Augusta GA property tax,
explained for residents

Richmond County publishes its property tax rates as net millage per tax district. One mill equals one dollar of tax for every thousand dollars of assessed value. Here are the 2026 net rates from the Richmond County Tax Commissioner's official millage page, published around September 22, 2026:

A note on what these totals contain: the Tax Commissioner publishes only the net district totals. No official source publishes a component breakdown of these totals (county operations vs. school vs. fire district vs. bond debt), so this page does not attempt one. What is confirmed separately: the Richmond County Board of Education adopted an 18.252 millage for the school levy on August 25, 2026, down from 18.74, described by the board as no millage rate increase (rcboe.org, August 25, 2026). The school levy is the largest single piece of the bill.

Sources: Richmond County Tax Commissioner, "2026 Millage Rates" (arctax.com, ~September 22, 2026); Richmond County Board of Education official news, August 25, 2026.

The formula, per the Tax Commissioner's millage explainer: tax equals assessed value minus exemptions, times the millage rate.

Three inputs:

1. Assessed value. Georgia assesses residential property at 40 percent of fair market value (Georgia Department of Revenue, Property Tax FAQ). A $200,000 home has an assessed value of $80,000.
2. Exemptions. The standard homestead exemption subtracts $2,000 from that assessed value for county and school taxes (see section 3). Other exemptions can subtract more if you qualify.
3. Millage. The rate for your tax district, from the table above.

A worked example, using 2026 figures, for a $200,000 home in the Urban district (28.284 mills) with the standard homestead exemption:

• Assessed value: $200,000 x 40% = $80,000
• Minus standard homestead: $80,000 - $2,000 = $78,000
• Tax: $78,000 x 0.028284 = $2,206.15 per year

Treat this as illustrative, not a quote. Your market value, your district, and your exemptions decide your actual bill, and the floating homestead adjustment in section 5 can change the taxable value further for qualifying homesteads.

Georgia's standard homestead exemption removes $2,000 from your home's 40 percent assessed value before county and school taxes are figured (Georgia Department of Revenue, "Property Tax Homestead Exemptions"). The state formula is: (assessed value minus $2,000) times millage rate. It does not reduce bond-debt millage.

Eligibility basics, per the Richmond County Tax Commissioner's homestead page:

• You must own and occupy the home as your permanent legal residence as of January 1.
• The filing deadline is April 1 of the application year.
• You can apply online, by mail, or in person. Mail to P.O. Box 1427, Augusta, GA 30903, or visit 535 Telfair Street, Suite 100 in Augusta (phone 706-821-2391).
• It renews automatically each year. File again if the deed changes, you buy a new home, or you qualify for a larger exemption.

One timing note for 2026: the county Tax Assessor set a special August 13, 2026 deadline to file homestead for the 2026 assessment notices. That date has passed. April 1 remains the standard filing deadline for the coming year.

Beyond the standard exemption, Georgia offers more, with eligibility rules on the state DOR's homestead page:

• Age 65 and older: a $4,000 exemption from all county ad valorem taxes if you and your spouse's combined income did not exceed $10,000 in the prior year. Retirement, pension, and disability income are excluded up to the federal Social Security maximum ($96,432 for 2025).
• Disabled veterans: Georgia offers a disabled veteran homestead exemption. The dollar amounts were not captured from the state's page for this guide, so check the Georgia DOR's homestead page or the Tax Commissioner's office for the current figures and paperwork.

Source for the county rules: Richmond County Tax Commissioner, "Homestead Exemptions" (arctax.com, updated ~September 3, 2026). State rules: Georgia Department of Revenue, "Property Tax Homestead Exemptions."

This is the biggest change on 2026 bills. Georgia's Department of Revenue announced a 2026 Property Tax Relief Grant: $950 million appropriated in the amended FY2026 budget, which DOR will use to reduce the assessed value of qualifying Georgia homesteads by $18,000. The grant became law when Governor Kemp signed HB 439 on May 12, 2026 (Georgia DOR, "2026 Property Tax Relief Grant," updated ~August 26, 2026).

Who qualifies: only homesteads, meaning the property must be claimed with a homestead exemption filed before the April 1 deadline. Rental property does not qualify.

Back to the $200,000 example from section 2. With the standard homestead and the grant, both applied to assessed value:

• $80,000 - $18,000 (grant) - $2,000 (homestead) = $60,000
• $60,000 x 0.028284 = $1,697.04 per year, illustrative

Two honest caveats. First, how the grant interacts with the floating homestead exemption (section 5) and with bond-debt millage is not spelled out on the official pages found, so actual bills vary by which exemptions apply. Second, HB 439 also created a separate option for counties to establish local homeowner grant funds through a local referendum, effective January 1, 2027. That is a future local path, not something on a current Richmond County bill.

In November 2024, Georgia voters approved HR 1022, the floating homestead exemption (HB 581), effective January 1, 2025. The idea: cap the annual growth in a homestead's taxable value at the inflation rate, so rising assessments do not translate one-for-one into rising tax bills.

Local governments were allowed to opt out by resolution by March 1, 2025. The Augusta-Richmond County Commission held public hearings on opting out in February 2025 (February 4 at the Robert Howard Community Center in Hephzibah, February 18 at the Municipal Building, per the official augustaga.gov calendar). The final decision is not in any official record this guide could find, so this page states neither outcome. If the cap matters to your planning, the Tax Commissioner's office is the place to ask where your home stands.

Looking ahead: the HOME Act (SB 33), signed May 11, 2026, is reported to make the inflation cap mandatory for all cities, counties, and school districts starting in 2027, with no more opt-outs. Confirm the details with the state legislature's official pages before treating it as settled.

Also worth knowing: there is no statewide Georgia property-tax constitutional amendment on the November 3, 2026 ballot. A proposed assessment-ratio cut did not advance past the session, which adjourned April 2, 2026. For the full story of the local tax-referendum coverage this year, see Issue #2's deep dive on the tax vote (The CSRA Brief, September 23, 2026).

Richmond County's 2026 property taxes are due November 30, 2026 (mobile home taxes were due April 1). Source: Richmond County Tax Commissioner, "Deadlines, Due Dates & Mass Tax Bills File," updated September 24, 2026.

If you miss it: a one-time 10 percent penalty is added on December 21, 2026, and interest of 0.875 percent accrues each month on the outstanding balance, per O.C.G.A. section 48-2-40.

Three ways to pay, per the Tax Commissioner's FAQ:

• By mail: P.O. Box 1427, Augusta, GA 30903
• In person: at the Municipal Building only, during regular business hours
• Online: by check, credit card, or debit card through the Tax Commissioner's site

One rule that surprises people: whoever owns the property on January 1 of a given year owes that year's property taxes, even if the property sells later in the year (Richmond County Tax Commissioner, "Payment Responsibility"). Buying in the spring? The tax bill is a negotiation item for your closing, not the seller's problem by default.

New to the area: the newcomer guide covers the other one-time costs that land in the same month as the tax bill, including the vehicle tax. See /guides/newcomer-guide.

Two official tools:

• The county's parcel viewer: qPublic, Richmond County, GA, the map and parcel search application the county uses. Look up assessments, ownership records, and sales history by address or parcel number.
• The Richmond County Tax Assessor's site: augustarichmondtaxassessor.com, which published the 2026 Notice of Assessment guide.

Plenty of CSRA households live on one side of the river and work on the other. Property tax is only one piece of that decision. Here is the official-record comparison for 2026 (every figure below is sourced; Aiken County's local add-ons were not verified from an official source, so compare totals with that gap in mind):

Do not read the 40 percent vs. 4 percent assessment ratio as Georgia taxing ten times more. The millage rates, the exemptions, and the school-operating exemption in South Carolina all move the final bill. The structural fact: South Carolina exempts owner-occupied homes from the school operating levy, which is usually the biggest levy anywhere. Run your own numbers with a preparer before choosing a side of the river for tax reasons.

For a fuller side-by-side of the two counties, including home prices and schools, see Evans vs. Augusta. The /guides/where-to-live guide walks through the same tradeoffs town by town.