Silicon Valley Property Tax Rates by City (2025–26): Palo Alto, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Cupertino and More

What’s the property tax rate in Palo Alto, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Los Gatos or Saratoga? We pulled every tax rate area in the county’s 2025–26 rate book, weighted each by its assessed value, and applied the result to what homes actually sold for in the last 12 months. Los Altos Hills and Monte Sereno are in here too. The short version: the rates are close, the bills aren’t.

The short answer

• Typical rates run from 1.1459% in Los Gatos to 1.20135% in Palo Alto. On a $3M home, that difference is about $1,660 a year.
• The price matters far more than the rate. Year one on the median house runs from about $23,300 in Santa Clara ($1.97M) to about $64,700 in Los Altos Hills ($5.61M), even though Los Altos Hills’s typical rate, 1.153%, is near the low end of the range.
• Every rate is 1% plus voter-approved bonds and other debt. The bonds are most of what differs, city to city and street to street.
• Prop 13 splits neighbors. In all nine cities, a buyer of today’s median house pays at least 1.2 times what the 2015 buyer of the median house pays, and in Santa Clara about 1.7 times.

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Nine cities compared

Typical 2025–26 rate (the rate where the middle dollar of the city’s assessed value sits), the range across the city’s tax rate areas, and year one on the median house sold in the last 12 months.

Why the rates differ

California caps the general property tax at 1% of assessed value. Everything above it pays for bonds and other debt that voters approved, and those districts don’t follow city lines. So the county splits itself into tax rate areas, 816 of them, and each one carries its own set of bonds. Saratoga has the most of these nine cities, 55 with assessed value, so two Saratoga homes can pay rates as far apart as 1.1384% and 1.2293%. In Palo Alto, 98.7% of the assessed value sits at a single rate.

Same house, two bills

While an owner keeps a home, Prop 13 lets its assessed value rise at most 2% a year. When it sells, the value resets to the price. Here’s the median house bought in 2015 against the median house bought now, at each city’s typical rate:

The 2015 figures are upper bounds, since the yearly increase was below 2% in some years. The gap is also roughly what a buyer’s supplemental bill catches up, prorated for the months left in the tax year.

What a buyer adds and subtracts

• Add parcel taxes and fixed charges. They’re flat amounts that vary by address, listed on the bill.
• Take off the homeowners’ exemption if it’s your main home: $7,000 off the taxable value, worth about $80 to $84 a year at these rates. File by February 15 for the full exemption (State Board of Equalization).
• Plan for the supplemental bill. Read the supplemental property tax bill after you buy.

Selling and staying in California: Prop 19

If you’re 55 or older, severely disabled, or lost your home to a wildfire or natural disaster, Prop 19 lets you move your assessed value to a replacement home anywhere in California: up to three times if you’re 55 or older or severely disabled, with no set limit after a wildfire or natural disaster. Buy or build the new home within two years of selling. If it costs more than the home you sold, the difference is added to the value you carry over. “More” means above 100% of the sale price if you buy first, 105% in the first year after selling and 110% in the second. Our Prop 19 guide walks through it, and the State Board of Equalization’s Prop 19 page has the details.

Inheriting a home works differently since February 16, 2021. A parent-to-child transfer keeps the parent’s assessed value only if the child makes it their main home, and only up to the parent’s value plus $1,044,586, the figure for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027. Any market value above that is added to the assessed value.

When the bills come due

• First installment: due November 1, late after December 10.
• Second installment: due February 1, late after April 10.
• Late payments carry a 10% penalty. The county mails regular bills by November 1, and the tax is owed whether or not the bill arrives.
• Supplemental bills are due when they’re issued. Read the supplemental property tax bill after you buy for how they’re figured.

How we counted

Rates come from the Santa Clara County Controller-Treasurer’s “Compilation of Tax Rates & Information, Fiscal Year 2025–2026”, which lists all 816 tax rate areas in the county. For each area we used the rate on a home’s full assessed value (the 1% levy, voter-approved debt on full value and the county’s land-and-improvement charges, as the book defines them) and weighted it by the area’s net local secured value from the same book. The “typical rate” is the rate where the middle dollar of a city’s assessed value sits. Each city’s figures cover its tax rate areas inside city limits. Unincorporated pockets with a city mailing address are in other tax rate areas. Prices are medians of closed sales reported to the MLS from October 28, 2025 to October 27, 2026, read through the IDX feeds that power our home search: houses (MLS property type “single family home”) and condos with townhomes, one record per sale with a usable living area and map position, the same rules as our city price posts. The 2015 figures use calendar-2015 house sales, grown at the 2% Prop 13 cap for the ten tax years from 2016–17 to 2025–26. The actual yearly factor was lower in some years, so those are upper bounds. Year-one figures leave out parcel taxes and other fixed charges, which are flat amounts that vary by address and appear on the bill. Bills mailed in fall 2026 use the 2026–27 rates, which can differ slightly from the county’s 2025–26 book. Your bill shows your exact rate. Nothing here is tax or legal advice.

Go deeper

the supplemental bill after you buy, Prop 19 for homeowners 55+, transfer tax by city, and our real estate calculators. Selling? See every city we cover.

The cities side by side: monthly cost of owning by city · appreciation by city · what $3 million buys · price per sq ft by house size

Talk to a Property Nerd

We’re the Property Nerds at Compass, recognized as NextGenAgents by a national real estate portal. Whether you’re budgeting for a purchase or working out what a move would do to your tax bill, we’ll run the numbers on your home and the one you’re eyeing. Call (408) 373-1660 or (650) 383-8606, or book a strategy call. Commissions are negotiable, and we offer bundled services, so ask us what’s included.