Albany County · Albany · 2026
Albany County property tax
County rate
1.95%
of full market value
Basic STAR
~$600
off school taxes, if you hold the exemption
Enhanced STAR
$1,500+
65+, income under $110,750
Grievance Day
4th Tue in May
your one hearing, per town
There are no tax classes outside the city. New York City assesses a house at 6% of its value and charges 20.085% of that, which nets out near 1.21% of market. Albany does the opposite: the town assesses at or near the full value and applies 1.95% to all of it. The city rate is the larger number and the smaller bill, which is why the two are never worth comparing directly.
Estimate for a Albany County home
Buying from 2015 on puts you on the STAR credit rather than the exemption, so the relief arrives as a cheque from the state instead of coming off this bill. The figure beside is what you pay up front.
Estimated annual tax
$5,460
$455 a month. School, county and town taxes arrive as separate bills rather than one.
| Market value | $280,000 |
| Assessed value (near full market) | $280,000 |
| County rate | 1.95% |
| Tax before exemptions | $5,460 |
| Annual tax | $5,460 |
This is a county-wide rate, and it is the part of the bill you have least reason to care about. Town, village and school district rates vary widely inside one county, and the school district is usually the largest single line. Two houses of identical value a mile apart, in different districts, can differ by thousands.
How Albany County compares
At 1.95%, Albany has the 15th highest rate of the New York counties this site holds a figure for. The median of those is 1.80%, putting a home here 0.15 percentage points above the middle.
On the $280,000 home above that is about $420 a year more than what the same house would cost in a county at the median.
The dates that decide what you pay
Your assessment roll is published in May and your one chance to challenge it is Grievance Day, usually the fourth Tuesday in May, before your town’s board of assessment review. Bring recent comparable sales; an argument that the bill feels high is not evidence. Miss it and the assessment stands for the year, because unlike the city there is no second process to fall back on.
The 2% cap you have heard about limits how much a taxing unit may raise in total, not how much your bill may rise. If your assessment climbs faster than your neighbours’, your share grows while the levy stays under the cap and nothing has gone wrong.