Property Taxes at Topsail Beach: A Town Rate Hike and a County Revaluation That Got Halted

Two Bills, One Parcel

Every property at Topsail Beach is taxed by two separate governments: the Town of Topsail Beach itself, and Pender County, which funds county services and Pender County Schools across the whole county, not just the beach towns. Neither bill substitutes for the other -- an owner pays both, calculated against the same county-assessed value, typically combined into one tax bill for convenience even though the two rates are set independently.

That structure is standard for an incorporated NC beach town inside a larger county. What isn't standard is how much both numbers moved, and how unresolved the county's side of the equation still was as of this research pass in August 2026.

The Town's Rate: A 20% Increase to 48 Cents Per $100

The Topsail Beach Board of Commissioners approved its budget for the current fiscal year in a June 17, 2025 vote, raising the municipal property tax rate from 40 cents to 48 cents per $100 of assessed value -- a 20% increase. That final number followed a genuinely bumpy process: commissioners had discussed and, two weeks earlier, actually approved a 51-cent rate, before rescinding that vote after a commissioner expressed confusion about how the proposed rate related to the underlying budget. At the June 17 meeting, Town Manager Doug Shipley presented cuts to the general fund -- specifically eliminating a proposed employee salary study and a new full-time firefighter position -- that together brought the rate down three cents, from 51 to 48, before the board gave final approval, per WECT's and Port City Daily's coverage of the meeting.

This page did not find a confirmed total dollar figure for the town's overall FY2025-26 budget, nor a stated town-wide average change in assessed values that would explain why a rate increase (rather than a rate cut, as some neighboring markets saw after their own revaluations) was necessary here. That context -- whether Topsail Beach's own assessed tax base grew, shrank, or held flat going into this budget cycle -- was not independently confirmed and is worth asking the town directly.

Pender County's Rate: A Revaluation the County Itself Halted

Pender County's property tax situation is genuinely unusual, and understanding it matters more here than in most markets on this site. North Carolina counties are required by state law to reassess property values periodically; Pender County's last completed general revaluation before this cycle was in 2019, meaning the county attempted its first countywide reappraisal in seven years in early 2026. When preliminary figures were mailed to property owners, they showed average value increases of roughly 105% to 110% -- numbers steep enough to draw significant public criticism, with one Port City Daily report quoting a resident's reaction as simply 'man, that is high.'

That backlash escalated quickly. The Pender County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously around April 7, 2026 to halt the 2026 revaluation process just days after the new value notices had already gone out. A North Carolina state senator then introduced a bill proposing to pause 2026 revaluation numbers in roughly a dozen counties statewide, Pender among them. The county ultimately adopted its FY2026-27 budget -- reported at roughly $236.6 million -- using the county's pre-2026-reval property values (referred to in reporting as the '2025 valuations') rather than the halted reappraisal, and set a tax rate of 73.75 cents per $100 against that older value base. Port City Daily's reporting noted that the North Carolina Department of Revenue and the UNC School of Government had both flagged concerns that this approach -- adopting a budget and rate against valuations from outside the normal reval cycle -- could run afoul of state law. As of this research pass, that legal and procedural question had not been definitively resolved.

What a Combined Rate Would Look Like -- and Why This Page Won't State One as Settled

Simple arithmetic on the two confirmed rates -- 48 cents (town) plus 73.75 cents (county) -- gives a combined figure near $1.2175 per $100 of assessed value. This page states that only as arithmetic on two separately sourced numbers, not as an official combined rate, and deliberately does not carry it forward as a reliable planning figure elsewhere on this site, for a specific reason beyond the usual caveat about additional fire-district or special-district levies: the underlying legal status of Pender County's FY2026-27 valuation-and-rate approach was genuinely unresolved as of this research pass, per the state-level concerns reported by Port City Daily. A further legislative or legal development could change the county's rate, its valuation basis, or both, after this page was written.

For that reason, this page does not run an illustrative dollar-amount tax calculation the way some sister pages on this site do for markets with a settled combined rate. A property's actual current combined tax bill should be pulled directly from the Pender County Tax Office, not estimated from the arithmetic above.

Related Coverage on Port City Daily: What This Page Could and Could Not Confirm

A separate Port City Daily headline, 'Three Topsail Island municipalities pass budgets under last-minute property tax law,' suggests that Topsail Beach, Surf City, and (across the county line in Onslow County) North Topsail Beach may all have navigated some version of a statewide, last-minute property tax law change tied to the broader 2026 revaluation-pause controversy when finalizing their own FY2026-27 budgets. This page found that headline in research but could not independently confirm its full substance -- what the law specifically changed, or how it affected each town's individual budget process -- beyond the headline itself, so it is named here as a lead worth following up on directly with the Town of Topsail Beach, not repeated as confirmed detail.

What a Buyer Should Actually Do

Before making an offer on any Topsail Beach property, pull the parcel's current assessed value and most recent tax bill directly from the Pender County Tax Office rather than from a real estate listing site, which may show a stale pre-dispute figure. Ask specifically whether Pender County's revaluation dispute has been resolved since this page was researched (August 2026), whether the county's valuation basis or tax rate has since changed, and whether any additional fire district, school, or special district levy applies to the specific parcel being considered.

This page does not state a property tax proration formula for a mid-year closing, nor does it state current eligibility details for any North Carolina homestead, elderly/disabled exclusion, or circuit-breaker property tax relief program -- North Carolina does offer statewide programs along these lines, but this page did not independently verify their current income thresholds or application process, and does not want to publish a stale or approximate eligibility figure as if it were current. Ask the Pender County Tax Office directly about any relief program a specific owner might qualify for.