Yellow or Green? How to Read the Tax Bill That Just Showed Up
It is sitting on your kitchen counter right now, probably under a school flyer and a pizza coupon. Your Washington County property tax statement.
Maybe you opened it. Maybe you looked at the big number, winced, and put it back in the envelope. And if you did read it, you may have noticed something that does not seem to add up: the county says your home is worth less than it was last year, and your tax bill still went up.
That is not a mistake, and you are not the only one squinting at it. So let's walk through what is on that page, starting with the very first thing you can see from across the room: the color.
First, is your statement yellow or green?
Washington County prints tax statements in two colors, and the color tells you who the county expects to pay.
Yellow means a mortgage company, or the Oregon Department of Revenue, has requested your tax statement and intends to pay it. For most homeowners with a mortgage, that means your lender is paying the bill out of the escrow account that gets a little of your money every month.
Green means you are expected to pay it yourself.
That comes straight from the county's own property tax FAQ, which also adds one line worth repeating: you, the owner, are still ultimately responsible for the taxes, whatever color the paper is.
One small clarification, because it trips people up. Yellow does not mean the bill has already been paid. It means somebody else has raised their hand to pay it. Most of the time that works exactly the way it should, but it is worth a thirty-second check if any of these are true for you:
You bought, sold or refinanced this year. The county specifically tells people in this situation to call their mortgage company and confirm who is paying. Loans change hands, servicers change, and a statement can be printed before the county's records catch up.
You paid off your mortgage. If your statement is still yellow, call the county. If it is green and you were used to the lender handling it, the bill is now yours.
You got a statement for a house you already sold. The county says this happens when the bill was printed before the ownership change was recorded, and the tax office at 503-846-8801 can get a new one to the new owner.
And one more group gets yellow statements: homeowners in Oregon's senior and disabled property tax deferral program, where the state pays the taxes and is repaid later. I wrote about that program in Your Parents' House Has Forty Years in It, if that is a conversation happening in your family.
When is it due?
The first payment is due November 15, which lands on a Sunday this year. The county counts a payment as on time on the next business day when the 15th falls on a weekend, so Monday, November 16 is your real deadline.
If you have a green statement, you get three options:
Pay it all by the deadline and take a 3% discount on the current year's tax.
Pay two-thirds by the deadline and take a 2% discount, then pay the last third by May 15.
Pay one-third at a time, with no discount, on November 15, February 15 and May 15.
On a $6,000 tax bill, that full-payment discount is $180. Not life-changing, but it is real money for writing one check a little earlier.
Two details from the county that are worth knowing. Payments have to be postmarked on or before the due date, and the county suggests going inside the post office to get it postmarked in front of you if you are cutting it close. And late payments start accruing interest on December 16, at 16% a year. That is credit card territory, so this is not the bill to let slide.
Why are there three different values on it?
This is the part that confuses almost everyone, and it is the whole key to the bill.
Your statement shows a few different numbers for your home's value, and they mean very different things:
Real Market Value (RMV) is the county's estimate of what your property would have sold for on January 1 of this year.
Maximum Assessed Value (MAV) is a capped number that started in 1997, when Oregon voters passed Measure 50. It generally can only grow 3% a year.
Assessed Value (AV) is the lower of those two. This is the number your taxes are actually calculated on.
For most homes in our area, the market value is far higher than the assessed value, because home prices have grown much faster than 3% a year for almost three decades. According to the county's 2026-27 fact sheet, the average single-family home in Washington County has a market value of $605,955 and an assessed value of $350,536.
So your tax bill is not based on what your house is worth today. It is based on a number that has been climbing slowly and steadily since the late 1990s.
So why did my taxes go up if my value went down?
Because those two numbers are not connected the way it feels like they should be.
The county publishes a list of typical homes in neighborhoods across Washington County, with their values and taxes side by side. Here is the typical home in South Beaverton:
Market value went from $585,790 to $573,220, down about 2%.
Assessed value went from $287,690 to $296,320, up 3%.
The tax bill went from $6,320 to $6,604, up about 4.5%.
The market value dipped, but it is still nearly twice the assessed value, so it does not touch the tax calculation at all. The assessed value kept doing its steady 3%.
The rest of the increase usually comes from voter-approved bonds and levies. The county's FAQ lists the ones that are new or renewed for this year's bills, and for Beaverton-area readers that includes a Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District bond, a countywide library levy and a countywide public safety levy. Questions about any specific one go to that district, and the county links to each of them on its FAQ page.
The county also names two other reasons a bill can rise more than 3%: major remodeling or new construction on your property, and something called compression, which is a separate limit tied to market value that only affects some properties. If your bill jumped by a lot more than your neighbors', one of those is usually the reason.
Should you appeal?
You can. Whether it will help is a different question.
Washington County's Property Value Appeals Board hears appeals of your property's value, not the amount of tax. The deadline is December 31, 2026, there is no filing fee, and you do not need an attorney. Hearings run from early February through April 15.
Here is the honest test, and you can do it with the statement in your hand. Find your real market value and your assessed value.
If your market value is well above your assessed value, which is true for most homes around here, then convincing the board your market value should be lower is very unlikely to change what you owe. Your taxes are coming from the assessed value either way.
An appeal is more likely to matter when your market value is close to, or below, your assessed value, or when something about your property is just wrong in the county's records.
If you are not sure which camp you are in, the county's appraisal office answers value questions at 503-846-8826, and appeal questions go to 503-846-3854. Both are free, and they are genuinely helpful.
What this means if you are buying or selling
This is where the tax bill quietly matters for my clients.
In Oregon, a sale does not reset the taxes. The City of Eugene puts it plainly in its property tax FAQ: Oregon is the only state where assessed values do not reset to market value when an existing home is sold. The assessed value stays with the house.
That means two homes on the same street, similar size, similar price, can have very different tax bills, depending on their history. So when you are comparing houses, look at the actual tax bill on each one. It is part of the monthly payment, and it does not equalize after you buy.
If you bought this year, your statement may still have the previous owner's name on it, and your closing paperwork already split this year's taxes between you and the seller. I walked through how that proration works in Rates Just Jumped. So Who Pays for What at Closing Now?
And if you are thinking about selling, please do not price your house off the market value on this statement, in either direction. It is a county-wide estimate as of January 1, made without anyone walking through your kitchen. It is useful for taxes. It is not a pricing tool.
What I usually tell my clients
When the statement shows up, do three things and then go back to your life.
Check the color. Yellow and you have a mortgage? You are probably fine. Bought, sold or refinanced this year? Make one call to your lender and confirm.
Compare the two values. If the market value is way above the assessed value, an appeal probably will not help, and you can let that one go.
Do not pay a yellow bill without calling your lender first. Paying it yourself while your lender also pays it means one of you overpaid, and untangling that takes longer than the phone call would have.
That is it. This is not a bill that deserves an evening of stress.
Your bill is specific
Every property's numbers are a little different, depending on when it was built, what has been added on, and which mix of school, park, fire and city districts it sits in. Your neighbor's statement will not look like yours, and that is normal.
If something on yours does not make sense, take a photo of the front of the statement and send it to me. I am happy to walk through it with you, and it does not need to have anything to do with buying or selling a house.
One question for you: yellow or green? And did the number surprise you this year? I am curious how many people opened it, looked at the market value, and thought, "wait, then why did it go up?"
Warmly,
Tiffanie
Tiffanie Danley
Licensed Realtor in Oregon | Real Broker
Oregon License 201206631
P: 503-453-6580
IG: @tiffaniedanley
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