Portland, ME Property Tax: $11.98 Rate, Higher Bills

The FY2026 Rate: $11.98 per $1,000, Down From $15.01

Portland's city government set the FY2026 mill rate at $11.98 per $1,000 of assessed value, a drop of roughly 20% from FY2025's $15.01, according to Mainebiz and WGME, both of which independently reported the same pair of figures. The drop followed the city's first full property revaluation since 2021 — a comprehensive citywide reassessment of what every parcel is actually worth in today's market, with a further revaluation already noted for 2026, suggesting Portland may be moving toward a more frequent reassessment cycle going forward rather than letting years pass between updates.

City Assessor Elisa Marr is quoted in that reporting stating the revaluation "brings assessed values in line with the current market, as required by state law." That framing matters: Maine law requires municipalities to keep assessed values reasonably close to actual market value, and when years pass without a reassessment, market prices drift away from assessed values until a revaluation is legally required to correct the gap. Portland's median residential property value jumped from $396,700 to $566,600 in this cycle — a 43% increase — which is the real story behind the lower headline rate.

The Critical Nuance: A Lower Rate Does Not Mean a Lower Bill

Here is the part a headline rate alone will not tell an owner. Revaluations are generally designed to be close to revenue-neutral for the city as a whole — the point is not to raise or lower total collections, but to redistribute the existing tax burden according to updated, more accurate market values. When some properties gained more value than others in the reassessment (which is normal — waterfront, close-in, and rapidly appreciating neighborhoods often reassess higher than others), those owners can end up paying more even while the citywide mill rate drops, because their share of the city's total assessed value grew faster than the rate fell.

A simple illustration using only the city's own published figures makes the mechanism visible. At the old FY2025 rate, the old median home value of $396,700 produced a tax bill of about $5,954 a year ($396,700 × $15.01 ÷ $1,000). At the new FY2026 rate, the new median home value of $566,600 produced a bill of about $6,788 a year ($566,600 × $11.98 ÷ $1,000) — an increase of roughly 14%, even though the rate itself fell by about 20%. This is illustrative arithmetic on the city's two published median figures, not a claim about any single property's actual before-and-after bill, since individual parcels moved by different amounts in the reassessment. But it demonstrates exactly why WGME's own reporting on this revaluation was headlined around lower rates paired with higher taxes for many homeowners, rather than simply "taxes are going down."

What $11.98 per $1,000 Costs on a Current Home

Zillow's Home Value Index puts Portland's typical home value at $566,265 as of a May 31, 2026 snapshot — notably close to the city's own $566,600 post-revaluation median — with a median list price of $610,333 across 166 active listings. Running Zillow's figure against the $11.98 rate works out to roughly $6,784 a year in city tax; running the median list price through the same rate works out to roughly $7,312 a year. The U.S. Census Bureau's trailing 2020–2024 five-year ACS estimate, by contrast, puts Portland's median home value at $489,600 — a lagging figure that predates the revaluation's full market catch-up — which would work out to roughly $5,865 a year at the current rate, meaningfully lower than either of the more current figures above.

All of these are illustrative multiplications against citywide or index figures, not real tax bills for any specific address. The only number that matters for an actual purchase decision is the assessed value the City of Portland's own Assessing Office has on file for that specific parcel after the revaluation, multiplied by the confirmed current rate. First-half FY2026 bills were due October 17, 2025, with the second half due March 20, 2026 — a buyer closing mid-cycle should confirm with the seller and the city which installments have already been paid.

How Portland's New Rate Compares to Its Casco Bay Neighbors

Per mainerealestate.com's "Property Taxes by Town" comparison, the most recently compiled multi-town mill-rate table (FY2025, before Portland's own revaluation took effect) showed Portland at $15.01, Cape Elizabeth at $11.00, Scarborough at $11.33, Old Orchard Beach at roughly $10.30, Wells at $6.46 (on a 100% assessment ratio), Kennebunkport at $6.88 (90% ratio), and Ogunquit at $6.73 (90% ratio). Portland's new FY2026 rate of $11.98 now sits much closer to Cape Elizabeth's and Scarborough's own rates than the old $15.01 figure did — even though Portland's underlying home values remain lower than Cape Elizabeth's, whose own Zillow-tracked typical home value runs roughly 58% higher than Portland's.

That nominal convergence is worth reading carefully rather than at face value. A mill rate is only half of what determines an actual bill; the other half is the assessment ratio a town uses (Wells assesses at 100% of market value, while Kennebunkport and Ogunquit assess at 90%, for example) and the market value itself. Two towns with an identical mill rate can produce very different bills if one assesses closer to full market value than the other, or if the underlying home values differ as much as Portland's and Cape Elizabeth's do.

Maine's Income Tax: The Piece a Mill-Rate Table Leaves Out

Unlike New Hampshire just across the state line, Maine levies a statewide personal income tax that applies uniformly regardless of which town or city a homeowner lives in. That means a straight mill-rate comparison across Portland, Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, Wells, Kennebunkport, and Ogunquit captures only the property-tax piece of the picture, not the full state and local tax burden a household actually carries. A buyer weighing Portland against a lower-mill-rate town like Wells or Ogunquit should factor in that Maine's income tax applies the same way in both places — the mill-rate gap between towns is real, but it is not the whole comparison.

What This Page Could Not Confirm

A few things here should be verified directly rather than assumed. The reporting reviewed for this page notes a further revaluation already scheduled for 2026 but does not give an exact date or describe whether that cycle will be a full reassessment or a smaller interim adjustment — confirm the schedule with the City of Portland's Assessing Office before assuming a specific timeline. Second, a clean, directly sourced Redfin median-sale-price or days-on-market figure specific to Portland proper was not confirmed for this page; Zillow's index and the city's own revaluation median are cited above instead, and a buyer should pull a current Redfin figure directly before relying on a closed-sale comparison. Third, the FY2025 comparison rates for Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, Old Orchard Beach, Wells, Kennebunkport, and Ogunquit are drawn from a single compiled table and have not been independently confirmed as current FY2026 figures for those towns, so the regional comparison above should be read as directionally accurate rather than a precise same-year lineup. None of these gaps should be filled with an assumed number. Verify each directly with the City of Portland's Assessing Office, Maine Revenue Services, or a current Redfin/Zillow pull, and consult a Maine-licensed tax professional or real estate attorney before making a purchase decision based on property tax exposure.