Property Taxes at Wrightsville Beach: The 2025 Revaluation, Explained

Two Bills, One Parcel

Every property at Wrightsville Beach is taxed by two separate governments: the Town of Wrightsville Beach itself (a municipal rate) and New Hanover County (a countywide rate that funds schools, county services, and county-level infrastructure). Neither bill substitutes for the other -- an owner pays both, calculated against the same assessed value, and the two are typically combined into a single tax bill for convenience even though they're set independently by two different elected bodies.

This structure isn't unusual for an incorporated NC beach town inside a larger county, but the magnitude of the 2025 changes to both rates is worth understanding in detail before assuming last year's number, or any number found on a real estate listing site, is current.

The January 2025 Revaluation: Why Everything Changed

North Carolina state law requires counties to reassess property values at least every eight years, but New Hanover County's Board of Commissioners decided back in 2008 to shorten that cycle to every four years -- meaning Wrightsville Beach property owners face a revaluation more often than owners in many other NC counties. The most recent revaluation took effect January 1, 2025, and the numbers were dramatic: comparing 2024 parcel values to their new 2025 market values, the county's residential market showed an average increase of roughly 67.23% and a median increase near 59.4%, according to Port City Daily's coverage of the county's own figures. Wrightsville Beach specifically saw property values reportedly rise around 77% since 2021, per WECT's reporting on the town's budget deliberations -- a steeper increase than the countywide average, consistent with the town's status as one of the county's highest-value coastal markets.

The county mailed value notices to owners on February 28, 2025, and the Board of Equalization and Review convened April 24 through May 22 to hear appeals -- meaning any owner who believed their new assessment was too high had a defined, time-limited window to contest it. The rates and value schedule set in this revaluation remain in effect until the next scheduled revaluation, set for January 1, 2029.

New Hanover County's Rate: 30.6 Cents Per $100

The New Hanover County Board of Commissioners approved a countywide tax rate of 30.6 cents per $100 of assessed value for fiscal year 2025-26, adopted in a 3-2 vote in June 2025, with the new budget taking effect July 1. This is the county-level component of a Wrightsville Beach owner's total bill and funds county government, schools, and county services across all of New Hanover County, not town-specific services.

The Town's Rate: A 42% Cut to 5.31 Cents Per $100

The Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen approved its own FY2025-26 budget on June 12, 2025, cutting the municipal property tax rate from the prior year's 9.23 cents per $100 to 5.31 cents per $100 -- a reduction of roughly 42%. This wasn't a spending cut disguised as a rate cut: Mayor Darryl Mills, quoted in WECT's coverage, described the new rate as calibrated so the town would collect roughly the same total ad valorem revenue as the year before, because the sharply higher assessed values (up ~77% since 2021) meant a much lower rate applied to a much higher tax base could still produce comparable dollars. This is a standard mechanic after a revaluation -- nominal rates typically drop even as actual dollar bills for individual owners can still rise, stay flat, or fall depending on how much any specific parcel's value changed relative to the town-wide average.

As of early-2026 budget reporting, town staff were drafting the FY2026-27 budget with that same 5.31-cent rate held flat, though a February 2026 Port City Daily report on town budget talks flagged Wrightsville Beach approaching a revenue plateau, with a possible future tax-rate increase raised as a topic for discussion -- not yet an adopted change as of this research pass. An April 2026 WilmingtonBiz report on a roughly $19 million preliminary budget noted it was about $5 million less than the FY2025-26 budget, though the underlying reasons for that swing were not independently confirmed here beyond the reporting headline.

The Combined Rate -- and What It Doesn't Include

Adding the confirmed town rate (5.31 cents) to the confirmed county rate (30.6 cents) gives an approximate combined rate of roughly 35.9 cents per $100 of assessed value for FY2025-26. This page states that as arithmetic on two separately confirmed, separately sourced numbers -- not as a single officially published 'combined rate' figure, and it does not include any additional levies that could apply to a specific parcel, such as a fire service district assessment or special district tax, none of which were independently confirmed to apply (or not apply) to Wrightsville Beach parcels specifically in this research pass.

For a concrete example of what that means in dollars: a property assessed at $1,700,000 (roughly the town's reported 2025-2026 median sale price from multiple market trackers) would owe roughly $6,103 in combined town-plus-county property tax at a 35.9-cent combined rate, calculated as $1,700,000 ÷ 100 × $0.359. That is this page's own arithmetic on the two confirmed rates, offered as an illustration only -- it is not a substitute for an actual tax bill, which depends on the property's own current assessed value (not necessarily its sale price) and any additional levies. Get the actual current assessed value and tax bill for any specific parcel from the New Hanover County Tax Office before relying on this estimate.

Appeals and Ongoing Assessment

Property owners who believe their 2025 revaluation assessment doesn't reflect fair market value had a formal appeal window through the county's Board of Equalization and Review, which convened April 24 through May 22, 2025. Whether that window remains open on an ongoing basis outside the main revaluation cycle, and what the current appeal process looks like heading into the next scheduled 2029 revaluation, was not independently confirmed this research pass -- contact the New Hanover County Tax Office directly for current appeal procedures if you believe an assessment is inaccurate.

It's also worth noting explicitly what this page does not know: whether a specific Wrightsville Beach parcel's 2025 reassessment tracked the town-wide 77% average, ran higher, or ran lower depends entirely on that property's individual comparable sales and characteristics. A town-wide average is not a promise about any one home's new assessed value.

What a Buyer Should Actually Do

Before making an offer on any Wrightsville Beach property, pull the parcel's current assessed value and most recent tax bill directly from the New Hanover County Tax Office (not from a real estate listing site, which may show a stale figure), confirm whether any additional district levies apply to that specific address, and ask directly whether a further town tax-rate change is under active consideration -- February and April 2026 reporting suggests the town's revenue picture was being actively discussed as this page was researched, and that conversation may have moved by the time you're reading this.

This page does not state a property tax proration formula for a mid-year closing, nor does it state whether North Carolina offers any homestead exemption, elderly/disabled exclusion, or circuit-breaker property tax relief program that could apply to a Wrightsville Beach owner -- North Carolina does have statewide programs along these lines, but this page did not independently verify their current income thresholds or application process this research pass, and does not want to state stale or approximate eligibility numbers as if they were current. Ask the New Hanover County Tax Office directly about any relief program you might qualify for.