Connecticut Property Tax Trends: What Fairfield County Homeowners Should Know in 2026

This article has been updated to reflect current tax rates as of 9/20/2026. The mill rates below are the ones in effect for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2026, levied on the grand list of October 1, 2025. Mill rates are set annually by each town and can move a long way in a revaluation year, so confirm the current figure with the assessor before you budget around it.

Property taxes are the single largest recurring cost of homeownership in Fairfield County, and they vary more than most buyers expect from one town to the next. Understanding how Connecticut's tax system works, and where Fairfield County towns fall within it, is essential for any purchase decision. The difference between a $12,000 annual tax bill and a $30,000 annual tax bill on a comparably priced home is not theoretical. It depends almost entirely on which town you buy in.

How Connecticut Property Taxes Work

Connecticut has no county-level government and no county property tax. Each of the state's 169 municipalities sets its own mill rate, collects its own property taxes, and funds its own services (schools, police, fire, roads, parks, and municipal administration). The mill rate is expressed as dollars per $1,000 of assessed value.

Assessed value in Connecticut is set at 70% of fair market value as determined by the most recent town-wide revaluation. If your home's fair market value is $1 million, the assessed value is $700,000. If the mill rate is 20.0, your annual tax bill is $14,000. That relationship (market value, times 70%, times mill rate, divided by 1,000) is the formula that drives every property tax bill in the state.

2026 Mill Rates Across Fairfield County

Mill rates across the nine Fairfield County towns I cover run from 10.125 in Greenwich to 28.36 in Ridgefield for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2026, and the distance between those two ends creates meaningful differences in annual tax obligations. The figures below are the adopted rates for that fiscal year, and they are meant to illustrate the range rather than to substitute for a tax bill estimate on a specific property.

Three of those rates fell sharply for the same reason. Greenwich, Westport and Fairfield were all revalued on the grand list of October 1, 2025, and when assessed values rise across a town the mill rate comes down so the town can raise close to the same amount of money. Greenwich publishes the arithmetic in its adopted budget: the grand list rose 25.36%, from $36.88 billion to $46.23 billion, while the amount raised by taxation rose 5.41%, from $444.04 million to $468.05 million, which is how a rate can fall 15.91% while the town collects more than it did last year. Westport and Fairfield revalued unevenly, with residential values up about 59.55% and 63.88% while commercial values rose about 16.55% and 16.61%, which moved more of the burden onto houses and lifted residential property in Fairfield from 78% to 84% of the grand list. So a rate cut close to 30% in those two towns is most likely not a tax cut, and Fairfield's own assessor says that a change in assessment does not change a tax bill by the same percentage. New Canaan shows what an ordinary year looks like by comparison, with no revaluation, a grand list up 0.81% and a rate up 1.65%.

Greenwich carries the lowest mill rate of the nine towns I cover, 10.125 for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2026, down from 12.041 the year before. On a home with a fair market value of $2 million, assessed at $1,400,000, the annual tax bill comes to $14,175. Greenwich's large commercial tax base (hedge funds, financial services firms, corporate headquarters) subsidizes the residential rate and keeps it well below what a purely residential town would require, and the October 1, 2025 revaluation brought the rate down further this year.

Darien's mill rate is 16.05, up from 15.48 the year before. The same $2 million home carries an annual tax bill of $22,470. Darien has no significant commercial tax base, so residential properties shoulder nearly the full municipal budget. New Canaan is comparable at 16.967, which works out to $23,754 on the same home.

Westport's mill rate is 13.20, down from 18.86 the year before, producing a tax bill of $18,480 on a $2 million home. That decline is almost entirely the October 1, 2025 revaluation at work. Westport's commercial corridors contribute to the base, and the town's school and infrastructure spending is still the biggest part of its budget.

Stamford's mill rate is higher than the smaller shoreline towns, reflecting the city's broader service obligations and urban infrastructure costs, and the city sets four different real estate rates by taxing district according to which city services a property receives: 24.31 in District C, 24.66 in District B, 24.72 in District CS and 25.14 in District A. A $2 million home in Stamford carries a tax bill between $34,034 and $35,196, depending on the district it sits in, and that district is shown on the tax bill. However, home prices in Stamford are generally lower than in Greenwich or Westport, so the effective burden at comparable purchase prices is not as dramatic as the mill rate alone suggests.

Norwalk also sets more than one rate, six of them by taxing district, running from 22.9816 in the 6th District, which covers Rowayton, to 24.6708 in the 4th District, which covers the sewered main area. On a $2 million home that is a bill between $32,174 and $34,539, again depending on the district shown on the tax bill. Wilton is at 25.0623 and Ridgefield at 28.36, which works out to $35,087 in Wilton and $39,704 in Ridgefield on the same home. Both are residential towns with limited commercial tax bases, and the well-funded school systems consume the largest share of the budget.

Revaluation Cycles and What They Mean

Connecticut requires each municipality to conduct a property revaluation every five years. During a revaluation, every property in town is reassessed based on current market conditions. The most recent revaluation data determines your assessed value going forward.

Revaluations can shift your tax bill even if the mill rate stays the same. If your property appreciated faster than the town average between revaluations, your assessed value increases by a larger percentage, and your tax bill rises accordingly. Conversely, if your property underperformed the town average, your relative burden decreases.

Buyers should always check when the most recent revaluation occurred in their target town and whether a new one is scheduled within the first few years of ownership. A revaluation in year two of ownership can move your tax bill up noticeably if the property has appreciated faster than the rest of the town, and that increase is not always reflected in the purchase price.

How Taxes Affect the Buy Decision

I build a full carrying cost analysis for every buyer I work with, and property taxes are the largest variable in that model after the mortgage payment itself. The difference between Greenwich's mill rate and Stamford's, on a $1.5 million home, comes to roughly $14,900 to $15,800 a year at this year's rates, depending on which Stamford district the home sits in. Over a ten-year ownership period that is roughly $149,000 to $158,000 in additional outflow, though both towns reset their rates every year, so treat it as a sense of scale rather than a forecast.

That number shapes the decision in two ways. First, it affects the total monthly housing cost, which determines how much mortgage a buyer can service. A buyer approved for a $2 million purchase in Greenwich may only be able to afford $1.7 million in Stamford at the same monthly payment, because the tax differential absorbs the headroom.

Second, it affects resale positioning. Homes in low-tax towns carry a premium precisely because buyers capitalize the tax savings into the purchase price. Greenwich homes trade at higher price-to-square-foot ratios in part because the low tax rate makes the total carrying cost more competitive than the sticker price alone suggests.

Property taxes are one of the most consequential factors in choosing where to buy in Fairfield County, and the town-by-town variation is significant. I include a full tax and carrying cost comparison in every buyer consultation. If you want to see how the numbers stack up across the towns on your list, reach out anytime. Matt Caiola, Higgins Group Private Brokerage.