Property Taxes at Emerald Isle

Two Rates, One Bill

Property in Emerald Isle is taxed by two separate governments -- the Town of Emerald Isle and Carteret County -- but Carteret County's tax office issues one consolidated bill each year covering both. That single-bill structure means a homeowner doesn't have to track two separate due dates or two separate mailings, but it also means the number printed on the bill is already a sum of two independently set rates, each with its own budget process, its own public hearings, and its own reasons for moving up or down in a given year.

Understanding those two components separately matters because they move independently. The county rate has been described in state and local reporting as the lowest county-level rate in North Carolina, while the town rate is set by the Emerald Isle Board of Commissioners through its own annual budget process and reflects town-specific spending decisions -- fire department staffing, stormwater infrastructure, and beach and public-safety programs among them.

The Town Rate: 11 Cents for FY2026-27, Up From 10.25 Cents

The Town of Emerald Isle's Board of Commissioners adopted its FY2026-27 budget at its June 9, 2026 meeting, setting the general fund property tax rate at 11 cents per $100 of assessed value -- a half-cent increase over the 10.25-cent rate that had been in effect for FY2025-26. The adopted budget totals nearly $16.4 million in appropriations for the fiscal year running from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. Local reporting on the budget identified specific new spending behind the increase: three new full-time positions in the Fire Department, the first debt-service payment on land the town has designated for a future Fire Station 3, and installation of a new stormwater pump station on Reed Drive.

Even with the increase, local reporting described Emerald Isle as expected to continue holding the second-lowest property tax rate among North Carolina's 21 oceanfront municipalities. That is a genuinely notable, sourced claim for a town this exposed to the Atlantic and worth understanding in context: a low nominal rate does not mean a low total tax bill, since the rate is applied to assessed value, and assessed values on oceanfront and near-oceanfront Emerald Isle property can be substantial even when the rate itself is modest.

The County Rate: 22.5 Cents, Held Flat, Called the State's Lowest

Carteret County's Board of Commissioners approved a nearly $191 million budget for FY2026-27 while holding the county property tax rate flat at 22.5 cents per $100 of assessed value -- the same rate in place for FY2025-26. Local reporting on the county budget specifically describes Carteret as maintaining the lowest county-level property tax rate in North Carolina. That distinction matters for anyone comparing total tax exposure across NC coastal counties, since a buyer choosing between two similarly priced homes in different counties can face meaningfully different total tax bills purely because of the county-level rate, independent of anything the town itself does.

For questions specific to the county side of a tax bill, or to confirm the current rate has not changed since this research was conducted, contact the Carteret County Tax Administrator's Office directly at (252) 728-8485.

Doing the Combined Math

Adding the two current rates together -- 11 cents town plus 22.5 cents county -- comes to roughly 33.5 cents per $100 of assessed value for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2026. This page treats that sum as an approximate combination of two separately confirmed rates, not as a single official published combined figure, and it excludes any additional fire-district, school-district, or special-district levy that might apply to a specific parcel beyond the base town and county rates. A property-tax aggregator site cited a slightly lower combined figure of roughly 32.5 cents per $100, which appears to reflect the prior fiscal year's 10.25-cent town rate rather than the current 11-cent rate -- a useful reminder that aggregator sites can lag a recent rate change by a full budget cycle.

On a $700,000 assessed value, the practical difference between the old and new combined rates works out to roughly $52.50 a year in additional town tax alone (the half-cent increase applied to $700,000 in assessed value) -- a modest but real annual change, and a useful example of how to translate a cents-per-$100 rate into an actual dollar figure for a specific assessed value.

Assessed Value Versus Market Value

Every property tax bill in North Carolina is calculated against the county's assessed value for that parcel, which is set during periodic countywide revaluations rather than recalculated every time a home sells. This matters in a market like Emerald Isle's, where actual sale prices reported by Redfin, Zillow, and Movoto disagree with each other by hundreds of thousands of dollars -- none of those market-tracker figures is the number a tax bill is actually calculated against. This page did not independently confirm Carteret County's current revaluation cycle length or the date of its most recent countywide reappraisal, so a buyer evaluating a specific property's likely future tax trajectory should ask the Carteret County Tax Administrator's Office directly when the county last revalued and when the next revaluation is scheduled, since a future reappraisal could move assessed values -- and therefore tax bills -- independent of any change in the tax rate itself.

What This Page Does Not State as Fact

This page states the two confirmed current tax rates and their sum as an approximation. It does not state a specific dollar tax bill for any particular property, since that requires the parcel's actual assessed value, which varies enormously between an interior lot and an oceanfront parcel even within the same town. It also does not state Carteret County's revaluation cycle or most recent reappraisal date, since that was not confirmed this research pass, and it does not state whether any fire-district or special-district levy applies beyond the base town and county rates for a given address. Any of these gaps should be closed with a direct call to the Carteret County Tax Administrator's Office before budgeting a specific number for a specific property.