Quincy, MA Property Tax Guide

Quincy's Property Tax Rates, FY2024 Through FY2026

Massachusetts uses a per-$1,000-of-assessed-value rate rather than the per-$100 rate common in some other states, and Quincy — like most Massachusetts cities — sets two separate rates each fiscal year under the state's split tax-classification system: one for residential property and a meaningfully higher one for commercial, industrial, and personal property. Per the City of Quincy Assessor's own published tax-rate figures, the recent history looks like this: FY2024 residential $11.27 and commercial $22.45 per $1,000 of assessed value; FY2025 residential $11.53 and commercial $23.01; and FY2026 residential $11.78 and commercial $23.53.

In each of those three years, the commercial rate runs almost exactly double the residential rate — a deliberate policy choice under Massachusetts law that shifts a larger share of the municipal tax burden onto commercial and industrial property, easing the load on homeowners. This is standard practice across many Massachusetts cities, not a Quincy-specific quirk, and it is worth understanding before comparing Quincy's rate to a town that instead uses a single, unified rate for all property types.

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 under the FY2026 residential rate of $11.78 per $1,000 works out to roughly $7,068 for the year, before any local exemptions.

The FY2026 Standoff: A $19 Million Gap and a Pension Bill the Mayor Called Optional

Quincy's FY2026 tax rate was not a routine certification. According to local reporting, the city faced a roughly $19 million unbudgeted gap heading into the fiscal year, built from two pieces: about $3 million tied to a new teachers'-union payroll increase, and a much larger $16 million assessment from PERAC, the state's Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission, covering Quincy's municipal pension fund.

Mayor Thomas Koch reportedly took the position that the $16 million PERAC assessment need not be paid, despite state law requiring it. In response, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue — the state agency that must sign off before any Massachusetts municipality can formally certify its tax rate and start sending bills — said it would not certify Quincy's FY2026 rate unless the pension assessment was funded. That is a genuinely serious mechanism: without DOR certification, a city cannot legally issue actual (as opposed to estimated) tax bills, which puts real pressure on a mayor to resolve a budget dispute quickly. Coverage at the time projected the resulting gap could translate into a 10 to 12 percent property tax increase to cover an estimated $59 million rise in total city spending.

Here is where this page draws a firm line between an unresolved dispute and a resolved one: the City of Quincy Assessor's own current published rate table shows a FY2026 rate was, in the end, certified — residential $11.78 and commercial $23.53 per $1,000 — meaning the standoff over the PERAC assessment was apparently resolved (through funding the assessment, a budget adjustment, or some combination) in time for the Department of Revenue to sign off. This page treats the FY2026 dispute as a real, dated episode in Quincy's recent fiscal history, not as an ongoing controversy — but a buyer or owner who wants the granular detail of exactly how the $16 million gap was ultimately closed should ask the Quincy Assessor's office or the Mayor's office directly, since that mechanism was not confirmed in the research behind this page.

Proposition 2½: The Statewide Law Behind Every Massachusetts Tax Rate

Every Massachusetts city and town, including Quincy, operates under Proposition 2½, a 1980 statewide ballot law that caps how much a municipality's total property tax levy — the total dollar amount raised through property taxes — 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 why a mayor and a city council cannot simply raise the tax rate however far they want to close a budget gap: the total amount the city collects is legally constrained, which is part of why Quincy's FY2026 pension shortfall became a genuine crisis rather than a routine line-item adjustment. It is also why the residential and commercial rates themselves can move by different percentages year to year even while the total citywide levy stays within the 2.5 percent growth ceiling — the split-rate classification system and the levy cap are two separate mechanisms working together.

What a Typical Quincy Tax Bill Actually 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. Ownwell's market data puts Quincy's median effective property tax rate at 1.15 percent of home value — a figure Ownwell notes matches the Massachusetts state median exactly — against a median home value of $619,500 and a median annual tax bill of $7,143.

For context, Ownwell's own comparison figures put the Massachusetts state median annual tax bill at $6,068 and the national median at just $2,400 — meaning a typical Quincy homeowner pays close to three times the national median in absolute dollars, driven primarily by Massachusetts' generally high home values rather than an unusually high tax rate. Other sources give slightly different home-value figures depending on methodology and timing — Census data puts Quincy's median home value at $618,500 and Zillow's index has run higher, in the mid-$600,000s — but they cluster closely enough that Ownwell's $619,500 figure is a reasonable planning baseline.

Why This Matters More in Quincy Than in a Small Beach Town

Quincy is a genuinely large, dense, transit-connected city, not a small resort town with a handful of seasonal cottages — over 100,000 residents, a majority-renter housing stock, four MBTA Red Line stations, and a school district serving nearly 10,000 students. That scale means Quincy's municipal budget, and therefore its property tax base, has to fund a full range of city services: a large police and fire department, two comprehensive high schools, extensive water and sewer infrastructure including the seawall reconstruction underway in Houghs Neck and Adams Shore, and a municipal pension system large enough that a single state pension assessment could nearly derail a fiscal year's tax certification.

A buyer comparing Quincy to a smaller South Shore town should expect this bigger-city fiscal machinery to occasionally produce bigger, more visible budget fights — like the FY2026 PERAC standoff — even though the underlying rate-setting mechanics (split residential/commercial rates, the Proposition 2½ levy cap, annual DOR certification) are the same statewide system every Massachusetts community uses.

What This Page Does Not State, and Why

This page does not state the precise mechanism by which Quincy's FY2026 PERAC funding gap was ultimately closed — only that the Assessor's own published rate table confirms a rate was certified. It also does not state a current property tax rate for any fiscal year beyond FY2026, does not calculate exemptions such as Quincy's residential exemption or senior/veteran abatements, and does not predict future rate changes.

Property tax rates, assessments, and municipal budget disputes change from year to year and city administration to city administration. Before budgeting a purchase in Quincy around a specific tax figure, confirm the current fiscal year's certified rate and any applicable exemptions directly with the City of Quincy 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.