9. Taxes and Carrying Cost

The key points

• Paramus has the lowest property tax rate of the seven towns compared: 1.434% of market value in 2025.⁵¹
• On a $1,150,000 home that is about $16,500 a year, against $22,300 to $28,300 in the other six.
• The malls and the highway corridors pay about 45% of the tax levy. That is why the rate is low.
• Every home is reassessed every year. Your tax follows your price within a year or two, and there is no large one-time correction waiting.
• A falling rate is not a falling bill. The average homeowner's bill rose 8.0% in 2025 while the rate went down.⁵²

Paramus against its neighbors

The State publishes an effective tax rate for every town, which is the tax as a share of what a home is worth. It is the fair way to compare towns that assess differently.

Table 9.1. What a $1,150,000 home costs in property tax, 2025.

Source: New Jersey Division of Taxation.^51, 52

At the same price, Paramus is the cheapest of the seven to own, by $5,850 to $11,800 a year. Over ten years at $1.15 million, the gap against Glen Rock or River Edge is more than $115,000.

Paramus does lose two rows. Its average bill is not the lowest: Fair Lawn's is $12,418, because Fair Lawn's houses cost less. And its average bill grew fastest of the seven from 2024 to 2025, at 8.0%.⁵²

Where your tax dollar goes

Table 9.2. The 2025 tax bill on the average Paramus home, assessed at $871,335.

Source: Bergen County Board of Taxation; New Jersey Division of Taxation.^53, 52

The schools take under half the bill, and the Borough takes about a third. The Mayor and Council control a larger slice of your bill here than a council does in most Bergen towns.

Why the rate is low, and why your bill still rises

Homeowners in Paramus share the bill with Garden State Plaza, Bergen Town Center, Paramus Park and the Route 4 and Route 17 corridors. Everything that is not a house carried about 45% of the levy in 2025, roughly $87 million of the $193 million raised.⁵³

That share is shrinking slowly. It was 48.0% in 2022 and 45.0% in 2025, because house prices have risen faster than store and office values.^52, 54 From 2024 to 2025 the average home's assessment rose 9.1% while the whole tax base rose 4.5%. The rate fell from 1.514 to 1.499, and the average homeowner's bill still rose 8.0%. Since 2022 the average bill is up 19.5%.⁵²

What this means for you
Budget for your bill to grow faster than the Borough's and schools' budgets do, for as long as house prices outrun commercial values. It is still the lowest rate of the seven towns by a wide margin.

Annual reassessment: what a buyer should expect

Paramus has revalued every property every year since 2020, and the current program runs through 2029.^55, 56 Assessments here sit close to market value. The State's ratio for Paramus is 93.30%, where Ridgewood, Fair Lawn and Glen Rock are near 60%.⁵⁷ Towns near 60% have a town-wide revaluation ahead that will shift bills in one step. Paramus takes that adjustment a little each year.

For a buyer of an existing house, the pattern is this:

• When you buy, the assessment on the books is typically about 80% of your price.⁵⁸
• A year later, it moves to about 91% of what you paid.⁵⁹

On a $1,150,000 purchase, that is a first-year bill of about $13,960, about $15,690 the next year, and about $16,500 where it settles.

New houses are different in two ways. A home built in 2023 or later and sold in 2025 or 2026 is assessed at a median 96.7% of its price, so there is little step-up left.⁵⁹ But while a new house is still being built and sold, the tax shown on the listing can be the old house's bill (Section 2).

What this means for you
The seller's tax bill is a starting point, not your bill. Work from your price, at about 1.45%.

The risk in a mall-supported tax base

A base that is 45% non-residential is an advantage with a risk attached.

• The malls are a large share. Garden State Plaza alone is assessed at $1.78 billion, which is 13% of the Borough's taxable base.⁵⁹
• Commercial owners appeal their assessments as a matter of routine, and the Borough settles cases every year.^60, 61 When a commercial assessment comes down, the same levy is spread over everyone else. If $100 million came off the roll, the average residential bill would rise about $102.
• The Borough's reserve for appeals is small, $300,000 at the end of 2024.⁶²
• The hospital pays a fee, not taxes. The Valley Hospital is exempt at $375 million. The Borough budgets its community service fee at $1,000,000 for 2026, against $2,438,547 received in 2025.^59, 63
• The Borough is using more of its surplus each year to hold the rate down: $4.85 million in 2025 and $6.46 million in the 2026 budget.⁶³

On the other side, Borough debt is light, about 0.3% of the Borough's value against a legal limit of 3.5%, and the Borough collected 99.03% of its 2024 levy.^62, 64

What this means for you
None of this changes the comparison in Table 9.1. It is the reason to plan for steady increases and not to assume the rate keeps falling.

Appealing your assessment

• Deadline. In a year when the Borough reassesses, the appeal deadline is May 1. Use the date printed on your assessment notice, or confirm with the County Board of Taxation (201-336-6300).^65, 66
• The test. The question is whether your assessment is above what your home would have sold for on the prior October 1.⁶⁷
• The odds. Of 304 recent sales, 44% were assessed below the range the State treats as accurate and 3.3% above it.⁵⁸ Most Paramus homes are assessed under what they would sell for.

Appeal if the record of your house is wrong, such as the bedroom count or square footage, or if it has a problem the assessor cannot see from the street. Do not appeal because the number went up.

Relief programs

All three State programs are claimed on one form, PAS-1. The deadline for the 2025 benefit year is November 2, 2026.⁶⁸

Table 9.3. State property tax relief.

Source: New Jersey Division of Taxation.^{69, 70, 71, 72}

Senior Freeze matters more in Paramus than in a town that seldom reassesses, because assessments move every year and the reimbursement grows with them.

What I tell my buyers: use about 1.45% of your purchase price as the tax line in your budget, even if the listing shows less, because your assessment will be reset toward what you paid within a year. Then add 5% to 8% a year, not 2%, because that is what the average Paramus homeowner's bill has done while the rate was falling. On a $1.15 million purchase that is about $16,500 now and roughly $18,500 by 2028. It is still the lowest carrying cost of any town I compare Paramus with.