Bristol, RI Property Tax: One Rate, Below Median
Bristol’s property tax picture is unusually simple to state, at least at the headline level: there is one rate, it applies to every kind of real estate the same way, and it sits below where most Rhode Island towns land. That simplicity is worth something on its own — a number of Rhode Island municipalities split their rates between residential and commercial property, which means a buyer comparing towns has to ask two questions instead of one. In Bristol, there is only one question to ask, and this page lays out exactly what that rate is, where it comes from, and how it compares statewide.
The Confirmed Rate: $10.61 per $1,000, No Split Between Residential and Commercial
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 — Bristol’s FY2026 property tax rate is $10.61 per $1,000 of assessed value. That rate is applied identically to residential and commercial real estate. This is a meaningful structural detail, not a footnote: a number of Rhode Island towns set a lower rate for owner-occupied residential property and a higher rate for commercial property, so a single-rate town like Bristol is easier to reason about and, in some cases, easier on commercial or mixed-use owners than towns that lean harder on business property to subsidize residential rates.
Converting the mill-rate language into plain dollars: at $10.61 per $1,000 of assessed value, a property assessed at $400,000 would owe roughly $4,244 a year in town property tax before any exemptions; a property assessed at $700,000 would owe roughly $7,427; a property assessed at $1,000,000 would owe roughly $10,610. 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, and Bristol’s own assessor’s office is the authority on how a specific parcel is currently assessed.
Why a Unified Rate Is Worth Noticing
The reason to call out the unified rate structure explicitly is that it is not universal across Rhode Island, and it is not always disclosed clearly by other sources comparing town tax rates. A buyer who assumes every RI town works the same way — one rate, applied evenly — can be surprised later by a town that charges commercial property meaningfully more than residential property, or vice versa. Bristol removes that variable: whether the property is a single-family home, a waterfront cottage, or a small commercial building on Hope Street or Thames Street, the same $10.61-per-$1,000 rate applies.
This also matters for anyone evaluating a mixed-use or income-producing property in Bristol — a building with a ground-floor shop and residential units above it, for instance — since there is no need to separate out which portion of the assessed value is taxed at which rate. The whole assessed value is taxed the same way.
Statewide Context: Bristol Sits Below the Median
Bristol’s $10.61 rate does not exist in isolation, and comparing it to other Rhode Island towns is where it becomes genuinely useful rather than just a number. 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, with a statewide median of $12.70 per $1,000.
Against that range, Bristol’s $10.61 rate sits below the statewide median of $12.70 — not the lowest rate in the state, and not close to the highest, but comfortably on the lower-tax side of the distribution. That is a genuinely differentiated data point for anyone shopping between Rhode Island towns on tax burden alone: Bristol is not a high-tax outlier the way a town at $18-$21 per $1,000 would be, nor is it an ultra-low-tax town like Little Compton at the bottom of the range.
How This Fits Bristol’s Overall Character
A below-median tax rate lines up with how Bristol reads as a market more broadly: a historic, moderately affluent — but not ultra-luxury — East Bay town, with a median household income modestly above the Rhode Island state average (reported figures range roughly $94,000 to $96,000 depending on source and year) and a housing market with genuine range rather than a single price tier. That combination — below-median property tax, above-average but not extreme household income, and a housing stock that spans historic in-town homes to high-end waterfront estates — is a materially different profile than a town like Foster at the high end of the tax range, or a resort-priced market where a low headline tax rate is offset by very high assessed values.
It is worth being precise about what this rate does and does not tell a buyer. A below-median mill rate is not the same thing as a low tax bill — the actual dollar amount owed depends entirely on a property’s assessed value, and a highly valued waterfront property taxed at $10.61 per $1,000 can still produce a substantial annual bill. The rate answers the question “how hard does Bristol tax each dollar of assessed value,” not “how much will this specific house cost to own.”
Before You Rely on This Number, Verify It Directly
The $10.61 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, 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.
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 Bristol against a specific other Rhode Island town should pull that 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 Bristol’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. Bristol, RI’s FY2026 property tax rate of $10.61 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, to $21.52 per $1,000 in Foster, the highest, with a statewide median of $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. Household income context (roughly $94,000 to $96,000 depending on source and year, modestly above the Rhode Island state average) is drawn from Wikipedia and City-Data figures for Bristol and is presented as a hedged range rather than a single reconciled figure, consistent with how this site treats that data elsewhere. Illustrative dollar calculations shown above (for example, a $400,000 or $700,000 assessed property) are simple arithmetic applications of the confirmed $10.61 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, 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 Bristol’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.