Dane County Property Tax Rates, Town by Town

What We Found

• Madison has the highest effective rate in Dane County. A home in the Madison Metropolitan School District paid 18.18 per $1,000 of market value on 2025 bills, about $7,271 on a $400,000 home before credits. The county as a whole averaged 16.41.(Wisconsin DOR)
• The highest mill rates on paper aren't the highest taxes. The Village of Brooklyn's 27.74 mills is the highest rate in the county, but Brooklyn assesses at 59.7% of market value, so it works out to 16.56 per $1,000 of market value. Shorewood Hills (22.43 mills, ratio 0.7056) comes out to 15.83, well below Madison.(County Treasurer)
• Among the larger suburbs, Waunakee is lowest at 14.49 per $1,000 of market value, about $5,796 on the same $400,000 home, or $1,475 less than Madison's school district.
• The school district can matter as much as the town. Fitchburg has three rate groups: Oregon 15.59, Madison Metropolitan 16.81, Verona 17.35.
• Rural towns are cheapest. The lowest rate in a group of 50 or more parcels is the Town of Mazomanie (Sauk Prairie schools) at 9.60, roughly half of Madison's.
• Assessment ratios range from 0.5939 to 1.1058. The Town of Vermont assesses well below market value; the Town of Blue Mounds slightly above it.(Wisconsin DOR)

Madison and Nearby Towns

Effective rate per $1,000 of market value, and the tax on a $400,000 home before the lottery and first dollar credits. Where a town has several school districts, the range covers groups of 50 or more parcels.

Every Rate Group, Lowest to Highest

All 143 rate groups for the 2025 tax year (bills mailed December 2025, paid in 2026). Net rate is per $1,000 of assessed value, after the state school levy credit. Effective rate is per $1,000 of market value. A few groups have only a handful of parcels.

Download the data (CSV) · 143 rows · checked 2026-10-10

How We Did This

• Rates come from the Dane County Treasurer's mill rate table for the 2025 tax year, printed December 18, 2025, which lists every rate group outside Madison with its county, municipal, school, technical college and special district rates.(County Treasurer) The Treasurer's site was unreachable when we checked, so we read the archived copy. Madison's eight school-district rates come from the City Treasurer's 2025 tax roll, as on our Madison property tax guide.(City tax roll)
• Assessment ratios are each municipality's average ratio from the same table; Madison's is 0.9743, from the City's parcel tax pages.(City of Madison) The state defines the ratio as locally assessed value divided by the state's full (market) value.(Wisconsin DOR)
• Effective rate = net rate x assessment ratio. Weighted by parcels, this matches the Wisconsin Department of Revenue's own effective full value rate for 58 of 59 municipalities within about 0.1 mill (the Town of Medina is the exception: we get 14.13, DOR shows 13.31). The state says full value rates are the right way to compare tax districts.(Wisconsin DOR)
• The calculator's credits are estimates. The state sets a maximum credit value each year ($27,000 lottery and gaming, $9,000 first dollar for 2025 bills) and multiplies it by the school tax rate on full value.(Wisconsin DOR)(DOR) We approximate that rate with the school rate times the assessment ratio, which lands within a few dollars of actual bills. The County puts the real 2025 lottery credit at $188 to $287.(County Treasurer)
• What's not included: special assessments and special charges (things like a street project or a fee a municipality puts on the bill), which vary by parcel. Your own home may also be assessed above or below the municipal average.
• We left out one group: the Town of Westport's group A (2 parcels), which lists a school rate of zero.

For what each line of a bill means, see your tax bill, line by line. To check the credit that matters most for homeowners, see the lottery and gaming credit.

Questions

Which Dane County town has the lowest property tax rate?

Measured per $1,000 of market value, the lowest 2025 rate in a group of 50 or more parcels was the Town of Mazomanie in the Sauk Prairie school district, at 9.60. Among cities and villages it was the Village of Rockdale (11.44). Rural towns run lower because they levy little for local services.

Which has the highest?

The City of Madison: 18.18 per $1,000 of market value in the Madison Metropolitan School District, and 18.69 in the part served by the Verona district.

Why can't I compare mill rates on tax bills between towns?

Because each town assesses at a different share of market value. The 2025 assessment ratios in Dane County run from 0.59 to 1.11. A town that assesses at 60% of market value shows a high mill rate on a low assessed value. Multiply the rate by the ratio to get what you pay per $1,000 of market value.

When do the 2026 rates come out?

Taxing districts set budgets in the fall and bills are mailed by the third Monday of December. We'll update this page when the County Treasurer posts the 2026 table.

Related Guides

• Madison Property Tax
• Your Tax Bill, Line by Line
• Lottery and Gaming Credit
• Madison and Its Suburbs Compared