are simple arithmetic applications of the confirmed $15.34 rate and do not represent any specific property’s actual assessment. This page does not assert a current FY2027 rate, does not quote a specific property’s assessed value, does not predict the outcome of the pending school bond referendum, and does not reconcile seaportre.com’s aggregated figures against each individual town’s own primary source document. For the current rate and how it applies to a specific parcel, consult municipalfinance.ri.gov and Barrington’s own tax assessor’s office directly, and consult a Rhode Island-licensed tax professional or real estate attorney before making a purchase decision based on property tax exposure.