Property Taxes at Surf City: A Town Split Between Two Counties

The Town Rate: A 30% Increase, Then a Partial Reversal

Surf City's town council raised the municipal property tax rate from $0.41 to $0.53 per $100 of assessed value for fiscal year 2025-26 -- a roughly 30% increase, and, per Port City Daily's reporting, the town's first property tax increase in twelve years, adopted to fund essential services and accommodate the town's ongoing growth. That's a real, reported, contested local event: WECT's own investigative coverage from September 2025 scrutinized town council spending on out-of-town retreats in the same period the tax rate was rising, a genuine local political story worth knowing about beyond the raw rate number.

One year later, the council moved in the other direction. At a June 30, 2026 special meeting, Surf City adopted a balanced $40,583,789 budget for fiscal year 2026-27 with a town property tax rate of $0.475 per $100 -- a $0.055 decrease from the prior year's $0.53. Earlier in the 2026 budget process, town leaders had floated two very different scenarios depending on how a pending piece of state legislation played out: a much lower $0.26 rate if county property revaluations were allowed to proceed as scheduled (since much higher assessed values would let the town collect comparable revenue at a lower rate), or a smaller cut to $0.485 if the revaluations were rolled back. The final adopted rate of $0.475 landed close to, but not exactly at, either originally floated scenario -- reflecting the actual legislative outcome once it was finalized.

Senate Bill 889: Why Both of Surf City's Counties Are Mid-Freeze

The legislation that shaped Surf City's FY2026-27 rate was North Carolina Senate Bill 889, which Governor Josh Stein signed into law in mid-June 2026. The bill enacts a mandatory one-year moratorium on newly reappraised 2026 property values for any county with a population of 15,000 or more that conducted a general reappraisal for 2026 -- requiring those counties to continue using their prior reappraisal's values for the tax year beginning July 1, 2026, with the higher 2026 values phased in starting the following fiscal year instead. Nine counties were covered by the final version of the bill: Anson, Bladen, Buncombe, Davidson, Guilford, Harnett, Onslow, Pender, and Scotland. Both of Surf City's counties -- Pender and Onslow -- are on that list, meaning the town's entire tax base, on both sides of the county line, was affected by the same freeze at the same time. That's a genuinely unusual, current, and specific piece of context: Surf City isn't caught in a generic statewide tax story, it's caught in a freeze that happens to cover both of the two counties it straddles simultaneously.

The legislative motivation, per reporting from NC Newsline and public radio coverage, was to shield homeowners -- particularly those on fixed incomes -- from immediate, large tax-bill spikes tied to 2026 reappraisals that in some covered counties showed residential values jumping by an average of roughly 40% or more. County administrators in several affected counties, including Onslow, pushed back publicly, warning that the sudden statewide mandate would disrupt budgets that had already been built around the new, higher values and lower correspondingly adjusted rates.

Pender County's Side: A Confirmed, Frozen Rate

For the parcels within Surf City's Pender County portion -- described in available sources as roughly the town's southern third, though this page could not confirm that split against a primary survey map -- Pender County's Board of Commissioners adopted its FY2026-27 budget using 2025 property valuations and a tax rate of $0.7375 per $100 of assessed value, continuing that rate rather than shifting to the higher, newly reappraised 2026 values under Senate Bill 889's freeze. Combined with Surf City's own $0.475 town rate, that puts the approximate town-plus-county rate on the Pender County side of Surf City at roughly $1.2125 per $100 of assessed value -- an approximate sum of two separately confirmed rates, not itself a single officially published combined figure, and excluding any separate fire district or special-district levy.

Onslow County's Side: A Rate This Page Could Not Fully Reconcile

For the parcels within Surf City's Onslow County portion -- described as roughly the town's larger, northern two-thirds -- this research found genuinely conflicting figures for the county's continuing rate. Onslow County's own published historical tax-rate documentation lists the 2025 rate at $0.60 per $100. Separate coverage of the county's FY2025-26 budget cycle describes the general fund rate as held unchanged at $0.655 per $100. A third data point, from reporting on the county's response to Senate Bill 889, describes county leaders as having been prepared to lower the rate to 55 cents against the higher, newly reappraised 2026 values before the freeze intervened -- implying the county's actual continuing rate for FY2026-27 is higher than that 55-cent target figure, consistent with either the $0.60 or $0.655 number but not conclusively confirming which one.

This page is not going to average those two conflicting figures into a false middle number and present it as fact. What can be said honestly: the Onslow County portion of a Surf City property's combined town-plus-county tax rate for FY2026-27 falls somewhere in the range of roughly $1.075 to $1.13 per $100 of assessed value (the $0.475 town rate plus either $0.60 or $0.655 county rate), and a buyer or owner on that side of the county line should get the exact current rate directly from the Onslow County Tax Office rather than relying on any published aggregator figure, including the ones cited on this page.

What the Freeze Means Looking Forward

Because Senate Bill 889 only delays -- rather than cancels -- the 2026 reappraisal values for both Pender and Onslow counties, both counties' tax bases are scheduled to shift to those higher values starting fiscal year 2027-28, per the bill's own structure. That means a Surf City owner budgeting multi-year carrying costs should not assume the currently frozen rates and values will hold indefinitely; both counties are likely to see another round of rate-setting decisions once the freeze lifts, potentially with rate reductions to offset the higher assessed values (similar to the pattern Surf City's own town council already worked through with its FY2025-26 increase followed by an FY2026-27 decrease) or, alternatively, effective tax increases if rates aren't cut proportionally. This page does not predict which outcome is more likely for either county and states that uncertainty directly rather than guessing at a future rate.

What This Page Doesn't Cover

This page covers Surf City's confirmed town tax-rate history and the confirmed, separately sourced Pender County rate, and states plainly where the Onslow County figure could not be reconciled. It does not state a specific current per-parcel combined tax bill for any individual property, any Surf City-specific fire district or special-district levy that might apply on top of the town and county rates, or North Carolina's statewide elderly/disabled property tax relief program eligibility thresholds as they might apply to a specific Surf City owner. It also does not predict the outcome of either county's post-freeze rate-setting decision once the 2026 reappraisal values phase in starting FY2027-28. Confirm the exact current combined bill for any specific parcel directly with the Pender County or Onslow County Tax Office, and ask either county's tax office about elderly/disabled relief eligibility if applicable. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.