JCC Items of Interest

The information on this page is to provide an overview of county activities and issues.  We’ll include the basic facts and links to the original sources if you want to learn more.  If you have any questions that are not covered here, the County Treasurer’s Office has a frequently asked questions website.  If you can’t find an answer there, let us know and we’ll research it.

County Board and Commission meeting schedules and agendas (when posted) can be found here: Agendas & Minutes | James City County, VA 

Property Tax (Real Estate Tax)

How it’s calculated.

Your property tax is the product of your property’s current assessed value multiplied by the current tax rate – currently $0.83/$100 of value.  For example, the tax for a home valued at $400,000 would be:

$400,000 X $0.83/$100 = $3,320

Your Property tax history.

You can find your property’s tax history (Taxes tab) and assessed property values (History tab) on JCC’s CivQuest property information website.  You can search for property information by several values including address and last name.

Property Assessments

Property assessments are done (per the Code of Virginia § 58.1-3253) every two years.  The next property reassessments will be completed in January 2026 and property owners with changes will be notified in February/March 2026.  These assessments will be used to calculate property tax due in the county’s 2027 and 2028 fiscal years.  The JCC fiscal year (FY) begins in July and ends in June.  FY2027 begins in July 2026.

Property Assessment Appeal

If you wish to appeal your assessment, the first step is to contact the Real Estate Assessments Office. It involves a two-step administrative review process, starting with a departmental review by the Real Estate Assessments Division and, if necessary, an appeal to the Board of Equalization. 

The Real Estate Assessments Office website is here, 
Phone: 757-253-665

JCC Tax Rate History

JCC’s Tax Rate history can be found here.

What’s this about a 21% increase in my property tax a couple of years ago?

Reassessments conducted in 2023, and published in January 2024, produced an increase in the average property value of 21%.  The BOS kept the tax rate the same ($0.83/$100 of value).  The effect was to raise the average property tax by 21%.  Keep in mind this is an average…some homeowners saw a negligible increase while we’ve talked to others whose property tax went up 40%.

Title 58.1 of the Code of Virginia governs tax rates when a reassessment causes a tax increase.  You can read it here but we’ll provide a synopsis.

  • When any biennial assessment results in an increase of one percent or more in the total property tax, the county shall reduce its rate of levy for the next tax year so as to produce no more that 101 percent of the previous year’s tax levies (e.g., no more than a 1% increase.)  In the case in question, the reduced tax rate would have been $0.69/$100 of value.
  • The BOS can vote to increase the rate above the reduced rate but may only do so after conducting a public hearing which shall not be held at the same time as the annual budget hearing.
  • On May 13, 2025 the BOS held its monthly Regular Meeting.  Public comment started at 41:10 on the timeline – you can watch it here.  The motion and subsequent vote to approve the FY2026 budget, which included the $0.83/$100 of value tax rate starts at 4:21:35. The BOS passed the budget with the $0.83 tax rate.  In the Code of Virginia, § 58.1-3321 the difference between the lowered tax rate ($0.69) and the approved tax rate ($0.83) is termed an “effective tax rate increase.