Bucks County stopped assessing in 1972
Every parcel in the county still carries a value set in a 1972 reassessment. Nothing since. The commissioners have said there is no movement to authorize a new one, a nonprofit lawsuit is pending, and a state bill that would force counties onto a ten-year cycle sits in Harrisburg.
The practical result is that assessed values here bear no relation to what anything sells for. A house that closed at half a million dollars this summer may be assessed at $30,000, and a neighbor’s identical house may be assessed at $26,000 because of how 1972 saw the two lots.
That is also why millage rates in Bucks look alarming next to Delaware County’s, which reassessed for 2021. Comparing a Bucks mill to a Delco mill tells you nothing at all.
The common level ratio is the translator
The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue publishes a common level ratio factor for each county every July, built from the prior year’s validated sales. For documents accepted between July 1, 2026 and June 30, 2027, the Bucks factor is 17.86. Inverted, that is a ratio of about 5.6%: assessments here run at roughly 5.6% of market value.
Multiply an assessment by 17.86 and you get the market value the state’s data implies. A $30,000 assessment implies about $536,000. A $20,000 assessment implies about $357,000.
That single number is what an appeal turns on. If your house is genuinely worth well under its implied value, the assessment is too high and the board has a formula for fixing it. If you paid more than the implied value, you have no case, and you also have no problem, because the sale does not trigger a reassessment.
Picked up day and night, calls recorded. No credit pull, no application.
Send the address and a licensed Pennsylvania lender calls you back with the escrow priced off the actual bill on that parcel. One call does it.
The form takes about a minute and lands in the same place as the call.
The appeal: $75, a hard deadline, and evidence
Annual appeals go to the Bucks County Board of Assessment Appeals and must be on file or postmarked by the county’s published deadline. For 2026 that date was August 3, and the filing took effect for tax year 2027. The next annual deadline is posted on the county’s Board of Assessment Appeals page.
The fee is $75 per parcel and it is non-refundable whether you win or lose. Interim appeals, the ones that follow new construction or a change to the parcel, cost the same $75 and run on their own clock. Evidence means an appraisal or comparable sales from the last eighteen months, and the appellant or an attorney has to attend the hearing unless a waiver is signed. The board sits on the first and third Tuesday at 10 a.m. at 55 East Court Street in Doylestown, and takes questions at 215-348-6219.
Three bills, two calendars, one house
You will get a county and municipal bill together in late February or early March, covering the calendar year. Your school district bills separately on July 1 for a year that ends the following June 30.
The county’s own share for 2026 is 29.65 mills, made up of 24.0035 general, 3.4764 debt, 1.1777 for the community college and 0.9924 for parks. It was 27.45 in 2024 and 2025.
Stacked up, using each taxing body’s published rate:
| Where | County | Municipal | School | Total mills |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Langhorne Borough (Neshaminy) | 29.65 | 18.19625 | 198.0124 | 245.86 |
| Feasterville-Trevose (Neshaminy) | 29.65 | 18.33 | 198.0124 | 245.99 |
| Northampton Twp (Council Rock) | 29.65 | 35.25 | 149.9692 | 214.87 |
| Bristol Township | 29.65 | 24.98 | 237.1744 | 291.80 |
On the $40,000 assessment that is typical in Northampton Township, 214.87 mills works out to roughly $8,595 a year before any homestead exclusion. On Bristol Township’s average $20,000 assessment, 291.80 mills is roughly $5,836, plus a $400 refuse fee and a $30.25 streetlight fee that ride on the same bill. Both figures are estimates from the published rates, and both are the reason a low assessment is not a low bill.
What the districts did for 2026-27
Nearly every district in the county raised its rate for the school year that began this July. The percentage is the part that survives; several districts have not published a millage figure yet, so the blanks below are blanks on purpose.
| District | 2026-27 increase | Millage |
|---|---|---|
| Central Bucks | 5.7% | published later |
| Bristol Township | 4.6% | 237.1744 |
| Morrisville Borough | 4.1% | 279.8613 |
| Neshaminy | 4.1% | 198.0124 |
| Centennial | 3.5% | published later |
| Council Rock | 3.5% | 149.9692 |
| Pennridge | 3.0% | 144.3949 |
| Bristol Borough | plus 7 mills | published later |
Central Bucks used a special-education exception to go past the Act 1 index, its sixth straight increase, and the district put the effect at about $344 more on a $40,000 assessment. Centennial’s 3.5% adds roughly $225 to a bill that was already $6,407 on a home assessed near $40,000. Bristol Borough raised its rate for the first time in fifteen years, about $159.46 a year for the average taxpayer, on a 7-1 vote in June. Morrisville’s 279.8613 mills is the highest school rate in the county.
What to do about it as a buyer
Three things, in order. Ask the listing agent for the actual tax bills, all three of them, for the last full year — not an estimate off a listing sheet. Check whether the seller has a homestead exclusion in place, because your bill loses it until you file your own. And run the assessment times 17.86 before you make an offer, so you know whether an appeal is worth $75 to you later.
Then make sure the tax figure in your payment estimate is the real district bill. A county average will be wrong for Morrisville by a wide margin and wrong for Council Rock in the other direction, and a payment estimate built on the wrong tax line is a payment estimate you cannot use.