Property Tax in Westerly, RI

The Confirmed Rate: $7.11 per $1,000 (FY2026) -- Residential and Commercial Alike

Per the Rhode Island Division of Municipal Finance's own official FY2026 Tax Rates document (covering the 2025 tax roll year, assessment date December 31, 2024), Westerly's residential real estate (RRE) rate is $7.11 per $1,000 of assessed value, and the commercial (COMM) rate is also $7.11 -- the same figure, a notable structural detail since several neighboring Rhode Island towns split residential and commercial rates rather than charging the same amount for both. Westerly's personal property (PP) rate is higher, at $11.59 per $1,000.

For brief comparison, per that same official document, Narragansett's RRE rate is $6.79, Newport's is $8.69, Middletown's is $9.06, and Portsmouth's is $13.28 -- Westerly's $7.11 sits toward the lower end of that set, closer to Narragansett than to Portsmouth. A separate, secondary source, SeaportRE's 2026 Rhode Island property tax report, describes Westerly as one of the state's lightest-to-hold coastal towns, citing an effective tax rate under 0.75%. Treat that effective-rate framing as a secondary, less rigorously sourced data point relative to the official municipalfinance.ri.gov mill rate above, not as a replacement for it -- an effective rate and a mill rate are different metrics, and this page will not average or combine them.

Both figures are tied to their respective sources as of this writing -- neither is a guess or a statewide median borrowed as a stand-in. Rates and assessments are set and revisited on their own annual cycles, so the $7.11 figure above should still be reconfirmed with the Town of Westerly Tax Assessor's office before a purchase, refinance, or budgeting decision, since a newer tax roll may already be in effect by the time you are reading this.

Watch Hill and Misquamicut: Same Town-Wide Rate, Not Separate Rates

Watch Hill sits at Rhode Island's southwestern-most point, a census-designated place and a state-chartered Fire District (since 1901) entirely within the Town of Westerly -- not an incorporated municipality of its own. Watch Hill residents pay property taxes to the Town of Westerly for municipal services and schools, at the same $7.11 RRE rate described above; the Fire District itself is a separate, semi-autonomous local governing body with its own board, but it does not set its own property tax mill rate the way an incorporated town would. Watch Hill commands significantly higher home prices than the town-wide figures below suggest -- an $18.8 million Watch Hill home sale was highlighted by Forbes Global Properties in June 2026 as reflecting one of Rhode Island's most coveted coastal communities -- but that price level reflects the local real estate market, not a different tax rate.

Misquamicut, a separate village within Westerly along the town's southern Atlantic-facing shore, is home to Misquamicut State Beach and a livelier, more traditional beach-strip identity distinct from Watch Hill's understated character. Misquamicut has its own dedicated future coverage on this site and is only mentioned briefly here, but the same point applies: it is part of the Town of Westerly and subject to the same town-wide $7.11 residential rate, not a separate rate of its own.

The Tax Base: Population, Income, and a Seasonal Swing

Some confirmed context helps frame the base that Westerly's $7.11 rate applies to. Per U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts (2024 vintage estimate), Westerly's town-wide population is 23,139 as of July 2025, a slight 0.9% decline from the 2020 Census count of 23,359. That year-round figure is only part of the picture -- town-wide population roughly doubles from May through October during tourist season, a dramatic seasonal swing worth keeping in mind for anyone evaluating what living here looks like across the full calendar year, not just in summer.

Median household income (2020-2024, in 2024 dollars) is $98,875, and the poverty rate is 5.2% -- a modest figure relative to some neighboring shore towns whose headline poverty rates are skewed upward by large college-student populations. Westerly's tax base is also historically tied to granite quarrying and stone-cutting (the Smith Granite Company, incorporated 1887, supplied dozens of Civil War monuments at Gettysburg and elsewhere) and, today, includes Washington Trust Bancorp and Westerly Community Credit Union, both headquartered in town, plus a working Amtrak station on the Northeast Corridor -- a real, current transportation asset that distinguishes Westerly from beach towns without any rail access.

Home Prices: A Rising Market, Different Metrics to Keep Straight

Per Zillow (snapshot as of April 30, 2026), Westerly's average/typical home value is $626,390, up 8.3% year over year -- a genuinely rising market as of that snapshot. For-sale inventory stood at 42 listings, with 20 new listings and a median list price of $715,983 (list price naturally runs above the typical-value figure). Average rent was $1,946 per month, up 10.8% year over year -- rents rising even faster than home values, a notable data point on its own.

Separately, the Census Bureau's own median home value figure for Westerly is $466,600, with a median monthly mortgage cost of $2,178 and median rent of $1,257 -- both notably lower than the Zillow figures above. These are different metrics from different vintages and methodologies, not two ways of stating the same number; this page presents both, labeled, rather than conflating them or implying a single "the" home value for the town. None of this changes the confirmed $7.11 mill rate above -- home-price trends describe the market a tax bill eventually gets calculated against, and assessed values typically lag real-time price swings, so a buyer should not assume this year's assessment already reflects either snapshot.

What This Means If You're Evaluating Property Tax Here

The honest summary is this: Westerly, RI's confirmed property tax rate is $7.11 per $1,000 of assessed value for both residential real estate and commercial property (FY2026, 2025 tax roll) -- sitting toward the lower end among the Rhode Island coastal towns this site tracks, and applying town-wide, including within Watch Hill and Misquamicut, neither of which sets its own separate rate. A secondary source, SeaportRE, frames Westerly's effective rate as under 0.75%, a different metric worth noting but not substituting for the official mill rate above.

That rate sits on a tax base backed by a Census-estimated 2025 population of 23,139 (down slightly from 23,359 in 2020, though the town's population roughly doubles each summer), a median household income of $98,875, a poverty rate of 5.2%, and a home-price market that Zillow shows rising 8.3% year over year to a typical value of $626,390, alongside a lower Census-derived median of $466,600. Before you make any purchase decision in Westerly, RI, reconfirm the current mill rate directly with the Town of Westerly Tax Assessor's office in case a newer tax roll has since taken effect -- do not rely solely on the figures above without that check. Pair that with guidance from a Rhode Island-licensed tax professional, who can walk through how the current rate, any applicable exemptions, and your specific property situation fit together. This page is informational background, not tax advice.