Property Tax in Irvington and Kilmarnock, VA
Virginia's property tax system is genuinely different from Maryland's, not just numerically -- there is no county-level Homestead Tax Credit here, and a property inside an incorporated town like Irvington or Kilmarnock can owe two separate, locally-set real estate levies at once. Here is how it actually works for this specific Lancaster County market.
Virginia's System: County-Set Rates, No Homestead Credit
Virginia real estate tax is set locally, not by a statewide formula. Each of Virginia's 95 counties and 38 independent cities sets its own real estate tax rate per $100 of assessed value, and towns incorporated within a county -- like Irvington and Kilmarnock, both inside Lancaster County -- may levy their own additional real estate tax on top of the county rate for property within town limits. There is no statewide Homestead Tax Credit program of the kind Maryland uses to cap the year-over-year growth in a homeowner's taxable assessment; Virginia's assessment increases apply in full each reassessment cycle, with no automatic cap on how much a bill can jump.
What Virginia does offer, administered county by county rather than through a uniform statewide credit, is a Real Estate Tax Relief program for qualifying elderly and disabled homeowners, generally income- and net-worth-tested and set at each locality's discretion, plus land-use (agricultural/open-space) taxation for larger rural and working-waterfront parcels that qualify. This page does not have confirmed current Lancaster County eligibility thresholds or relief amounts for either program and does not invent them -- contact the Lancaster County Commissioner of the Revenue directly for current qualification rules.
Lancaster County's FY2026-27 Rate: 60 Cents Per $100, Up 9%
The Lancaster County Board of Supervisors adopted a $57 million budget for fiscal year 2026-27 on a 4-0 vote on May 28, 2026, raising the countywide real estate tax rate from 55 cents to 60 cents per $100 of assessed value -- a 9% increase. County reporting attributed the increase primarily to rising annual debt service tied to school and parks capital projects, alongside a 3% raise for all full-time county employees, absorption of a 7% increase in health-insurance premiums, and a hazardous-duty supplement for emergency medical services staff. The budget's single largest line item is the $21.9 million appropriation to the county school system.
This FY2026-27 increase follows a countywide property reassessment that a resident's public-hearing comment, cited in local reporting, put at roughly a 50% jump in total assessed value -- from about $2 billion to a little over $3 billion. This page has not independently verified that specific reassessment figure beyond that single cited comment and flags it as such rather than presenting it as an official county release. On a home assessed at $600,000, the new 60-cent county rate alone works out to $3,600 a year, before any town-level add-on.
Irvington and Kilmarnock Each Add Their Own Town Levy
Property physically inside the incorporated limits of Irvington or Kilmarnock owes a second, separate real estate tax set by that town's own council, on top of the county rate -- a genuinely different structure from an unincorporated Lancaster County parcel, which pays the county rate only. The Virginia Department of Taxation's most recently confirmed local tax rate survey, for tax year 2024, lists Irvington's own rate at 2.2 cents per $100 of assessed value and Kilmarnock's at 7.0 cents per $100 -- both small next to the county's 60-cent rate, but real, additive, and worth factoring into an exact comparison between two otherwise-similar listings.
This page has not found an updated 2025 or 2026 figure for either town's rate and does not guess at one; town councils set these independently of the county's cycle, and a listing's marketing materials should never be assumed to reflect the current combined rate. Confirm the current Irvington or Kilmarnock town rate directly with each town's clerk, and confirm which side of the town line a specific parcel actually sits on with the Lancaster County GIS or Commissioner of the Revenue -- a Carter's Creek address can read as "Irvington" in a listing without being inside the town's actual tax boundary.
How This Differs From Maryland, Concretely
This market is the first Virginia entry in a wave that otherwise covers Chesapeake Bay markets in Maryland, and the tax mechanics are not interchangeable. Maryland's system centers on a statewide Homestead Tax Credit that caps how much a primary residence's taxable assessment can grow in a single year regardless of the actual reassessment, softening the annual bill even after a sharp market-value jump. Virginia has no equivalent statewide cap -- Lancaster County's FY2026-27 9% rate increase, layered onto a reassessment that reportedly pushed county-wide values up roughly 50%, hits a homeowner's bill more directly than a comparable Maryland reassessment would, because there's no credit mechanism absorbing part of the increase.
Virginia also differs in having towns levy independent real estate taxes inside counties -- Maryland's incorporated towns can do something structurally similar, but the specific stacking here (Lancaster County's rate plus Irvington's or Kilmarnock's own small town rate) is a distinctly Virginia local-government pattern worth understanding on its own terms rather than assuming it mirrors a Maryland town's tax bill.
What a Buyer Should Actually Ask Before Closing
Before making an offer on a specific property, a buyer should confirm three separate things with the Lancaster County Commissioner of the Revenue: the property's current assessed value (not its list price, which can run above or below assessment), whether the parcel sits inside Irvington's or Kilmarnock's town limits and therefore owes a town-level add-on, and whether the property currently carries any land-use (agricultural/open-space) taxation that would trigger a rollback tax liability if the new owner changes the land's use after purchase -- a real, sometimes-overlooked cost on larger rural Northern Neck parcels.
None of these are numbers this page states with confidence for a specific address, because they vary parcel by parcel. What this page states with confidence is the structure: county rate plus possible town rate, no statewide homestead cap, and a locally-administered elderly/disabled relief program that has to be applied for rather than assumed.
What This Page Does Not Know
This page does not have confirmed current Irvington or Kilmarnock town tax rates for 2025 or 2026 (only the confirmed tax-year-2024 figures), confirmed current Lancaster County elderly/disabled tax relief thresholds or benefit amounts, confirmed land-use taxation rollback-tax specifics for this county, or an independently verified official reassessment percentage beyond the single public-hearing comment cited in local reporting.
For current, address-specific numbers, contact the Lancaster County Commissioner of the Revenue's office directly, along with the Town of Irvington or Town of Kilmarnock clerk for the current town rate applicable to a specific parcel.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data sourced from: the Virginia Department of Taxation's tax-year-2024 Local Tax Rates survey (tax.virginia.gov) for Irvington's and Kilmarnock's town-level real estate tax rates and Lancaster County's prior county rate; Rappahannock Record and Middle Neck News reporting on the Lancaster County Board of Supervisors' May 28, 2026 adoption of the FY2026-27 budget, the 55-to-60-cent rate increase, and the budget's stated drivers (school/parks debt service, employee raises, health-insurance costs, the $21.9 million school appropriation); and a resident's public-hearing comment, cited in that same local reporting, regarding the county-wide reassessment's approximate percentage increase -- explicitly flagged here as a cited comment, not an official county release. General Virginia property-tax-relief-program structure (locally-administered elderly/disabled relief, land-use taxation) reflects widely documented Virginia local-government patterns rather than a Lancaster-County-specific ordinance citation pulled this research pass. Facts not independently confirmed and not invented here include: updated 2025/2026 Irvington and Kilmarnock town tax rates; current Lancaster County elderly/disabled tax relief eligibility thresholds and benefit amounts; current land-use taxation rollback-tax rules for this county; and an independently verified official reassessment percentage. Confirm all current figures directly with the Lancaster County Commissioner of the Revenue and the relevant town clerk before making a purchase or budgeting decision. Nothing on this page is legal or tax advice.