Property Tax in Swansboro: Two Bills, and a Revaluation That Didn't Move the Rate

The Town Rate: Remarkably Stable for Over a Decade

The Town of Swansboro's own property tax rate is 35 cents per $100 of assessed value, and per Carolina Coast Online's reporting, that rate has not changed since fiscal year 2012-13 -- it's still the rate built into the town's FY2026-27 budget. For a small coastal North Carolina town, over a decade of a flat municipal rate is a genuinely notable fact, and it means that whatever changes a Swansboro property owner has seen in their town tax bill over that period have come almost entirely from changes in their property's assessed value at the last Onslow County revaluation, not from the town raising its own rate.

This page did not find a breakdown of what the Town of Swansboro's 35-cent rate specifically funds (police, public works, parks, etc.) at a level of detail this page is willing to state as confirmed fact -- for that level of budget detail, the town's own adopted budget document, available through Swansboro's town government, is the source to check rather than this page.

The County Rate: Held Flat Through a Revaluation That Showed a 35-40% Jump

Onslow County's own rate is 65.5 cents per $100 of assessed value, and the Board of Commissioners adopted the county's FY2026-27 budget at a June 29, 2026 special meeting keeping that rate unchanged, according to reporting from WITN, WNCT, AOL, and WCTI. What makes this specific cycle worth understanding in more depth than a typical flat-rate year is the revaluation context around it: Onslow County conducted a countywide property revaluation effective in 2026, and at the county's public hearing on that process, the tax administrator estimated a roughly 35% to 40% aggregate increase in appraised property values, according to Citizen Portal's coverage of that hearing.

Normally, a jump of that size is exactly the scenario that pushes a county toward what's often called a "revenue-neutral" rate cut -- lowering the rate enough that the county collects roughly the same total revenue against the newly higher assessed values, the same mechanism New Hanover County used around Wrightsville Beach after its own 2025 revaluation. Onslow County commissioners initially discussed something similar, reportedly weighing a rate near 55 cents per $100 using the new, higher 2026 values. Instead, per WITN's reporting, the board ultimately adopted the FY2026-27 budget using property values from the prior 2022 revaluation rather than the new 2026 figures, keeping the rate at 65.5 cents -- a decision tied to a state Senate Bill, SB 889, that affected how counties completing 2026 revaluations could apply those new values this cycle. County officials framed the outcome as meaning residents would not see an immediate county tax increase tied to the new revaluation for this budget year.

What This Means Looking Forward

The practical implication for a buyer or owner: the 2026 revaluation's higher property values exist and are documented (the 35-40% aggregate estimate), but they were not the basis for this cycle's tax bills -- the county used 2022 values instead. That creates a real, disclosed uncertainty about future bills rather than a settled fact this page can state confidently: at some future budget cycle, Onslow County will presumably need to apply updated property values, and depending on how the rate is set at that point, a property's tax bill could move independent of any change to the property itself. This page does not predict when that will happen or what rate will result -- that's a genuine open question tied to state legislation and future county budget decisions, not something to guess at.

For a specific property, the two numbers that matter are its own assessed value (set by Onslow County, most recently updated in the 2026 revaluation even if not yet the basis for tax bills) and the combination of the two confirmed current rates -- 35 cents town plus 65.5 cents county, an approximate combined $1.005 per $100 as a simple sum of two separately confirmed figures, not an official published combined rate, and not inclusive of any fire district or other special-district levy. A property inside the Town of Swansboro's limits should pay both bills; a property nearby but outside town limits would pay only the county rate plus whatever other special-district levies apply to that location, a genuinely different total that this page does not attempt to estimate.

How to Verify a Specific Bill

None of the figures above substitute for pulling the actual current tax bill on a specific parcel. The Onslow County Tax Office maintains the official assessed values and can provide a parcel's exact combined bill, including any fire district or special assessment that applies to that specific address. The Town of Swansboro's own finance office can confirm the town-level rate and any town-specific fees. And because Onslow County used 2022 revaluation values for the FY2026-27 cycle rather than the new 2026 figures, it's worth explicitly asking which assessed value -- 2022 or 2026 -- is the current basis for any specific property's bill, since this page found real ambiguity in public reporting about exactly how and when the newer values take effect.