Gloucester, MA Property Tax Guide

Gloucester's Split Residential and Commercial Tax Rates

Massachusetts taxes property at a rate per $1,000 of assessed value, and Gloucester — like most Massachusetts communities with any meaningful commercial base — uses a split, classified rate: one figure for residential property and a slightly higher one for commercial, industrial, and personal property. Per Gloucester's own assessor data system (Vision Government Solutions, gis.vgsi.com/gloucesterma), the Fiscal Year 2026 rates, based on January 1, 2025 valuations, are $9.31 per $1,000 of assessed value for residential property and $9.61 per $1,000 for commercial, industrial, and personal property.

That gap is modest compared to many Massachusetts cities, where commercial rates sometimes run close to double the residential rate. Gloucester's roughly 3 percent spread between the two rates suggests a city that has chosen not to shift a heavy share of its tax burden onto its commercial and industrial base — a reasonable posture for a city whose commercial backbone includes a working fishing fleet and waterfront tourism businesses rather than large industrial or office parks.

To translate a rate into an actual bill: multiply a property's assessed value by the applicable rate, then divide by 1,000. A home assessed at $600,000 at Gloucester's residential rate of $9.31 per $1,000 works out to roughly $5,586 for the year, before any local exemptions. A buyer should confirm the current fiscal year's certified rate directly with Gloucester's Assessor's Office before budgeting around these figures, since rates are recertified annually.

A Low Rate, But a High Bill: What a Typical Gloucester Tax Bill Looks Like

Rate-per-$1,000 figures only tell part of the story; what matters to a buyer is the actual annual bill relative to a home's value, and Gloucester is a useful example of how a genuinely low tax rate can still produce an above-average dollar bill. Per Ownwell's property-tax analytics, Gloucester's effective tax rate works out to about 0.97 percent of home value (median), with a median annual tax bill of $6,056 — and that effective rate sits below both the Massachusetts state median of roughly 1.15 percent and the national median of roughly 1.02 percent.

The reason the dollar bill still runs high is home values, not the rate. Multiple sources put Gloucester home values in a wide but consistent range: the Census Bureau's ACS-style median home value is $600,600, Ownwell's median is $622,500, and Zillow's current market-estimate index (its Zillow Home Value Index) puts the typical Gloucester home at $782,249, up about 2.0 percent over the preceding year. These are different measurement methods, not contradictory numbers — assessed/ACS value tends to run behind current market pricing — but all three land well above the national median home price, which is why a below-average tax rate still produces an above-average tax bill.

Neighborhood-level data from Redfin shows a similar pattern in West Gloucester and East Gloucester specifically, where October 2025 median sale prices were reported around $770,000 and $771,500 respectively — broadly consistent with the citywide Zillow figure and reinforcing that Gloucester's tax story is a high-value-market story, not a high-rate-market story.

Proposition 2½: The Statewide Law Behind Every Massachusetts Tax Rate

Every Massachusetts city and town, including Gloucester, operates under Proposition 2½, a 1980 statewide ballot law that caps how much a municipality's total property tax levy can grow each year. Under the law, a community's tax levy generally cannot increase by more than 2.5 percent per year from existing property, separate from new growth (newly built or improved property added to the tax rolls), without voters approving an override at the ballot box.

Proposition 2½ is also the underlying reason Gloucester's rate can stay comparatively low even as home values climb: the total amount the city is legally allowed to collect grows only modestly year to year, so when overall assessed property values rise, the tax rate itself gets recalculated downward to keep total citywide collections within that statewide cap. A rising assessed value on any individual home can still push that owner's bill higher even while the citywide rate holds steady or falls slightly — the rate and the bill are two different numbers, and a low headline rate does not by itself mean a low bill.

A Live Budget Pressure: the EPA Wastewater Consent Decree

Beyond the routine Proposition 2½ mechanics, Gloucester has a real, currently unresolved civic and budget story that any homeowner or buyer should know about before assuming today's rates and utility bills will hold steady: the city is under a federal and state EPA consent decree requiring it to build a new secondary wastewater treatment facility, because its Water Pollution Control Facility on Essex Avenue has operated with only primary treatment since 1984, in violation of the Clean Water Act.

Reported project costs have escalated substantially over time in public reporting — earlier estimates of $80 million to $100 million grew to a widely reported $150 million figure by 2023, and a $206 million loan order was being discussed by 2024, per Gloucester Times' own coverage. Construction is reportedly planned to run from late 2025 through March 2027, with full regulatory compliance required by March 30, 2028. These are different points along an escalating cost estimate, not conflicting figures, and the final confirmed project cost should be reconfirmed directly with the City of Gloucester before a buyer relies on any single number.

Current sewer rates were reported at $16.12 per 1,000 gallons as of 2023, and local officials — including a state senator on the record — have expressed concern about future rate increases for longtime residents once the project's final costs are known. This is a genuinely unresolved, financially consequential story: it does not directly change the property tax rate itself, but it is exactly the kind of municipal capital project that pressures future budgets, sewer fees, and potentially the pace of the city's Proposition 2½ levy growth, and it should be treated as an open question rather than a settled cost.

Why Gloucester's Tax Picture Looks Different From a Typical Massachusetts City

Gloucester is a small city of roughly 30,000 residents built around a genuine working harbor and commercial fishing fleet, not a large industrial city or a purely seasonal resort town, and its tax profile reflects that in-between identity. It carries an older-skewing population (nearly 28 percent of residents are 65 or older), a median household income around $83,883, and home values that sit well above the national median — a combination that produces exactly the pattern described above: a below-average effective rate paired with an above-average dollar bill.

A buyer comparing Gloucester to one of this site's larger working-city markets, or to a smaller inland Massachusetts town, should expect this same general pattern to repeat: the mechanics (split residential/commercial rates, the Proposition 2½ levy cap, annual state certification) are the same everywhere in Massachusetts, but they play out differently in a high-value coastal city like Gloucester than in a lower-value inland or urban market.

What This Page Does Not State, and Why

This page does not state a final, confirmed cost for Gloucester's wastewater treatment plant project — public reporting has shown figures ranging from roughly $80 million to $206 million across different points in the project's timeline, and a buyer should confirm the current status and any resulting fee changes directly with the City of Gloucester before assuming a specific number. It also does not calculate exemptions such as residential or senior exemptions, and does not predict future rate changes.

Property tax rates, assessments, and municipal budget conditions change from year to year. Before budgeting a purchase in Gloucester around a specific tax figure, confirm the current fiscal year's certified rate and any applicable exemptions directly with the City of Gloucester Assessor's Office, and consult a Massachusetts real estate attorney or tax professional for guidance specific to a given property. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.