Lehigh Valley’s school districts will decide in the coming weeks whether they will raise property taxes for the owners of 259,059 Lehigh Valley properties (135,853 parcels in Lehigh, 123,206 in Northampton).
School budgets must be passed by the end of June, with new tax rates taking effect July 1. Municipal tax rates, however, are normally set at the beginning of the calendar year.
The Morning Call looked at tax rates in January 2021, 2025 and 2026 to see who currently pays the most taxes and who saw the biggest change in their property tax bills.
To perform our analysis, The Morning Call used millage rates from Lehigh and Northampton counties and assessment level values from the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue.
A simple comparison of millage rates does not give an accurate picture of tax burden; Lehigh and Northampton counties use different assessment systems, so millage rates appear to vary by a wide degree because communities in the counties have different assessment levels.
One mill equals $1 in taxes for each $1,000 of assessed value.
The table below shows the municipal tax rates for all Lehigh Valley communities, in 2021, 2025 and 2026, and how they’ve changed.
The biggest one-year change in municipal tax rates came in Washington Township, Lehigh County, which increased its millage rate from 0.3 to 0.5, a 66.7% jump. But that rate is still the third-lowest in the county, after Hanover (0.08 mills) and Lynn townships (0.2 mills).
Lehigh County’s highest municipal tax rate is in Catasauqua, where its 15.05 millage rate would mean that the owner of a property assessed at $100,000 would owe $1,505 in borough taxes, assuming no homestead/farmstead deductions or other adjustments. The same assessed value in Hanover would be billed $80.
When Catasauqua more than doubled its tax rate effective 2023, it was the largest tax increase over the last five years, not counting supplemental taxes such as fire, public safety, library or open space assessments. With those assessments included, for instance, Lowhill’s rate increased 134.9% from 2021 to 2026 due to the implementation of a 0.56 mill fire safety tax effective 2022.
The top municipal tax rate increases came in Lehigh County, which accounted for eight of the top 10 increases. Only Northampton Borough, with a 52.2% increase, and Lower Mount Bethel Township, with a 51% jump, made it to top tax increase list, coming in at positions eight and nine, respectively.
Plainfield and Glendon, both in Northampton, were the only municipalities to reduce their millage rates. Plainfield had raised its rate from 7.5 to 9.5 mills in 2025. But this year, anticipating increased revenue from a 212-acre Grand Central Sanitary Landfill expansion, it dropped its rate 42%, from 9.5 mills to 5.5. Glendon, the tiny borough of fewer than 400 residents, reduced its local millage rate 5% between 2021 and 2025, going from 11.64 to 11.06 mills. It did not raise rates in 2026.
A word about Allentown
Allentown is unique in the Valley in that it has two assessment rates: one for land (24.47 mils), the other for “improvements” (4.63 mils); both increased 4% last year. The rate for buildings, less than one-fifth of the land rate, is meant to encourage development.
Allentown is also singular in the region in that its lies within three public school districts. The vast majority of the parcels — more than 98% — are in Allentown School District, but 1.6% are in Parkland, and the remaining 0.015% are in Salisbury School District. Lower Mount Bethel Township is served by both Easton Area and Bangor Area school districts. All other local municipalities are in a single public school district.
Total tax bills: Municipal, school, county
The layering of the three taxing district with two different assessment systems can make it mind-bogglingly difficult to compare total property tax burdens, but the tables below show how the combined rates have changed from 2025-26 and from 2021-26.
Northampton County hasn’t raised it county property tax millage in eight years, while Lehigh adopted its rate in 2020, which means all the increases property owners have seen in the last five years come from city and school tax increases. The table below shows the one-year and five-year changes in combined millage rates for municipal, school and county taxes.
What’s the bottom line?
The table below gives rough estimated changes since 2021 in tax bills for the combined taxes of a property with a current market value of $100,000. Using just the varying assessment values, such a property in Lehigh County would be assessed at $49,505; in Northampton, $17,007. Those are the values multiplied by the millage rates to get the estimated bills. Individual assessments might be affected by homestead or farmstead exclusions, assessment caps for seniors or people with disabilities, and other factors.
The table can be sorted by percent changes as well as dollar changes. Either way, Catasauqua comes out on top of the list for tax bill increases, jumping more than 35% since 2021, up $538 for a property assessed at $49,505. The Lehigh County borough also has the highest estimated tax bill for 2026, discounting the land assessment rates for Allentown, which is more than five times higher than the building assessment rate.
If you know your property’s assessed value, use the millage tables above to multiply the total millage by your assessment, then divide by 1,000 to get your tax bill before exclusions and adjustments.