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Public schools are the single biggest reason property tax exists in most places. Nationally, the U.S. Census Bureau's FY2024 school-finance data shows property tax directly funding 63.31% of local public-school revenue and 27.35% of total public-school revenue ($272.093 billion of $994.922 billion).
That national number hides enormous state-by-state variation - from 16 states where property tax funds over 80% of local school revenue, to three states (Vermont, Tennessee, and Rhode Island) where school systems report under 5% of their total revenue as property tax collected directly. In those states, funding reaches schools through other channels, such as state or local government appropriations, which this measure does not trace.
| State | Direct property tax | % of local school revenue | % of total school revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Hampshire | $2.062B | 80.55% | 51.06% |
| Colorado | $7.738B | 85.03% | 46.58% |
| Nebraska | $2.775B | 81.26% | 45.45% |
| Illinois | $21.718B | 88.41% | 45.21% |
| Missouri | $6.695B | 81.77% | 43.9% |
| Florida | $19.177B | 77.7% | 43.04% |
| Texas | $35.609B | 84.26% | 42.78% |
| South Dakota | $0.974B | 84.11% | 41.94% |
| Ohio | $13.091B | 77.42% | 41.51% |
| New Jersey | $16.822B | 85.52% | 40.51% |
| Pennsylvania | $16.445B | 75.5% | 39.56% |
| Utah | $2.877B | 80.07% | 33.26% |
| South Carolina | $4.72B | 74.05% | 33.01% |
| Iowa | $2.77B | 78.54% | 31.37% |
| West Virginia | $1.479B | 87.52% | 31.15% |
| Georgia | $9.859B | 63.93% | 31.1% |
| Oklahoma | $2.903B | 74.8% | 31.05% |
| Oregon | $3.657B | 80.35% | 30.27% |
| Wisconsin | $4.585B | 81.6% | 29.36% |
| Arizona | $4.042B | 84.15% | 29.16% |
| Delaware | $0.833B | 90.13% | 28.67% |
| Montana | $0.692B | 64.18% | 27.7% |
| Kentucky | $2.952B | 70.99% | 26.28% |
| Mississippi | $1.721B | 80.36% | 26.09% |
| Maine | $0.97B | 50.81% | 25.93% |
| Michigan | $7.358B | 79.78% | 25.87% |
| North Dakota | $0.629B | 65.81% | 25.25% |
| New York | $22.538B | 48.05% | 24.43% |
| Indiana | $4.142B | 74.59% | 24.39% |
| Wyoming | $0.502B | 60.48% | 23.66% |
| California | $32.282B | 66.62% | 23.31% |
| Washington | $5.182B | 83.35% | 21.79% |
| Minnesota | $3.364B | 65.26% | 19.74% |
| Louisiana | $2.272B | 38.82% | 18.29% |
| Kansas | $1.513B | 64.58% | 17.09% |
| Alabama | $1.973B | 48.92% | 15.33% |
| Idaho | $0.504B | 63.78% | 13.33% |
| New Mexico | $0.904B | 79.42% | 13.25% |
| Nevada | $0.864B | 69.59% | 11.36% |
| Arkansas | $0.685B | 58.83% | 9.42% |
| Rhode Island | $0.132B | 9.05% | 4.26% |
| Tennessee | $0.083B | 1.38% | 0.55% |
| Vermont | $0.001B | 1.42% | 0.04% |
| Alaska | Not separately reported — see note below* | ||
| Connecticut | Not separately reported — see note below* | ||
| District of Columbia | Not separately reported — see note below* | ||
| Hawaii | Not separately reported — see note below* | ||
| Maryland | Not separately reported — see note below* | ||
| Massachusetts | Not separately reported — see note below* | ||
| North Carolina | Not separately reported — see note below* | ||
| Virginia | Not separately reported — see note below* | ||
* Eight jurisdictions (Alaska, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Virginia) fund schools through parent-government appropriations that Census cannot cleanly attribute to property tax specifically - see "Why some states show no figure" below. This is genuinely unknown, not zero.
The national trend, 2012-2024
Census data show that direct school-system property-tax revenue rose from $172.685 billion in FY2012 to $272.093 billion in FY2024, a nominal increase of $99.408 billion (57.6%). Its share of local school-system revenue fell from 65.27% to 63.31%, while its share of total school-system revenue fell from 29.05% to 27.35%. These figures exclude any property-tax share embedded in parent-government appropriations because that share is not separately reported.
| Fiscal year | Direct property tax | % of local school revenue | % of total school revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | $172.685B | 65.27% | 29.05% |
| 2016 | $195.686B | 65.44% | 29.16% |
| 2020 | $229.822B | 65.46% | 29.8% |
| 2022 | $245.205B | 65.33% | 27.91% |
| 2024 | $272.093B | 63.31% | 27.35% |
Selected years from the full FY2012-FY2024 annual series. Nominal dollars — not adjusted for inflation. Parent-government contributions to dependent systems are tracked separately and are not included here because their property-tax share is not separately reported. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of School System Finances, Summary Tables 1 and 4, one file per year (accessed 2026-09-29): FY2012, FY2013, FY2014, FY2015, FY2016, FY2017, FY2018, FY2019, FY2020, FY2021, FY2022, FY2023, FY2024. See also the Census school finance tables page.
Why some states show no figure
Census's school-finance survey distinguishes independent school systems (which typically levy and report their own property tax directly) from dependent school systems (which receive most of their local funding as an appropriation from a parent government - a city or county - rather than levying tax themselves). In dependent-system states, that parent-government money often originates substantially from property tax, but Census's own accounting can't isolate the exact property-tax-sourced share from other parent-government revenue. Census marks the direct property-tax field "(X) Not applicable" for those states rather than guessing, and so do we - the eight states above are not shown as 0%, because that would misstate a real, if unmeasured, property-tax dependency as if it were none.
This is a measure of direct school-system property-tax revenue specifically. It is not the complete property-tax base, and it does not represent a replacement-funding recommendation - see The Replacement Question for how Untax the Roof thinks about what would need to happen to the money these numbers represent.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 Public Elementary-Secondary Education Finance Data (Summary Tables, Tables 1 and 4). Percentage shares were calculated by Untax the Roof from those tables (accessed 2026-09-28).