See which Kansas City-area county paid the most, highest rate in property taxes
At a time when homeowners across the Kansas City metro have watched their property tax bills swell, one can’t help but wonder who has it best and who is holding the short straw.
It’s a tough call to make when data are limited, overlapping taxing jurisdictions such as school districts vary, and the highest dollar paid in a county doesn’t always equate to the highest financial burden on families and households.
Andrew Yushkov, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, said federal data may be able to give us an idea.
Yushkov, who researches state and local public finance, developed a comprehensive look at roughly how much people paid in property taxes in almost every county in the United States in 2023. His data, aggregated from the U.S. Census Bureau in early 2025, includes the median residential property tax bill paid in each county, and counties’ effective property tax rates for that year.
All five counties in the KC metro fell in the top half of 2023 median property tax bills paid in Kansas and Missouri.
Households in Johnson County paid the highest median residential property tax bill compared to every other county in both states that year.
But Wyandotte County residents in the same year paid the highest effective property tax rate in the metropolitan area.
Given home values have continued to rise across the metro, many residents in and around Kansas City saw higher tax bills at the end of 2024 than in 2023 — and may again when bills go out later this year. And although the rate at which home values are spiking seems to be slowing down, it’s unclear whether they’ll plateau anytime soon.
The Star, with the help of local county appraisers and tax collectors, analyzed how median household income stacked up against rising property values and bills in Jackson, Clay, Platte, Wyandotte and Johnson counties in 2023 and tried to put it into the present-day context.
It’s worth noting that median values depict the middle amount in a data set, which offers an amount that half the population pays more than and half pays less than. The same goes for home values and income rates. Only Wyandotte County provided the median and average amount paid in residential property taxes using its actual bills from the 2024 cycle.
The rest are median bills calculated by applying the counties’ effective tax rates to their median home valuations reflected in the federal data set.
Johnson
Johnson County homeowners paid a median $4,221 in residential property taxes in 2023, marking the highest median dollar amount paid among both Kansas and Missouri counties for that year. The effective tax rate for that year was 1.15%.
The median household income in Johnson County during 2023 was $107,261, according to Mid-America Regional Council data. This means half the county’s population made more than that amount during 2023 and half fell somewhere below that amount.
By that metric, about 3.4% of a median household’s annual income went toward property taxes.
Tax bills in Johnson County increased alongside home valuations between 2023 and 2024, according to a county spokesperson.
Back in 2023, when residents paid a median $4,221 on property taxes, the median home valuation in Johnson County was $366,000, according to federal data. The county told The Star last month that its median home valuation climbed to $403,300 for 2024 and to $428,300 for 2025.
Johnson County said the tax bill on the median home grew to $4,918 in 2024.
Platte
Platte County paid the highest amount in median property taxes in the entire state of Missouri during 2023 with a median bill of $3,365 and effective rate of 1.06%.
Federal data show the median home value for that year was $317,600. The median household income at the time was $95,748, meaning 3.5% of the median household’s annual income went toward paying property taxes.
Clay
Clay County property owners paid a $2,817 median property tax bill during 2023 and an effective tax rate of 1.1%. The median home value that year was $256,400, according to federal data.
Clay County residents made a median $86,150 annual household income in 2023, meaning about 3.3% of that income went toward paying the median tax bill that year.
The Clay County Assessor’s Office told The Star that homes in Clay County have an average sale price of $366,000. It also said the median home value in the area grew to $331,000 in 2024, and that it saw notable value increases in the past two years as infrastructure and new business have popped up.
Tracy Baldwin, the Clay County Assessor, said valuation protests in the county were lower on 2025 values than they’ve been in previous years. He attributes that to the work the county does to inform tax payers on what’s happening in the real estate market.
Jackson
Jackson County fell on the lower end for property tax bills paid in 2023 among the Missouri counties surveyed. Residents paid a median $2,448 in property taxes at a time when home values were a median $213,300.
People living in Jackson County in 2023 made a median $67,178, according to Mid-America Regional Council data. The median $2,448 bill works out to 3.6% of the median income for that year.
Although the county did not provide the median value of a single residential parcel, it confirmed last month that its home values have continued to rise alongside others in the area, and shared a report that detailed how the total residential property value in the county increased 10.7% between 2024 and 2025.
“This is the most comprehensive information we can provide based on the many variables that factor into tax bills,” a county spokesperson said.
Wyandotte
Despite having the lowest median dollar-amount tax bill in 2023, Wyandotte County’s government — before its 2024 decision to adopt a revenue neutral budget — consistently increased tax rates in previous years and had the highest effective property tax rate in the metro in 2023. The county paid a median $2,240 in property taxes and had an effective rate of 1.47%.
With a median household income of about $60,500, people spent a median 3.7% on property taxes.
Home values, like others in the area, have continued to increase by double-digit percentages in recent years, although that rate has slowed, said Matthew Willard, county appraiser for Wyandotte County.
The median home value in Wyandotte County increased from about $152,000 for 2023 to about $181,600 for 2025.
A county analysis – conducted by Willard and Mike Grimm of the county’s research division – of its 2024 tax bills showed the median tax bill for a single family residential parcel grew to $2,835 but that the average value paid fell closer to $3,269.
Tough to calculate burden
Local property tax data are difficult to break down comprehensively, given counties contain various taxing entities that levy taxes over the various areas they serve — such as school districts and libraries — a handful of area county appraisers, assessors and collectors told The Star during the reporting process.
Taxpayers must pay certain rates that are adopted by local governmental bodies each budget year. How those rates affect a resident’s bill depends on what, and how many, taxing districts they live in and what the value is on their individual properties.
Homestead exemptions and relief programs in both Kansas and Missouri mean some senior citizens pay less in property taxes, although not all enroll.
This story was originally published May 9, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
