Property Taxes at Holden Beach

Two Bills, One From the Town and One From the County

Any Holden Beach property owner pays property tax to two separate jurisdictions: the Town of Holden Beach, which funds municipal services like beach patrol, the fire department, and street maintenance, and Brunswick County, which funds county-wide services including Brunswick County Schools. These are billed and calculated as two distinct rates applied to the same assessed value, not a single combined number set by one authority -- meaning a buyer comparing Holden Beach to an unincorporated part of Brunswick County, or to a different Brunswick County beach town with a different municipal rate, needs to add both figures rather than compare a single number.

The Town's Rate: $0.14 Per $100, Held Flat

Holden Beach's town property tax rate has been reported at $0.14 (14 cents) per $100 of assessed value for fiscal year 2025-26, and Brunswick Beacon/newsargus.com coverage of the town's budget process indicates the town proposed maintaining that same $0.14 rate for fiscal year 2026-27 -- a genuine rate-freeze decision across two consecutive budget cycles, not an increase. For a home assessed at $900,000, that works out to $1,260 a year in town tax alone; for a home assessed at $1.3 million, it's about $1,820. This is a comparatively low municipal rate as beach-town rates go, though this page does not have directly comparable current rates for every other Brunswick County beach town to state a ranking with confidence.

That said, a flat nominal rate doesn't necessarily mean a flat tax bill for an individual owner. If a property's assessed value rises between now and the next countywide revaluation (see below), the dollar amount owed rises even if the rate itself stays at $0.14, since the rate is applied per $100 of the (potentially higher) assessed value.

The County's Rate: 34.20 Cents Per $100, With a 2027 Revaluation Coming

Brunswick County's own countywide ad valorem tax rate is reported at 34.20 cents ($0.3420) per $100 of assessed value for FY2025, covering July 2025 through June 2026. Combined with the town's $0.14 rate, that puts the total roughly at 48.2 cents per $100 as an approximate sum of two separately reported figures -- not itself a single official combined rate, and excluding any separate fire district or other special-district levy that might also apply to a specific parcel.

Brunswick County revalues real property on a four-year cycle. The current valuation base took effect January 1, 2023, and the next countywide revaluation is scheduled to take effect January 1, 2027. That timeline matters directly for a Holden Beach buyer: purchasing in 2026 means buying into an assessment that is close to its four-year mark and due for a reset relatively soon after closing. Revaluations in coastal North Carolina counties have, in other markets on this site (see the Wrightsville Beach and other Mid-Atlantic hub pages), driven assessed-value increases substantial enough to trigger municipal rate cuts elsewhere in the state even while total revenue held roughly steady -- worth watching for locally as Brunswick County's own 2027 cycle approaches, though this page does not predict what that specific revaluation will do to Holden Beach values or rates.

What This Research Could Not Directly Confirm

This research relied on tax-rate aggregator and property-tax-guide sites (propertytaxusa.org, HonestCasa, and similar) to source the county's 34.20-cent figure and its four-year revaluation cycle, because Brunswick County's own official tax-rates web page could not be directly reached during this research pass (the network egress used for this build blocked access to brunswickcountync.gov). These aggregator sites cite the county's own published figures and are generally reliable for this kind of rate lookup, but this page treats the figure as sourced-through-an-intermediary rather than pulled directly from the primary government page, and recommends confirming the current exact rate directly with the Brunswick County Tax Office before relying on it for a purchase decision.

This page also does not state whether a specific Holden Beach parcel falls within any additional special taxing district (a fire district beyond the town's own coverage, for example) that would add a third rate on top of the town-plus-county figure above. Special district coverage can vary by exact location even within a single small town.

How to Estimate a Bill Before You Buy

The mechanical calculation is straightforward once you have both rates and the assessed value: take the assessed value, divide by 100, then multiply by the combined rate. At the approximate combined rate of 48.2 cents per $100, a property assessed at $1 million would owe roughly $4,820 a year in combined town-plus-county property tax, before any special district levy. A property assessed at $1.5 million would owe roughly $7,230. These are illustrative calculations based on the two separately confirmed rates above, not a substitute for an actual current tax bill -- the county's assessed value for a specific parcel can differ meaningfully from its market sale price, particularly heading into a revaluation cycle, so pull the actual current assessed value for any property you're evaluating from the Brunswick County GIS/tax records system or ask the listing agent for the most recent tax bill.

For a buyer comparing Holden Beach to a non-coastal North Carolina market, it's worth noting that the combined rate here (roughly 48.2 cents per $100) sits in a fairly typical range for North Carolina generally -- the state's coastal beach towns don't uniformly carry either unusually high or unusually low combined rates compared to inland municipalities, and Holden Beach's own town rate at 14 cents is on the lower end of what this site has documented for comparable NC beach towns.

What Else to Confirm Directly

Before closing on a Holden Beach property, confirm directly with the Brunswick County Tax Office: the exact current assessed value for the specific parcel, whether any special taxing district applies beyond the standard town-plus-county rates, whether the seller has any tax exemptions or deferrals (elderly/disabled homestead exclusion, for example) that will not transfer to a new owner and could cause the bill to jump after a sale, and the county's current payment schedule and any early-payment discount or late-payment penalty structure. None of these specifics were independently confirmed in this research pass, and none are stated here as fact.