Pawleys Island Property Tax: How County and Town Millage Layer Together
Pawleys Island is a small, historic beach town, but it is not an unincorporated stretch of coastline - the Town of Pawleys Island is its own separately incorporated municipality, with its own Town Council, mayor, and governing ordinances, confirmed by the town's own site and by the Municipal Association of South Carolina's municipality profile. That matters for property tax because it means a Pawleys Island property owner's total bill is built from more than one taxing layer: Georgetown County's own millage plus the Town of Pawleys Island's own municipal millage, set independently on its own budget cycle. This page deliberately does not publish a specific millage rate, assessed-value example, or sample tax bill, and does not state the town's exact incorporation year, because none of those figures could be independently confirmed for this page and would risk going stale the moment they were printed. What follows is the structure a buyer should understand, plus exactly who to contact for the real, current numbers.
Two Taxing Layers: Georgetown County and the Town of Pawleys Island
A property tax bill on Pawleys Island is not a single, simple number set by one office. It is built from at least two separate taxing entities layered on top of one another: Georgetown County's own millage (which itself typically bundles county operations and school-district millage), and the Town of Pawleys Island's own separate municipal millage. Each is set independently, on its own schedule, by its own governing body - the county government on one side, the Town Council on the other.
Because Pawleys Island is a small, deliberately low-key town rather than a large municipal government with extensive services, its own town-level millage is generally understood to be a comparatively small piece of the overall bill next to the county-and-school portion - but this page does not state a specific rate or percentage split, since no verified current figure was available. The practical point for a buyer is simply not to assume that a millage rate quoted for unincorporated Georgetown County, or for a different South Carolina beach town, applies directly to a Pawleys Island property. Because Pawleys Island is incorporated, it has its own additional town-level line item that an unincorporated area of the county would not carry at all.
South Carolina's Owner-Occupied vs. Second-Home Assessment Ratio
Separate from the county-versus-town question, South Carolina property tax law applies a two-step calculation statewide: a home's fair market value is first multiplied by an assessment ratio to produce a much smaller taxable "assessed value," and only then is that assessed value multiplied by the applicable millage to produce the actual bill. This structure is standard South Carolina law, not a Pawleys Island-specific rule, but which ratio applies depends entirely on how a given property is used.
An owner-occupied legal residence - a home the owner actually lives in as a primary residence, after applying for and being certified for the legal-residence classification by the county assessor - is assessed at a lower ratio than every other category of property, which includes second homes, vacation properties, rentals, and vacant land, assessed at a materially higher default ratio with no application required. Pawleys Island's identity as a historic, cottage-heavy beach town with a significant share of second-home and vacation-property ownership makes this distinction especially relevant here: a buyer should not assume a primary-residence tax bill will resemble what a second home on the same street actually pays. This page states the general rule as a matter of well-documented South Carolina law without attaching a specific Pawleys Island dollar figure to it, since none was confirmed for this page.
What This Page Does Not Claim, and Who to Call Instead
In the interest of not publishing anything that could mislead a buyer, this page deliberately does not include: a specific Georgetown County millage rate; a specific Town of Pawleys Island municipal millage rate; a sample dollar-amount tax bill for any hypothetical property value; the specific owner-occupied or non-owner-occupied assessment percentages as applied to a Pawleys Island property; or the Town of Pawleys Island's exact year of incorporation. Each of these is a real, findable number, but one that changes on its own schedule - annual budget cycles, Town Council votes, county reassessment years - and needs to be confirmed at the source rather than repeated from a snapshot that may already be out of date.
For current millage rates, assessed-value figures, the legal-residence application and certification process, and filing deadlines, contact the Georgetown County Assessor's Office directly, and confirm the Town of Pawleys Island's own municipal millage with the Town directly. For anything tied to an actual purchase decision, have a licensed South Carolina tax professional or real estate attorney review the specific numbers that apply to that property before you rely on them. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.
Ready to talk to a local Pawleys Island agent?
Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. The Town of Pawleys Island's status as a separately incorporated municipality with its own Town Council and mayor is confirmed via the town's own site and the Municipal Association of South Carolina's municipality profile page; the town's exact year of incorporation could not be independently confirmed for this page and is deliberately not stated. South Carolina's two-step property tax calculation - fair market value multiplied by an assessment ratio to produce an assessed value, then multiplied by millage - and the general distinction between a lower ratio for an owner-occupied legal residence and a higher default ratio for second homes, rentals, and vacant land, are standard, well-documented South Carolina property tax law applied statewide, not Pawleys Island-specific findings, and no specific percentage or dollar figure is stated here as a Pawleys Island number. This page does not state specific Georgetown County or Town of Pawleys Island millage rates, or any sample tax-bill dollar amount, because current, verified figures for these could not be confirmed for this page. Millage rates, assessment ratio rules, and filing deadlines all change over time; confirm all current figures directly with the Georgetown County Assessor's Office, the Town of Pawleys Island, and a licensed South Carolina tax professional before making any purchase or financial decision. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.