Edgartown, MA: Property Tax — The FY2026 Rate, the $12.7 Billion Base, and a Real 2026 Override
Edgartown's property tax follows the same low-nominal-rate, high-assessed-value pattern this site has already documented on Nantucket, but with a genuinely current wrinkle: Edgartown voters approved a roughly $900,000 Proposition 2½ override at the town's April 2026 Annual Town Meeting to fund the purchase of the Boys & Girls Club building — a real, dated, concrete example of an override in action, not an abstract mechanic. This page states the town's own published FY2026 rate, walks through why that rate sits where it does on top of an assessed base reported at $12.7 billion, explains the override using this specific vote, and is explicit about which figures could and could not be independently cross-confirmed this pass.
The FY2026 Rate: $2.48 Per $1,000, Down From $2.65
The Town of Edgartown's own Assessor's Office publishes a "Tax Rate History" page, and it lists the current FY2026 rate at $2.48 per $1,000 of assessed value, down from $2.65 in FY2025. That page's longer history is useful context on its own: the rate ran as high as $8.66 in the late 1990s and has trended generally downward since, sitting in the low $3-per-$1,000 range through most of the 2010s before dropping into the $2 range more recently — the same "rate falls as the assessed base grows" pattern documented on this site's Nantucket page.
A word on how confident we are in that $2.48 figure: it comes from a direct read of the town's own primary source this session, and it lines up with an independent, previously-confirmed data point — a Martha's Vineyard Times headline from December 2014 reported that rising valuations would "drop tax rate 6 percent," and the town's own history table shows the rate falling from $3.70 (FY2014) to $3.47 (FY2015), a 6.2% drop that matches that reporting almost exactly. That internal consistency is why this page states $2.48 as the current rate rather than repeating the "unconfirmed" flag from an earlier research pass. It was not, however, independently cross-confirmed against a second source this session — attempts to verify it against Mass.gov's statewide FY2026 tax-rate data and against a third-party property-tax aggregator both failed on proxy errors — so treat it as confirmed against the town's own page, not double-verified, and check it directly with the Assessor's Office before relying on it for a purchase decision.
Why the Rate Is Low: A $12.7 Billion Assessed Base
The mechanic is the same one that makes Nantucket's rate look low: a Massachusetts town divides its annual tax levy by its total assessed property value to get the rate per $1,000, so a town with an enormous assessed base can raise real money at a low nominal rate. A Martha's Vineyard Times headline from December 12, 2022 — "Edgartown assessed at $12.7 billion" — puts a real, dated number on just how large that base is for a town of Edgartown's size, and an earlier MV Times headline from December 2014 ("Rise in Edgartown property values will drop tax rate 6 percent") shows this rising-value, falling-rate dynamic recurring across at least a decade, not a one-off. That $12.7 billion figure is from December 2022, not this year — assessed values are reset annually, so treat it as a directional, dated data point on the scale of Edgartown's tax base rather than a current total.
One structural detail worth getting right: Edgartown maintains a single, unsplit tax classification rate across residential and commercial property, per an MV Times headline from December 2019 ("Edgartown keeps single tax rate"). Some Massachusetts towns split their rate to shift more of the burden onto commercial and industrial property; Edgartown, at least as of that reporting, has chosen not to — meaning the $2.48 figure above applies across property types rather than to residential parcels alone.
A Real Override in Action: The $900,000 Boys & Girls Club Purchase
Rather than describe a Proposition 2½ override in the abstract, Edgartown gives us a live, current example. At the town's April 2026 Annual Town Meeting, voters approved a roughly $900,000 override specifically to fund the town's purchase of the Boys & Girls Club building — reported within days of the vote by both the Vineyard Gazette ("Edgartown Voters Approve $900k Override," April 16, 2026) and the Martha's Vineyard Times ("Edgartown approves override, purchase of Boys and Girls Club building," April 15, 2026). That is exactly what an override is built to do: it lets a town raise its total tax levy above the standard annual growth cap, permanently, for a specific voter-approved purpose — in this case, a building acquisition rather than routine operating costs.
What this page does not do is calculate the resulting per-household dollar impact of this specific override, because that breakdown was not part of the reporting reviewed this pass. The point worth carrying into a purchase decision is simpler: a rate as low as $2.48 per $1,000 can still move upward in a given year because of a specific, named, voter-approved override like this one, on top of whatever the underlying levy and valuation math would otherwise produce.
Proposition 2½: The Statewide Ceiling Behind the Rate
Edgartown operates under the same statewide framework as every other Massachusetts municipality: Proposition 2½, the 1980 law that caps how fast a town's total property tax levy can grow year over year. It works through two related limits — a levy ceiling that keeps the total levy at or under 2.5% of the town's total assessed value, and a levy limit that restricts year-over-year levy growth to 2.5% regardless of how much individual assessed values move. New construction falls outside that annual growth cap, and a town can only exceed its regular limit through a voter-approved override (which permanently raises the levy limit, as with the Boys & Girls Club purchase above) or a debt exclusion tied to specific borrowing.
Proposition 2½ constrains how fast the total levy can grow; it does not set the rate itself, and it does not determine how that levy is distributed among individual properties. On a base as large as Edgartown's, the levy-growth cap is one of the few numbers in the system that is genuinely predictable from year to year — everything downstream of it, including the rate and any given owner's bill, still depends on where valuations and votes like this year's override land.
What We Still Can't Confirm — and Why We're Not Guessing
Two things stay unconfirmed even after this pass. First, the $12.7 billion total-assessed-valuation figure is dated to December 2022 and has almost certainly moved since — this page states it as a real, sourced data point on the scale of Edgartown's tax base, not as this year's total. Second, the $2.48 FY2026 rate above is read directly from the town's own Tax Rate History page but was not independently cross-confirmed against a second source this session; separate attempts to verify it against Mass.gov's statewide FY2026 tax-rate dataset and a third-party property-tax aggregator both failed on proxy errors rather than returning a conflicting or matching number. Treat it as the best currently available figure, not a double-verified one.
Separately, no specific current median or average Edgartown home sale price was confirmed in the research behind this page, despite live, Edgartown-specific pages existing on Zillow, Redfin, Rocket Homes, and other brokerage sites — so this page does not attempt to translate the $2.48 rate into an illustrative dollar bill on a "typical" Edgartown home the way some of this site's other tax pages do. Doing that math on an invented median price would be worse than not doing it at all.
What This Means When You Budget a Purchase
Three things are worth carrying into an offer on Edgartown. First, pull the property's actual current assessed value and the current certified rate directly from the Edgartown Assessor's Office rather than relying on this page, a listing sheet, or a neighbor's bill — assessed values and rates are both reset annually. Second, remember that Edgartown's single, unsplit classification rate means the $2.48 figure applies the same way to residential and commercial property, so it is not adjusted by property type the way a split-rate town's figure would be. Third, ask specifically whether the April 2026 override or any other recently approved override or debt exclusion is already reflected in the current certified rate you're being quoted, since overrides like the Boys & Girls Club purchase permanently raise the levy limit going forward.
None of this is legal or tax advice. Rates, assessed values, and override history are set and updated annually — confirm every current figure directly with the Edgartown Assessor's Office or a licensed Massachusetts tax professional before making a purchase, budgeting a renovation, or relying on any number here for a financial decision.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Edgartown's FY2026 property tax rate of $2.48 per $1,000 of assessed value, down from $2.65 in FY2025, is read directly from the Town of Edgartown Assessor's Office's own published "Tax Rate History" page; it was not independently cross-confirmed against a second source this session (parallel attempts to verify it against Mass.gov's statewide FY2026 tax-rate dataset and a third-party property-tax aggregator both failed on proxy errors rather than returning a conflicting figure). Confidence in the $2.48 figure is bolstered by an internal consistency check: the same town history page shows the rate falling from $3.70 (FY2014) to $3.47 (FY2015), a 6.2% drop that matches a Martha's Vineyard Times headline from December 2014 ("Rise in Edgartown property values will drop tax rate 6 percent") almost exactly. Edgartown's total assessed valuation of $12.7 billion is sourced to a Martha's Vineyard Times headline dated December 12, 2022 ("Edgartown assessed at $12.7 billion") and is not a current-year figure. Edgartown's single, unsplit tax classification rate across residential and commercial property is sourced to an MV Times headline from December 2019 ("Edgartown keeps single tax rate"). The April 2026 roughly $900,000 Proposition 2½ override, approved at Edgartown's April 2026 Annual Town Meeting to fund the town's purchase of the Boys & Girls Club building, is sourced to the Vineyard Gazette ("Edgartown Voters Approve $900k Override," April 16, 2026) and the Martha's Vineyard Times ("Edgartown approves override, purchase of Boys and Girls Club building," April 15, 2026). Massachusetts' Proposition 2½ levy-limit framework applies identically to Edgartown and every other Massachusetts municipality and is covered in the same way on this site's other Massachusetts destination pages. No specific current median or average Edgartown home sale price was confirmed in the research behind this page despite live, Edgartown-specific pages existing on Zillow, Redfin, Rocket Homes, Movoto, Hagerty Real Estate, and the O'Hanlon Group/Compass. Tax rates, assessed values, and override history are set and updated annually and independently by the town — confirm all current figures directly with the Edgartown Assessor's Office and consult a licensed Massachusetts tax professional before making any purchase, budgeting, or financial decision. Nothing on this page is legal or tax advice.