Cameron Parish Tax Estimator

How property tax works in Cameron Parish

Your bill is the assessed value of your home multiplied by the combined rate of every authority that taxes it — the county, the school district, the city or township, and often a fire or library district. Those rates are set separately and added together, which is why two houses of identical value on opposite sides of a district line can owe different amounts.

Across Cameron Parish, the median home is worth $183,300 and the median property tax bill is $814. Dividing one by the other gives the effective rate of 0.444% used above. That is the honest way to estimate a bill without knowing which districts a specific address falls into.

Income tax in Louisiana, while you are here

Louisiana taxes income at a flat 3.00% on top of the property tax above. Work out your Louisiana income tax.

Cameron Parish in the national picture

Cameron Parish is in the cheapest tenth of the United States for property tax. Its effective rate of 0.44% sits below 0.46%, the line that separates the bottom 10% of the 3,132 counties we have data for from everyone else. In practical terms, an owner here pays less than half what the median American county charges on the same house.

For scale, the range across the whole country runs from about 0.08% at the bottom to 3.64% at the top. That is a spread of more than twenty to one on the same house, and it is decided almost entirely by where the line on the map falls rather than by anything about the property itself.

What 0.44% costs at each price point in Cameron Parish

The rate is a percentage, so the bill scales straight with the value the assessor puts on the property: $200,000 → $888 a year ($74 a month); $350,000 → $1,554 a year ($130 a month); $500,000 → $2,221 a year ($185 a month); $750,000 → $3,331 a year ($278 a month); $1,000,000 → $4,441 a year ($370 a month).

The median home in Cameron Parish is assessed around $183,300, which is why the typical bill here lands near $814. If you are looking above that price, read the row that matches your budget rather than the median — the median describes the parish, not your purchase.

One caveat that catches people out: these figures use assessed value, and in many states that is not the same as the price you paid. Some states assess at a fixed fraction of market value, and some cap how fast an assessment can rise for an existing owner. Both make the published rate look higher or lower than what a specific household actually pays.

What property tax takes out of a Cameron Parish income

Median household income in Cameron Parish is $72,500 and the median property tax bill is $814. That is 1.1% of gross household income going to property tax alone — before any income tax, before FICA, and before the mortgage the tax sits on top of.

At 1.1% this is a manageable share by national standards, but note what it is measured against: median income, not your income. A retiree on a fixed income in the same house pays the same bill as the household earning $72,500, which is why almost every state has some form of senior or disability relief and why it is worth asking the assessor whether you qualify.

This is also the number that rent quietly reflects. A landlord in Cameron Parish pays the same $814 on a comparable property and prices it into the lease, so the tax reaches renters too — it just arrives without a bill attached.

Why Louisiana counties charge such different rates

Property tax is set locally, so Louisiana does not have one rate — it has 64. They run from 0.15% in East Feliciana Parish to 0.82% in Orleans Parish, with Cameron Parish at 0.44%, 39th cheapest of 64.

That is a spread of more than 5.3 to one inside a single state, which tells you the state rules are not what is driving the number. What drives it is the local mix: how much of the school budget comes from the state rather than the district, whether there is commercial or industrial value to spread the burden across, and how fast home values have moved relative to the budgets those values have to fund.

The practical consequence is that a rate you were quoted for Louisiana as a whole is close to meaningless. The number that applies to you is the one for your parish, and often for your district within it.

Property tax and income tax in Louisiana, together

Louisiana taxes income as well as property, so a full picture of what living in Cameron Parish costs needs both. The property side is local and is on this page; the income side is set at state level and applies wherever in Louisiana you live.

The two are worth adding together rather than comparing separately, because states trade them off against each other. A state with a low income tax often leans harder on property, and vice versa — which is why a single-tax comparison between two states can point the wrong way.

What the Cameron Parish figure is, and what it is not

The 0.44% on this page is an effective rate: the Census Bureau's median property tax paid in Cameron Parish ($814) divided by its median home value ($183,300), both from the American Community Survey five-year estimates. It is a real, citable measure of what owners here actually pay.

It is not a millage rate, and it is not the number on your tax bill. Your bill is the sum of every levy that reaches your parcel — parish, school district, city or township, and often a fire, library or water district — applied to your assessed value after any exemption you qualify for. Two houses of the same value on opposite sides of a district line in Cameron Parish can owe different amounts, and both are correct.

Use this figure to compare Cameron Parish against other places and to sanity-check an escrow estimate. Use the assessor's roll to find out what you owe.

Cameron Parish at a glance

Cameron Parish has a population of about 5,222, 3,447 housing units, and a median household income of $72,500.

It is a small parish, and that has two consequences for the numbers here. Census estimates carry wider margins of error on small populations, and a single large taxpayer — a plant, a utility, a resort — can move the whole rate when it arrives or leaves.

The Louisiana rules that change your Cameron Parish bill

Louisiana exempts $7,500 of assessed value, which at its 10% residential assessment ratio means $75,000 of market value. On a modest home that can wipe out the parish tax entirely — and it is why Louisiana’s effective rates are among the lowest in the country. On the $183,300 median home in Cameron Parish, that exemption alone takes $75,000 off the value being taxed — worth about $333 a year at the local rate of 0.44%.

Residential property is assessed at 10% of fair market value.

The special assessment level freezes assessed value for owners 65 and over, or with a disability, whose adjusted gross income is $100,000 or less. It locks in the value from the first qualifying year.

These are Louisiana rules and they apply in every parish in the state, Cameron Parish included. What varies locally is the rate, not the relief — so if you qualify for the relief and have not claimed it, the Cameron Parish assessor is where that gets fixed.

The ten-year figure, which is the one that decides a purchase

A single year's property tax is a number people accept without much thought. The decade is the number that changes decisions, because unlike a mortgage it never amortises away and unlike income tax it does not fall when your income does.

On Cameron Parish's median home value of $183,300, held ten years with assessed value rising 4% a year, Cameron Parish collects about $9,773. The cheapest parish in the state collects $3,378 over the same period and the dearest $18,028 — a spread of $14,650 on identical property, decided entirely by location.

The same house at the national median rate of 0.84% would run $18,422 over ten years, so Cameron Parish costs about $8,649 less across the decade than a typical American parish would.

Set that against the mortgage to see the weight of it. On a $183,300 purchase the ten-year property tax bill in Cameron Parish is roughly 7% of the amount financed at 80% loan-to-value — before insurance, before maintenance, and before any millage increase. It is the largest recurring cost of ownership after interest, and the only one that a district can raise without asking you.

A rate in the national bottom decile makes this the smallest of the recurring ownership costs, below insurance in many years. The trap that creates is complacency about the base: where the tax is low, owners rarely scrutinise the assessment, and a reassessment after a long gap arrives as several years of market movement at once with no habit of challenging it.

Appealing a Cameron Parish assessment: what it is worth

You cannot appeal the tax rate — that is set by budget votes you have no standing to challenge individually. What you can appeal is the assessor's opinion of your property's value, and that is a factual claim you can be right or wrong about.

The arithmetic decides whether it is worth your afternoon. On the median home in Cameron Parish, $183,300, the bill runs about $814 a year. A 10% reduction in assessed value is worth roughly $81 a year, and because the corrected value carries forward it is nearer $407 across five years. Under $60 a year, the paperwork rarely pays; over $400, it usually does.

At this size a formal challenge is rarely worth the afternoon, and the better use of the same effort is the record itself: a factual correction costs one phone call and is usually granted without a hearing. Save the comparable-sales route for a year in which the valuation moves sharply, which in a lower-value area typically follows a reassessment cycle rather than arriving annually.

Also check the record itself before arguing valuation, because errors are commoner than contested opinions: square footage that includes an unfinished basement, a bathroom that does not exist, a garage counted twice, land area from a survey predating a lot split. A factual correction is usually granted without a hearing.

Deadlines are set locally here and are short — often thirty to forty-five days from the date the assessment notice was mailed, not from when you read it. Check the notice itself for the date, because missing the window generally forfeits the year regardless of how strong the case was.

How the bill is paid, and what happens if it is not

Most owners with a mortgage never pay this directly. The servicer collects roughly $68 a month alongside principal and interest on the median Cameron Parish bill, holds it in escrow, and pays the parish when it falls due. The consequence is that a rise reaches you as a change in your monthly payment months after the fact, with no obvious connection to the assessment notice that caused it.

Read the annual escrow analysis when it arrives. It shows the bill actually paid, and it is the cheapest way to catch an assessment you would have appealed had you noticed — by the time the payment changes, the appeal window for that year has usually closed.

The weight here is light: the median bill is 1.12% of median household income, so escrow rarely drives a purchasing decision and an increase is absorbed rather than felt. The consequence worth knowing is the reverse of the usual complaint — where the tax is small relative to income, owners tend not to open the assessment notice at all, and unclaimed exemptions go unnoticed for years.

Unpaid property tax is also secured against the house itself, which is what separates it from every other tax. States permit a tax lien, and eventually a tax sale, at the end of a statutory redemption period. It is slow and heavily noticed, so it is nearly always avoidable — but the mechanism means an unpaid property tax bill can never simply be written off the way an unpaid income tax debt sometimes is.

The Louisiana counties either side of Cameron Parish

The Louisiana counties immediately cheaper than Cameron Parish: Calcasieu Parish at 0.44%, Tangipahoa Parish at 0.43%, Assumption Parish at 0.43%. On a $400,000 home the move from Cameron Parish to Assumption Parish would save about $51 a year.

Immediately more expensive: St. John the Baptist Parish at 0.45%, Terrebonne Parish at 0.45%, Plaquemines Parish at 0.46%. If you are weighing Cameron Parish against St. John the Baptist Parish, the rate gap on a $400,000 home is about $26 a year — worth knowing, but rarely the largest difference between two places.

Comparisons like these are the reason to use an effective rate rather than a millage. Millage rates are not comparable across county lines because assessment practices differ; tax paid over value paid is.

What actually sets your Cameron Parish bill

Three numbers decide your bill, and the rate is only one of them. The first is assessed value, and in Louisiana that is deliberately not the price you paid: the state taxes 10% of value, which is why its effective rates read so much lower than states that tax the full amount. A $400,000 home in Cameron Parish is therefore taxed on about $40,000.

The second is how fast that value is allowed to move. We have not loaded a statewide cap for Louisiana, so assume your assessment can follow the market unless your assessor tells you otherwise.

The third is the combined rate of every authority that reaches your parcel — the parish, the school district, the city or township, often a fire or library district. They are set separately and added, which is why two houses of identical value on opposite sides of a line in Cameron Parish owe different amounts and both figures are correct.

And a fourth that is not a number but a form: the Louisiana homestead relief is worth $75,000 of assessed value and in most counties it is not applied automatically. An owner who never filed pays the unrelieved amount indefinitely, and nothing on the bill tells them so.

Buying in Cameron Parish? Read this first

Property tax is the part of the monthly cost buyers most often underestimate, because it does not surface until the lender builds the escrow. On a $400,000 home in Cameron Parish it adds roughly $148 a month on top of principal, interest and insurance — $1,776 a year.

One rule to check before you rely on the seller's number: whether Louisiana revalues the property when it changes hands. Where it does, the seller's bill can understate yours badly; where it does not, you inherit their position. We have not loaded that rule for Louisiana, so ask the Cameron Parish assessor directly rather than assuming.

Then file for the homestead relief in your first year. Deadlines are set locally and are usually short. Missing it is the most common and most expensive paperwork mistake a new owner in Louisiana makes.

If your Cameron Parish assessment looks wrong

You can contest the assessed value. You cannot contest the rate — that is set by elected bodies and is not open to appeal. So the question to answer before filing is narrow: would this property actually sell for what the assessor says it is worth?

In Louisiana check the ratio as well as the valuation. The state taxes 10% of value, so an error in the classification of your property — a home not recorded as owner-occupied, say — costs far more than a modest overvaluation, and it is a much easier thing to prove.

Deadlines are short and usually run from the date the assessment notice is mailed rather than from when you opened it. The Cameron Parish assessor's office is where the clock is published, and missing it costs the whole year — there is no late appeal in most jurisdictions.

Cameron Parish property tax questions

How much is property tax in Cameron Parish?

The effective rate in Cameron Parish is 0.44%, from a median tax bill of $814 on a median home value of $183,300. On a $400,000 home that is about $1,776 a year, or $148 a month once it is in escrow.

Is property tax high in Cameron Parish?

No, the opposite: Cameron Parish is in the cheapest tenth of the United States at 0.44%, against a national median of 0.84%.

Which Louisiana county has the lowest property tax?

East Feliciana Parish at 0.15%, with Orleans Parish the most expensive at 0.82%. Cameron Parish sits at 0.44%, 39th cheapest of the 64 Louisiana counties with published data.

Will my Cameron Parish tax bill change when I buy?

That depends on whether Louisiana revalues a property when it changes hands, and we have not loaded that rule for Louisiana. It matters: in states that reassess on sale, the seller's bill can badly understate what you will pay. Ask the Cameron Parish assessor before you rely on the current figure.

Is there a homestead exemption in Cameron Parish?

Yes. It is set by Louisiana and applies in every county including Cameron Parish. Louisiana exempts $7,500 of assessed value, which at its 10% residential assessment ratio means $75,000 of market value. On a modest home that can wipe out the parish tax entirely — and it is why Louisiana’s effective rates are among the lowest in the country. In most counties it is not applied automatically — you have to claim it, and an owner who never filed goes on paying the unrelieved amount indefinitely.

Do seniors pay property tax in Cameron Parish?

The special assessment level freezes assessed value for owners 65 and over, or with a disability, whose adjusted gross income is $100,000 or less. It locks in the value from the first qualifying year. That is a Louisiana rule and it reaches Cameron Parish like every other county in the state; the Cameron Parish assessor or treasurer handles the application.

Is my Cameron Parish home taxed on its full market value?

No. Residential property is assessed at 10% of fair market value. On a $400,000 home in Cameron Parish that means roughly $40,000 of taxable value before any exemption.

Can I appeal my Cameron Parish assessment?

You can contest the assessed value, but not the rate — the rate is set by elected bodies and is not open to appeal. Deadlines are short and usually run from the date the assessment notice was mailed rather than from when you opened it. The Cameron Parish assessor's office publishes the current window, and in most jurisdictions there is no late appeal.

Does Louisiana have an income tax as well?

Yes. Louisiana taxes income at a flat 3.00%, on top of the property tax on this page. Worth adding the two together before comparing Louisiana against anywhere else.

Do I need a parcel number to use this calculator?

No, and that is deliberate. The Cameron Parish assessor's own estimator generally asks for one, which is fine if you already own the property and useless if you are deciding whether to buy it. This works from the home value instead. It is an estimate built on the county's effective rate, which averages across every district inside Cameron Parish, so your exact bill depends on your district combination and on any exemption you qualify for. For the binding figure, the Cameron Parish assessor or treasurer is the authority.