How do U.S. Virgin Islands property taxes compare to those in U.S. states and other U.S. territories?
Executive summary
The U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) levies annual real property tax based on assessed fair-market value and administration is handled by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office; commonly cited practical rates translate to roughly $750 per $100,000 of assessed value under local descriptions (Sotheby’s) and bills for 2025 are actively being distributed by the Lt. Governor’s Tax office [1] [2]. Available sources describe the USVI system (assessment at market value, tax collector enforcement, auctions for delinquencies) but do not provide a comprehensive, directly comparable table of average effective property-tax rates versus U.S. states or other territories [3] [4] [5].
1. How the USVI property-tax system actually works — straight from local agencies
The territory’s real-property tax machinery is run through the Office of the Lieutenant Governor: an Office of Tax Assessor sets valuations and the Tax Collector’s Office issues bills, enforces payments and manages auctions for delinquent properties [3] [4] [5]. Local reporting confirms the Office of the Lieutenant Governor was distributing 2025 property tax bills and urging owners to contact district tax offices about delinquency or payment plans [2]. The Tax Assessor is required to value real property at 100% of fair market value under the Virgin Islands code, according to an explainer on local tax rules [6].
2. What people quote as the headline “rate” — and why it can mislead
Some property-market guides and broker FAQs state a commonly used figure: property taxes “currently assessed at a rate of 1.25% of 60% of the property’s assessed value,” often restated as about $750 per $100,000 of assessed value (Sotheby’s summary) [1]. That phrasing compresses multiple steps (assessment method, taxable fraction and millage) into a single number; it is a practical shorthand used in real-estate communications but not a detailed legal rate schedule [1]. Local official pages and the Tax Collector’s materials describe assessment, billing and enforcement procedures but do not present that broker shorthand as a statutory two-line formula in the materials provided here [3] [4] [5].
3. Enforcement and collection — auctions and delinquencies matter
The USVI actively enforces property-tax delinquency: the Tax Collector’s Office manages auctions of properties with unpaid taxes and the territory has recently reminded owners about pending auctions and outstanding balances while distributing 2025 bills [4] [2] [7]. Private-sector reporting around the 2024–25 cycle highlights that auctions are used as remediation for long-standing delinquencies [7]. This enforcement posture affects effective burdens on owners who fall behind and is relevant when comparing “what owners actually pay” across jurisdictions [4] [7].
4. How the USVI picture compares — what sources here do and do not say
Available reporting and guides describe the USVI structure—assessment at market value, annual billing, enforcement and a practical effective rate cited by real-estate sources—but the current corpus of provided sources does not include systematic, side‑by‑side comparisons of USVI effective property‑tax burdens versus each U.S. state or other territories (not found in current reporting). Global property and brokerage guides discuss property values, transfers and other taxes (stamp/transfer taxes) in the USVI, but they stop short of presenting aggregated comparative metrics across U.S. jurisdictions [8] [9] [10].
5. Special programs, exemptions and marketing claims — read the fine print
Commercial and promotional sites sometimes claim generous exemptions for qualifying businesses or residents (e.g., industry-targeted incentives) and third-party “tax-haven” narratives suggest exemptions, but those claims vary in credibility in these sources: an offshore-marketing site asserts 100% property‑tax exemptions for some cases, while official local booklets describe a broader menu of taxes and statutory structures without endorsing sweeping blanket exemptions [11] [12]. In short: promotional material may overstate exemptions; the official tax-structure booklet and local offices describe legal authority and programs without echoing extreme marketing claims [12] [4].
6. Bottom line for comparison-seekers and recommended next steps
If you want a direct comparison of effective property‑tax burdens (taxes paid as a share of property value) between the USVI, U.S. states and other territories, the available sources here do not provide that dataset—so you must compile it from jurisdictional tax codes and market-assessment data (not found in current reporting). For reliable next steps, consult the Lt. Governor’s Tax Assessor and Tax Collector pages for official rates, assessment rules and auction lists [3] [4] [5], and cross‑reference with independent state-level property-tax statistics to compute apples‑to‑apples effective rates [2] [1].