Property tax caps usually work one of two ways: capping the tax rate itself, or capping how fast an individual property's assessed value can grow. North Carolina's proposed constitutional amendment on this November's ballot takes a third approach — capping how much local governments can collect in total.
What's On the Ballot
House Bill 1089 passed both chambers of North Carolina's General Assembly with strong Republican support and will appear as a constitutional amendment on the November 3, 2026 general election ballot. If voters approve it, the state constitution would require limits on how much local governments — counties and municipalities — can increase their total property tax revenue year over year.
A Revenue Cap, Not a Rate Cap
This is the detail that matters most: the amendment doesn't cap what percentage rate a county or city can charge, and it doesn't cap how much an individual home's assessed value can rise. It caps the total dollar amount a local government can collect across all property tax revenue combined. In practice, that means if property values across a county rise sharply in a reassessment, the county would eventually need to lower its tax rate to stay under its revenue cap, since it can't just let the same rate apply to now-higher total assessed value and collect proportionally more.
The Formula Isn't Written Yet
The amendment itself doesn't specify a number. Bill sponsors have said the growth limit would likely be tied to factors like inflation and population growth, but the exact formula is deliberately left for future legislation — the constitutional amendment has to pass first, and lawmakers would write the specific cap into law afterward. That's a meaningful gap for voters to weigh: approving the amendment means agreeing to the principle of a revenue cap before knowing precisely how tight it will be.
The Case For and Against
Supporters argue fast-growing counties have seen property tax collections rise well ahead of what residents' incomes have kept pace with, and that a revenue cap imposes the same kind of fiscal discipline North Carolina already applies at the state level. Critics — largely Democrats in the General Assembly — argue that capping total revenue growth could squeeze funding for schools, disaster response, and other local services in exactly the counties growing fastest and needing that funding most.
One of Two Tax Measures on the Same Ballot
North Carolina voters will also see a separate constitutional amendment on the same November ballot proposing to cut the state's constitutional income tax cap from 7% down to 3.5% — a related but distinct measure. The property tax revenue cap doesn't depend on the income tax measure passing or failing; they're two separate questions voters can answer independently.