When the Board of Finance set Westport’s tax rate at 13.2 mills in May, it cut the rate by 30 percent in a single year. The year before, the rate had been 18.86. Yet the average homeowner will pay more this year, not less.
The reason is the October 2025 revaluation, the first since 2020. Vision Government Solutions reappraised every property in town as of Oct. 1, 2025. The result was a grand list of $17,497,161,570, up from $11,616,471,195 a year earlier, an increase of about 50.6 percent.
Houses led the climb. Board of Finance figures put the average increase in residential values at 59.55 percent. Commercial property rose 16.55 percent, motor vehicles 5.9 percent and business personal property 1.3 percent.
Residential properties have appreciated roughly, on average, 60 percent in Westport, while commercial properties have appreciated only 17 percent.
Danielle Dobin, chair of the Board of Finance, as reported by Patch
How the shift works
Connecticut assesses property at 70 percent of fair market value. Your tax is the assessment multiplied by the mill rate and divided by 1,000. When the grand list grows faster than the budget, the mill rate falls, as First Selectman Kevin Christie explained when the new assessments went out. “When the overall Grand List increases, the mill rate typically decreases, all else being equal,” he said.
But a falling rate does not mean falling bills when one class of property rises much faster than another. Residential values rose more than three times as fast as commercial values, so homeowners now carry a larger share of the same budget.
“The expenses remain the same,” Finance Director Gary Conrad told Patch. “It’s just the rebalancing of who pays that amount of taxes.”
Those averages come from Brian Stern, a former Board of Finance chair, as reported by the Westport Journal. The Journal’s article gave the dollar increase as $1,272. Subtracting the two bills Stern presented gives $1,727, which is the figure we use here.
Not every house moved the same
A resident’s analysis published by 06880 found that homes north of Interstate 95 rose about 66 percent in value on average, compared with about 57 percent south of the highway. Individual results varied widely, as Christie cautioned when notices went out. “Individual assessments will vary,” he said. “These trends are consistent with market conditions observed throughout Fairfield County.”
The window to contest a 2025 assessment closed on Feb. 20, 2026, the filing deadline for the Board of Assessment Appeals. State law requires a revaluation every five years, so the next full reappraisal is scheduled for October 2030.
The budget behind the rate
The Representative Town Meeting approved a $266,062,614 budget on May 5. Schools account for $168,818,947 of it, including $157,863,623 for operations, up 4.98 percent, and $10.1 million in school debt service. Town operations account for $89,539,349. The library, transit, health services and Earthplace receive $7,704,318 combined. The prior year’s budget was $252 million.
The Board of Finance applied $2.65 million from favorable budget results to reduce taxes, and projects a fund balance of 11.45 percent. About $80 million in borrowing is planned. The board approved the 13.2 mill rate unanimously on May 20.
“We’re all in this together,” board member Jeff Hammer said.
Your own bill
To estimate a tax bill, multiply the assessment by 13.2 and divide by 1,000. A house with a revaluation market value of $2 million carries an assessment of $1.4 million and a bill of $18,480 a year. Bills are paid in four installments due July 1, Oct. 1, Jan. 1 and April 1, with a month’s grace on each before interest of 1.5 percent a month applies.
For buyers, one point is easy to miss. The assessment comes from the town’s October 2025 valuation, not from the price you pay. A house bought for well above its revaluation figure keeps its existing assessment until the next revaluation, and a house bought for less does not see its bill fall on its own. Our guide to ownership costs walks through the rest of the annual bill.
Sources
- Westport Journal, Property owners, your new assessments are in the mail, Dec. 6, 2025
- Westport Journal, Taxable property in Westport soars, largely on revaluation, Feb. 10, 2026
- 06880, The revaluation, how it affects your taxes, Feb. 12, 2026
- Patch, Westport Board of Finance sets 13.2 mill rate as property revaluation shifts tax, June 2, 2026
- Westport Journal, How much tax will you pay? BOF introduces new mill rate of 13.2, May 21, 2026
- Westport Journal, The path from Westport’s 2027 budget to your quarterly real estate tax payment, May 26, 2026
- Westport Journal, $168.8M in schools funding approved as part of $266M town budget, May 6, 2026
- Westport Journal, Tax rate to rise 1.29% amid warnings about future headwinds, May 22, 2025
- Town of Westport, Assessor’s Office, frequently asked questions, accessed Oct. 2026
- Town of Westport, Tax Collector, yearly tax calendar, accessed Oct. 2026
