Tennessee has no state property tax — every rate you pay is set locally, by a county commission and, inside city limits, a separate city council layered on top. Tennessee also uses a genuinely distinctive mechanic worth understanding before you compare a tax bill here to one from another state: property isn't taxed on its full appraised value. Under Tennessee Code Annotated §67-5-801, an assessor first appraises a property at its market value, then applies a state-set assessment ratio by property class — 25% for residential and farm property, 40% for commercial/industrial property, and 55% for public utility property — to arrive at the taxable assessed value. A local tax rate, expressed per $100 of assessed value, is then applied to that smaller number. A $400,000 home, for example, has an assessed value of $100,000 (25%) — the rate then applies to that $100,000, not the full $400,000.
Because rates are set independently by dozens of overlapping counties and cities across this metro, and because most of them reset their rates in the last year or two following reappraisals (see Section 5), we deliberately don't publish a single fixed "the rate is X" figure for the whole metro — Section 4 gives dated, sourced representative figures instead, and your county's Assessor or Trustee office always has the current number.
This is the single most Nashville-specific wrinkle on this page, and it doesn't have a direct equivalent anywhere else in our coverage area. Nashville and Davidson County merged into a single consolidated city-county government in 1963 — one of the first fully unified city-county governments in the U.S. Because the old city core and the newly annexed suburban and rural areas didn't have identical municipal services on day one, Metro split the county into two overlapping tax districts that persist today:
A further wrinkle: six small "satellite cities" inside Davidson County — Belle Meade, Berry Hill, Forest Hills, Goodlettsville, Oak Hill, and Ridgetop — retained their own city governments after the 1963 merger and layer an additional municipal rate on top of the GSD rate. If you're looking at a specific Davidson County address, confirm which district (and whether a satellite-city rate applies) before assuming a rate from this page.
None of this applies to Franklin, Brentwood, Murfreesboro, Hendersonville, Mt. Juliet, Gallatin, or Smyrna — those are ordinary, independently incorporated cities inside their own separate, non-consolidated counties (Williamson, Rutherford, Sumner, and Wilson), each with its own distinct county government and county tax rate layered under the city's own rate. See our zoning & HOA guide for more on how this affects local governance more broadly.
Tennessee runs a state-reimbursed relief program, administered through each County Trustee's office — homeowners still pay their full bill, and the state reimburses the county for tax on a protected slice of the home's value. Two main tracks, under TCA §67-5-702 through 704:
Some counties and cities — including Metro Nashville — separately offer an optional local "tax freeze" for qualifying seniors, locking in the dollar amount owed at the year they first qualify (subject to its own income ceiling, which Metro Nashville has set in the low-$60,000s in recent years). None of these programs are automatic — you have to apply, and the exact dollar figures shift annually, so treat any number in this section as illustrative rather than this year's exact figure.
Nearly every jurisdiction below has reset its rate within the last one to two years following a reappraisal-driven "certified tax rate" recalculation — Tennessee's truth-in-taxation law requires rates to roll back after a reappraisal so total revenue collected doesn't automatically jump just because assessed values rose. Treat every figure below as a dated snapshot, not an evergreen fact, and confirm the current rate with the relevant county or city finance office before relying on it for a purchase decision.
| Jurisdiction | Rate (per $100 assessed) | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Davidson County — Urban Services District | $2.814 | Tax year 2025, an all-in combined city+county rate (no separate county rate to add — see Section 2) |
| Davidson County — General Services District | $2.782 | Tax year 2025, all-in combined rate |
| Williamson County | $1.30 | FY2026, post-2025 reappraisal; add the applicable city rate (e.g., Franklin's own rate) for a resident's total bill |
| Franklin (city, within Williamson) | $0.296 | FY2026 adopted, post-reappraisal — add to the Williamson County rate above |
| Brentwood (city, within Williamson) | Unconfirmed — conflicting figures found | Confirm directly with the City of Brentwood Finance Department before relying on any rate you see elsewhere |
| Rutherford County | $1.4885 | 2026 certified rate, post-reappraisal — add the applicable city rate |
| Murfreesboro (city, within Rutherford) | $0.7529 | 2026 certified rate — add to the Rutherford County rate above |
| Smyrna (town, within Rutherford) | $0.4258 | 2026 certified rate — add to the Rutherford County rate above |
| Sumner County | Unconfirmed — conflicting/undated figures found | Confirm directly with the Sumner County Trustee before relying on any rate you see elsewhere |
| Wilson County | $1.1657 | New certified rate, effective July 1, 2026, following a 2026 reappraisal |
| Mt. Juliet (city, within Wilson) | $0.29 | Adopted June 2025 — likely reset again following Wilson County's 2026 reappraisal; confirm the current figure directly with the city |
Sources: Nashville Property Assessor's official tax rate page; Nashville.gov Trustee; Williamson, Rutherford, and Wilson county budget/reappraisal news coverage, cross-checked September 2026. Brentwood's and Sumner County's current rates could not be independently confirmed with a live source this session — call the relevant office directly rather than relying on a number found elsewhere online. Hendersonville's and Gallatin's specific city rates (within Sumner County) were similarly unconfirmed.
State law requires each county to periodically revalue all property, on either a standard schedule or a continuous visual-inspection cycle capped at 4 years, set county by county. Confirmed cycles: Williamson County reappraises every 4 years (last completed 2025); Rutherford County is on a 4-year cycle (last completed 2026); Sumner County is on a 5-year cycle (last reappraisal 2024, next scheduled 2029); Wilson County completed a reappraisal in 2026, with the exact cycle length not independently confirmed. Davidson County's exact statutory cycle length was also not independently confirmed in our research — in practice, expect a reappraisal roughly every 4 years for the urban counties in this metro, and confirm the next scheduled date with your county Assessor of Property.
Tennessee uses a layered appeal process. Start with an informal review with the county Assessor's office (optional, no formal filing). If unresolved, file a formal appeal with the County Board of Equalization — the general filing window falls in May–June, with exact deadlines set locally (some counties give a fixed number of days from when the assessment notice was mailed, commonly around 45 days) — confirm the exact current-year deadline with your specific county, since we found this varies by county and could not compile one authoritative table covering all five counties in this guide. Beyond the county board, the case can proceed to the State Board of Equalization, and from there to Chancery or Circuit Court as a final judicial review.
The structural mechanics in Sections 1 and 2 are durable and don't change often. The relief-program figures in Section 3 and the rate table in Section 4 are exactly the kind of numbers that shift every year through county budgets, city councils, and state-set relief thresholds — we'll re-verify these periodically, and we've deliberately flagged what we couldn't independently confirm (Brentwood's and Sumner County's current rates, Davidson and Wilson counties' exact statutory reappraisal cycle lengths, and every county's exact current-year appeal deadline) rather than guess. If you spot something on this page that's changed, or notice a broken link, we'd like to know — see our contact information.