Property Taxes in Coos Bay / North Bend
Oregon runs one of the most unusual property tax systems in the country, and Coos County sits at an extreme end of it: a genuinely tiny permanent base rate that has nothing to do with the actual bill a typical homeowner pays. This page walks through how Measure 5 and Measure 50 work, what Coos County's real numbers are, and what it means for a specific purchase here.
Oregon's Two Ballot Measures, in Plain Terms
Oregon's property tax system runs on two voter-approved constitutional limits. Measure 5, passed in 1990, caps the tax rate that can be collected against a property's real market value (RMV) -- $10 per $1,000 of RMV for general government operations and $5 per $1,000 for school funding, a combined $15 ceiling. If a district's total levies would exceed that cap on a given property, the state 'compresses' -- reduces -- local option levies first, then other taxes in that category, until the bill fits under the constitutional limit. Measure 50, passed in 1997, is the piece that actually determines most people's day-to-day tax bill: it replaced Oregon's old system of taxing real market value directly with a new concept called 'assessed value' (AV), reset in the first year to each property's 1995 real market value minus 10%, and capped to grow no more than 3% a year afterward regardless of how much the home's actual market value rises -- with exceptions for new construction, additions, or other changes to the property.
The consequence that matters most for a buyer: Oregon is the only state in the country where a property's assessed value does not reset to its current market value when the property is sold. Two nearly identical homes on the same street, one owned for twenty years and one just purchased, can carry meaningfully different assessed values and therefore different tax bills -- a real, structural fact of buying in Oregon, not unique to Coos County, but one every buyer here should understand before assuming a seller's current tax bill will simply transfer to them.
Coos County's Permanent Rate: $1.08 per $1,000, Third-Lowest in Oregon
Coos County's own permanent tax rate -- the base rate fixed when the county's taxing district was established under Measure 50 -- is $1.08 per $1,000 of assessed value, reported as the third-lowest permanent rate of any county in Oregon. On its own, that number would suggest a remarkably light property tax burden. It is not, by itself, what any actual property owner pays: the permanent rate is only the county government's own base-operations slice of the total bill.
What Actually Gets Added on Top
A real Coos County tax bill layers several separate levies on top of that $1.08 county base rate: the local school district's own permanent rate, the applicable city's rate (Coos Bay and North Bend each set their own separately, since they are two distinct incorporated cities), a fire district rate, a library district rate, the Port of Coos Bay's own district rate, and, where voters have approved them, local-option levies and general obligation bonds tied to specific school or infrastructure projects. A 2021 Oregon Department of Revenue analysis put Coos County's actual average total tax rate -- all of those layers combined -- at roughly $13.23 per $1,000 of assessed value, more than twelve times the widely cited $1.08 permanent rate. This page did not find a current, itemized rate breakdown specific to a parcel inside Coos Bay city limits versus North Bend city limits versus unincorporated Coos County -- those city, fire, and school district rates differ by exact location, and only the Coos County Assessor's Office can confirm the specific combined rate applicable to a given address.
What a Real Bill Looks Like on a Real Number
Using the county's roughly $13.23-per-$1,000 average actual rate as an illustrative, not guaranteed, figure: a home with an assessed value of $250,000 would carry an estimated annual property tax bill in the neighborhood of $3,300, and a home assessed at $350,000 would run roughly $4,630. Two things make these illustrative-only: first, assessed value under Measure 50 is very often lower than a home's actual purchase price, especially for a property that hasn't been reassessed through new construction or a recent addition, so a buyer's real assessed value could sit meaningfully below what they paid; second, $13.23 is a countywide average, and the specific combined rate for an address inside Coos Bay, inside North Bend, or in unincorporated Coos County near either city will differ based on which city, school, and fire district levies actually apply there.
How Coos Bay's and North Bend's Own City Rates Factor In
Because Coos Bay and North Bend are separate incorporated cities, each sets its own municipal tax rate independently, on top of the shared Coos County base rate. This page did not find current, specific, side-by-side municipal rate figures for the City of Coos Bay versus the City of North Bend for the current fiscal year -- that comparison should be confirmed directly with each city's finance department or the Coos County Assessor's Office, since a genuinely useful apples-to-apples comparison between the two cities' total tax burden depends on getting both current municipal rates correctly, not estimating one from the other.
Exemptions and Deferral Programs Worth Asking About
Oregon offers property tax relief programs in some form for qualifying senior, disabled, veteran, and low-income homeowners, including deferral programs that let eligible owners postpone paying property taxes against home equity rather than paying them out of current income. This page did not confirm current Coos County-specific eligibility thresholds, application deadlines, or benefit amounts for any of these programs, since they change periodically and are administered at the state level with county-level application. Anyone who may qualify should confirm current program details directly with the Oregon Department of Revenue or the Coos County Assessor's Office rather than assuming eligibility.
What This Page Doesn't Cover
This page states the confirmed structure of Oregon's Measure 5/Measure 50 system and Coos County's confirmed $1.08 permanent rate and roughly $13.23 actual average rate. It does not state a specific current combined rate for an address inside Coos Bay city limits, inside North Bend city limits, or in unincorporated Coos County, nor a specific senior/disabled/veteran exemption threshold. Confirm the exact current combined rate and any exemption eligibility for a specific parcel directly with the Coos County Assessor's Office. Nothing on this page is tax or legal advice.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data sourced from: Oregon Department of Revenue publications and legislative reporting (via Clatsop County's, Clackamas County's, and Philomath's own government pages, and the League of Oregon Cities' FAQ on Measures 5 & 50) for how Measure 5's rate caps and Measure 50's assessed-value system work statewide; Coos County's own published assessment and tax roll materials (co.coos.or.us) and a 2021 Oregon Department of Revenue analysis (reported via FlyBidder and Ownwell) for the $1.08 permanent rate, its ranking as the third-lowest in Oregon, and the roughly $13.23 actual average combined rate per $1,000 of assessed value; and the Tax Foundation for Oregon's statewide effective property tax rate context. Facts not independently confirmed and not invented here include: current, specific municipal tax rates for the City of Coos Bay and the City of North Bend individually; a current itemized rate breakdown (school, fire, library, port, bonds) for any specific parcel; and current eligibility thresholds for Oregon's senior, disabled, veteran, or deferral property tax relief programs as applied in Coos County. Confirm all current figures and program eligibility directly with the Coos County Assessor's Office and the Oregon Department of Revenue before budgeting a specific tax bill. Nothing on this page is tax or legal advice.