Boothbay Harbor, ME Property Tax: No Verified Rate
Boothbay Harbor is the small Lincoln County harbor town on a Gulf of Maine peninsula, known for its 1901 pedestrian footbridge, working lobster wharves, and Windjammer Days festival. We want to be upfront about what this page can and cannot tell you: our research did not turn up a verified current mill rate for the Town of Boothbay Harbor, and we are not going to guess at one or manufacture a comparison to neighboring towns using a number we cannot source. What follows is the real estate context we could confirm, an explanation of why this particular town's name creates real risk of pulling the wrong municipality's tax rate, and a straight path to getting the actual figure before you make any decision based on it.
Why There Is No Mill Rate on This Page
Most of our property-tax pages start with a city's own published mill rate. For Boothbay Harbor, we could not locate one in this research pass, and rather than fill that gap with an estimate borrowed from a neighboring Maine coastal town, we are flagging it as an open item. A mill rate that looks plausible but is not actually Boothbay Harbor's own figure is worse than no figure at all, because it can shape a buyer's expectations around a number nobody at the town ever set.
The right source is the Town of Boothbay Harbor's own tax assessor's office, reachable through the town's municipal website (boothbayharbor.org) or by phone. Maine assessing offices can typically provide the current mill rate, the assessment ratio the town uses relative to market value, and — for a specific parcel — the actual assessed value and most recent tax bill on file. That last piece, the parcel-specific assessed value, is the only number that will tell you what a particular property actually owes; a townwide mill rate alone will not.
Boothbay Harbor's Name Problem: Four Municipalities, One Name
Before you call anyone about taxes, understand that "Boothbay" describes at least four distinct municipal entities, and mixing them up is easy to do and consequential if you are trying to price out ownership costs. The Town of Boothbay Harbor is the actual incorporated town this page covers, separated from the surrounding Town of Boothbay in 1889. The Town of Boothbay is a separate, larger, surrounding municipality with its own government, its own assessor, and — quite plausibly — its own different mill rate; it is not part of Boothbay Harbor and includes the villages of East Boothbay, Trevett, Back Narrows, Dover, Linekin, and Oak Hill.
West Boothbay Harbor adds a further wrinkle: it is an unincorporated village that sits on the west side of the harbor, inside the Town of Boothbay Harbor itself, not inside the separate Town of Boothbay — this is where the Maine State Aquarium sits. Southport is yet another separate town entirely, on an island just south of Boothbay Harbor and connected by its own automobile swing bridge over Townsend Gut. If a property you are evaluating is anywhere near these boundaries, do not assume which town's assessing office and mill rate actually apply — confirm the parcel's municipality directly, since a listing description that says "Boothbay" casually could mean any of these four places.
The Real Estate Numbers We Could Confirm, and Why to Treat Them Carefully
Redfin's data on Boothbay Harbor put the median sale price at $170,000, described on the same page as down 68.4% year-over-year, with a price per square foot of $138, also down sharply. We do not think that year-over-year swing reflects an actual collapse in home values. Boothbay Harbor is a low-transaction-volume market, and Redfin's own recent sale range in the same dataset ran from $58,000 to $1,100,000 — a spread wide enough that a handful of closings, whether modest cottages or a multimillion-dollar waterfront estate, can swing a townwide median dramatically from one period to the next. Redfin rated the market "somewhat competitive," with average days on market around 43 over the trailing twelve months, narrowing to roughly 20 in the most recent window, and recent sales landing close to list price after averaging about 5% under list over the full trailing year.
We were not able to obtain a current Zillow home-value figure for Boothbay Harbor; Zillow also maintains more than one neighborhood-level page touching this area, which adds its own ambiguity about which boundary a given figure would even cover. Redfin's listing data separately flagged major flood and wind risk factors for the area, alongside moderate heat risk and minimal fire risk, worth keeping in mind since flood exposure can affect both insurance costs and, over time, a town's assessed values. None of these figures are a substitute for pulling current, live listings directly from Zillow and Redfin at the time you are actually evaluating a property.
How Maine Property Tax Works, in General Terms
A few mechanics apply across Maine towns generally, even without a Boothbay Harbor-specific number in hand. A mill rate is expressed per $1,000 of assessed value, so a home assessed at $400,000 in a town with a $12 mill rate would owe roughly $4,800 a year — the math is that direct once you have both real inputs. Maine also requires towns to periodically revalue property so assessed values stay reasonably close to actual market value; small towns can go years between full revaluations, which means an assessed value on file today may lag or lead current market prices depending on when the town last reassessed.
Maine offers a statewide Homestead Exemption that reduces the taxable value of a primary residence for owners who have held Maine residency for a required period, plus current-use programs (such as Tree Growth or Open Space) that can lower assessed value on qualifying working land — potentially relevant given the peninsula's working-waterfront and rural character. Whether any specific parcel in Boothbay Harbor qualifies for these programs, and what the town's actual homestead-adjusted bill would look like, are questions only the town assessor's office can answer for that address.
What This Page Could Not Confirm
To be direct about the gaps: we have no verified current or historical mill rate for the Town of Boothbay Harbor, no verified mill rate for the separate Town of Boothbay, and no confirmed comparison of how the two differ, if at all. We also do not have a current Zillow home-value figure, a verified rental-market or short-term-rental revenue figure, or marina slip and mooring fee data that a full ownership-cost picture would ideally include. Redfin's steep year-over-year swing should be read as a low-volume-market artifact, not a real trend, until checked against current listings.
None of this should be filled in with an assumed number. Before making any purchase decision that depends on property tax exposure, contact the Town of Boothbay Harbor's tax assessor's office directly (and the Town of Boothbay's separately, if the parcel in question sits near that boundary), pull current figures from Zillow and Redfin, and consult a Maine-licensed tax professional or real estate attorney familiar with Lincoln County.
Ready to talk to a local Boothbay Harbor agent?
Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. No verified mill rate for the Town of Boothbay Harbor was located in this research pass; readers should confirm the current rate directly with the town's tax assessor's office via boothbayharbor.org. The municipal-boundary distinctions between the Town of Boothbay Harbor, the separate Town of Boothbay, the unincorporated village of West Boothbay Harbor (within Boothbay Harbor town), and the separate Town of Southport are drawn from Wikipedia's entries on Boothbay Harbor, Maine and Boothbay, Maine. Real estate figures (median sale price of $170,000, described as down 68.4% year-over-year, price per square foot of $138, "somewhat competitive" market rating, days-on-market figures, recent sale range of $58,000 to $1,100,000, and flood/wind/heat/fire risk flags) are from Redfin's Boothbay Harbor, ME housing market page (redfin.com/city/21466/ME/Boothbay-Harbor/housing-market); no current Zillow figure was available at research time. General Maine property tax mechanics (mill-rate calculation, periodic revaluation requirements, the statewide Homestead Exemption, and current-use programs such as Tree Growth and Open Space) reflect general, publicly documented features of Maine's property tax system, not figures specific to Boothbay Harbor. Nothing on this page is tax or legal advice; verify current mill rates and assessed values directly with the relevant town's assessing office and Maine Revenue Services, and consult a Maine-licensed tax professional or real estate attorney before making a purchase decision based on property tax exposure.