Phillips County Arkansas Property Tax Calculator

How Phillips County property taxes are calculated

Phillips County uses the standard Arkansas method, and at median home values the county's high millage is largely absorbed by the state's homestead credit, which is why the arithmetic here is worth walking through rather than estimating. Market value becomes assessed value at 20%, and the combined school, city and county mills then apply at $1 per $1,000 of assessed value.

Take a $90,000 home in Helena or West Helena, which sits in the Helena-West Helena school district at the county's highest rate of 60.55 mills for 2026 collections:

1. $90,000 market value times 20% equals $18,000 assessed value.
2. $18,000 times 60.55 divided by 1,000 equals $1,090 tax before credit.
3. Subtract the $600 homestead credit to reach $490 estimated annual tax, or $40.83 a month.

The same $90,000 home in the rural tier of Marvell #22, at 43.7 mills, owes $787 before credit and just $187 after it. That is a $303 annual difference on an identical house, all of it decided by the school district line and whether a city levy applies. At values near the county median the credit does heavy work: below roughly $49,550 of market value in Helena or West Helena, the 60.55 mill charge is fully offset by the $600 homestead credit, and the net bill is zero.

Phillips County millage rates by district and city

Nine taxing combinations are published for Phillips County for 2026 collections, and all nine appear below. Every row reconciles: school mills plus city mills plus the county's 10.7 mills equals the overall figure, and a "Rural" row carries no city millage. Three school districts and six millage-levying cities produce the whole table.

Phillips County rows taken from the Arkansas DFA Assessment Coordination Division 2025 Millage Report, covering 2026 collections and issued March 2026. All nine combinations are listed here. The 10.7 mill county levy is composed differently for city and rural parcels even though the total matches: city parcels carry a 1.5 mill road allotment, 5 mills general, 1.5 mills of county road, 1 mill of library tax and 1.7 mills for the college, while rural parcels carry 3 mills of road instead of the allotment.

Why Phillips County rates span nearly 17 mills

Phillips County has three school districts and six millage-levying cities, and its cheapest and dearest published combinations sit 16.85 mills apart. The school districts account for most of that: Marvell #22 levies 33 school mills against the Helena-West Helena district's 43.85, a 10.85 mill gap before any city tax. The cities then split into two groups, with Helena, West Helena, Lake View, Lexa, Elaine and Marvell all levying either 6 or 5 mills.

• Helena and West Helena share the county's highest rate. Both cities levy 6 mills, split 5 general, 0.5 fire and 0.5 police, and both sit inside the same school district, so they land on an identical 60.55 mills. Two separate municipalities, one rate.
• Rural Marvell #22 is the cheapest at 43.7 mills. Marvell's district has the lowest school levy in the county, and rural parcels add no city tax. On a $90,000 home the gap against Helena-West Helena is $303 a year.
• Elaine and Marvell charge the same city rate and land on the same total. Both levy 5 mills inside the Marvell #22 district, giving each an overall 48.7 mills, 8.15 mills below the Helena-West Helena combination.
• Lake View and Lexa are identical in rate. Both sit in the Barton Lexa #4 district at 41.5 school mills and both levy 5 city mills, producing 57.2 mills each. The two towns differ in location but not in tax rate.
• Barton Lexa is the product of a consolidation. Lake View #25 consolidated with Barton #4 to form Barton-Lexa #4, which is why the district carries a hyphenated name and why Lake View's own district no longer appears.
• The county levy is 10.7 mills and includes a college line. Phillips County is the only county in this batch whose county levy carries a college millage of 1.7 mills alongside 1 mill of library tax and the road lines.

Boundaries are worth checking before buying here. The Marvell #22 district fringes out of Phillips County into Desha and Monroe counties, so a small number of Phillips County parcels pay a school rate that is voted on partly outside the county. Elaine #30 consolidated with Marvell #22, which is why Elaine appears under the Marvell district in the table rather than with its own.

Helena-West Helena, Marvell, Elaine and the rest of Phillips County

Helena-West Helena

Helena-West Helena is the county seat and the single largest concentration of taxable value in Phillips County. It is also the county's highest-rate address at 60.55 mills, combining the Helena-West Helena district's 43.85 school mills, a 6 mill city levy and the county's 10.7 mills. Downtown Helena holds the assessor, the collector and the county clerk, with offices at 620 Cherry Street, and the county courthouse dates from 1910 with a doughboy statue at its northwest corner.

Marvell and Elaine

Marvell and Elaine sit in the Marvell #22 district and pay the lowest city combination in the county at 48.7 mills each, both levying 5 city mills. Marvell's district carries only 33 school mills, the lowest school rate in Phillips County and among the lowest in this batch, which is what makes the two towns 11.85 mills cheaper than Helena-West Helena. Elaine's own district consolidated into Marvell #22, so the town now shares the district rate.

Lake View and Lexa

Lake View and Lexa both pay 57.2 mills, made up of the Barton Lexa #4 district's 41.5 school mills, five city mills each and the county levy. Neither town publishes a fire or police component in its city levy; both are a flat 5 mill general rate. Lake View's original district consolidated into Barton to create the current Barton-Lexa district, which is why Lake View no longer has a district named after it.

Rural Phillips County

Rural parcels in Phillips County carry no city tax and their rates are set purely by district: 43.7 mills in Marvell #22, 52.2 in Barton Lexa #4 and 54.55 in the Helena-West Helena district. Note the top of that range: land in the Helena-West Helena district pays 54.55 mills, which is 2.35 mills more than rural Barton Lexa land and only 6 mills below the highest city rate in the county. For countryside property, the district line and not the city line decides what you pay.

Phillips County Assessor

Official name: Phillips County Assessor's Office. Assessor: Jerome Turner, also listed in some state records as Jerome M. Turner. The office is in Suite 100 at 620 Cherry Street in Helena and handles property valuation, ownership and parcel records, homestead registration and exemptions. It does not accept tax payments. Phillips County's median household effective rate of 0.81% is the highest in this batch of five counties, which makes checking your assessed value against comparable parcels here more worthwhile than in most places.

One source conflict to know about. A press report on the county's tax offices listed the assessor's address as 600 Cherry Street, which is the courthouse block address used by the county judge's office and other county departments. The assessor's own suite address is 620 Cherry Street, Suite 100, which is what the DFA county officials directory and the Association of Arkansas Counties both publish, and it is the address used above. Real estate is assessed automatically as of January 1; personal and business personal property must be filed by May 31 or the state's 10% penalty applies.

Sources: Arkansas DFA county officials directory and Association of Arkansas Counties, Phillips. The statewide table is in the site's Arkansas assessor directory. The 600 versus 620 Cherry Street discrepancy comes from a press report on the county's tax offices, not from the assessor's own listing.

Phillips County Collector

Official name: Phillips County Sheriff and Collector. Collector: Neal Byrd Sr, who has held the sheriff's office since 2013 and is listed as sheriff and collector in county records. The office bills and collects real and personal property tax and handles delinquency. It does not set values. Phillips County is served by the state's multi-county payment portal, and the county's own sheriff's site hosts a Pay Taxes Online page that is not yet live.

The collector's contact details are consistent across the county-sponsored tax record search, the Association of Arkansas Counties and the state directory, at 620 Cherry Street and (870) 338-5580, so there is no conflict to resolve on this office. One current item does need flagging: the Phillips County Sheriff's Office publishes a Pay Taxes Online page that currently reads Coming Soon, meaning the county's own payment route is not yet open. Until it launches, the working online option is the state's multi-county portal, and the collector's counter in Helena remains the direct route.

Sources: ARCountyData Phillips County collector record, Association of Arkansas Counties, Phillips and Phillips County Sheriff's Office payment page.

How to find a Phillips County parcel and its exact tax

Phillips County combines three public tools: an assessor-sponsored real estate search, a collector-sponsored tax record search, and a separate county GIS parcel viewer. That covers ownership, value, billed tax and parcel boundaries without a trip to Helena.

1. Open the ARCountyData Phillips County page and choose Real Estate Records for the assessor's search. Search by owner name, address or parcel number.
2. Read the market value and assessed value on the record. Assessed value is normally 20% of market value unless an Amendment 79 cap or a value freeze is holding it below that.
3. Note the school district and the city. In Phillips County these decide everything, because the district line spans 10.85 mills and the city line adds up to 6 more.
4. Switch to Tax Records for the collector's search, which returns the parcel number, owner, address, tax book and year, and lets you print proof of payment.
5. Use the county's ArcGIS parcel viewer for boundary questions, district questions or a visual check on which side of a school district line a tract falls.

The county page reported 24,962 parcels when the collector data was last refreshed on April 1, 2025, so confirm the refresh date before treating a figure as current. For personal property, the May 31 assessment deadline is the one to watch, since a late filing carries a 10% penalty. The county's real estate search sits behind a reCAPTCHA check, so allow for that if you are searching from a script or an unusual browser.

Sources: ARCountyData Phillips County records, Phillips County tax record search and the county's ArcGIS parcel viewer.

Paying Phillips County property taxes

Phillips County tax on the previous year's assessment is due by October 15. Payment can be made at the collector's counter in Helena, by mail to the county's post office box, or online through the state's multi-county payment service while the county's own online page is still being built.

Payment options

• Online: the Arkansas tax payment portal at taxpayment.countyservice.net, which lists Phillips County among the counties it accepts. The portal is status-dependent and shows which tax year it is processing, so check that line before paying.
• In person: the collector's office at 620 Cherry Street in Helena. This is the office that issues receipts on the spot.
• By mail: the collector's mailing address is P.O. Box 450, Helena, AR 72342. Post early in October so the payment arrives before the deadline.
• County site: the sheriff's office Pay Taxes Online page currently reads Coming Soon. Treat it as pending and use the state portal in the meantime.

Two county-specific notes are worth carrying into October. First, the county's own payment page is not yet live, so any link promising a Phillips County online payment that is not the state portal should be checked carefully before you enter card details. Second, the sheriff's office and the collector's office share a county seat but not the same public entrances, and the collector deals with tax bills while the sheriff's staff handle law enforcement matters, so call (870) 338-5580 for anything tax related. Statewide context on the deadline and on late payment is in Arkansas property tax due dates and delinquent property tax and redemption in Arkansas.

Sources: Phillips County payment portal, ARCountyData Phillips County and Phillips County Sheriff's Office Pay Taxes Online.

Homestead credit in Phillips County

Phillips County homeowners register the Arkansas homestead credit with the assessor's office in Suite 100 at 620 Cherry Street in Helena. The assessor handles homestead registration and the value freeze in every Arkansas county, and the credit is never automatic: a new owner has to file for it, and a home that has never been registered will not show the credit on a bill.

Outdated amounts still circulate for this county, including the $375 figure that appears on some older pages and would have been current several legislative increases ago. The figures that apply now are $600 on a 2026 tax bill under Act 330 of 2025, rising to $675 on a 2027 bill under HB1103, also known as Act 174 of 2026. Because Phillips County charges the highest effective rate in this batch, the credit does more work here than almost anywhere else: at the 60.55 mill Helena-West Helena rate and a $78,000 home, the credit covers $600 of a $945 gross charge. The calculator on this page models a 2026 bill with the $600 figure. The state's own account is on the DFA property tax relief page, and the filing process is in how to apply for the Arkansas homestead credit.

Amendment 79 applies in Phillips County as it does statewide, capping annual taxable value growth at 5% for a primary residence and 10% for other real property, with a full freeze of taxable value available to owners 65 or older or disabled. The DFA reappraisal schedule lists Phillips County on a five-year cycle with the current round dated 2024 and the next listed in 2028, so values on today's bills came from that 2024 county-wide reappraisal. More on the protections is in Arkansas Amendment 79 property tax limits and the Arkansas homestead tax credit for 2026.

Sources: Arkansas DFA property tax relief, Arkansas DFA county officials directory and the DFA reappraisal cycle schedule.

Appealing a Phillips County assessment

Valuation disputes in Phillips County start at the assessor's office on Cherry Street and go to the county equalization board only if the informal stage does not settle them. The assessor's appraisers will go through the property record card with you and compare your value to comparable parcels in the same district, which the state describes as the step that resolves most disagreements.

The formal filing is an application to the Phillips County Board of Equalization. Ark. Code 26-27-317 permits an owner or an agent to apply in person, by petition or by letter to the secretary of the county equalization board, on or before the third Monday in August. The county clerk serves as the board secretary in every Arkansas county, so the filing is made through the clerk's office at the courthouse in Helena. Hearings begin no later than the second Monday in August, and the board's regular session runs from August 1 to October 1.

• What to file: a petition or letter requesting an adjustment of the assessment, delivered to the board secretary.
• Deadline: the third Monday in August of the assessment year, with filing able to begin as early as July 1.
• What is decided: whether the value placed on the property is correct. The board can lower, raise or confirm it.
• Evidence: property record cards and sale prices for comparable properties, plus any recent appraisal you hold. Material evidence not provided to the assessor at least five business days before the hearing can result in the case being continued.
• Appeal from the board: a petition to the county court, filed with the county clerk on or before the second Monday in October, with the county judge sitting as the county court.

The board can only adjust the assessment made during the year it meets, so a dispute about an older value has to be handled outside this route. Because Phillips County's effective rate is high, a successful valuation appeal changes the bill more here than in most Arkansas counties. More detail is in how to appeal a property tax assessment in Arkansas and the site's property tax appeal guide.

Sources: Ark. Code 26-27-317, Ark. Code 26-27-318 and Association of Arkansas Counties, Phillips for the clerk's office details.

Phillips County property tax examples

These five figures are computed at the 53.71 mill county average for 2026 collections with one $600 homestead credit, which is the same method the calculator above uses. Because Phillips County's own range reaches 60.55 mills in Helena-West Helena, a city address will commonly run above the county-average rows here.

Calculated at the 53.71 mill Phillips County average for 2026 collections, one $600 credit per row. The $55,000 row lands at zero because the credit exceeds the gross tax at that value.

Phillips County median home value and median tax

These are federal survey statistics, provided for comparison with other counties. They are not calculator inputs and they do not describe any individual property.

Phillips County is the outlier in this batch, and the reason is visible in the effective rate. At 0.81%, its median household pays a higher share of home value in property tax than any of the other four counties here, all of which sit at 0.51% to 0.52%. The median tax of $636 is the highest of the five while the median home value of $78,200 is the second lowest, so the relationship between value and tax is far tighter than elsewhere: the county's 10.7 mill levy, an above-average total millage and slow growth in home values all push in the same direction. Running the median home value through 20% and the 53.71 mill average produces roughly $840 before credit, above the surveyed $636 even before caps are considered.

Sources: B25077, median value; B25103, median tax; B01003, population. These are survey estimates and carry sampling error.

Phillips County property tax questions

• What is the property tax rate in Phillips County Arkansas?+

  The county average is 53.71 mills for 2026 collections, blending 39.45 school mills, 5.33 city mills and 10.70 county mills. Published rates run from 43.7 mills in the rural Marvell #22 tier to 60.55 mills for an address in Helena or West Helena.

• Why is the Phillips County median tax so high relative to home value?+

  The ACS 2024 effective rate for Phillips County is 0.81%, the highest in this batch and well above the 0.51% to 0.52% typical of neighbouring counties. It reflects a combination of the county's 10.7 mill county levy, an average millage above 53, and median home values that have not kept pace with assessed values.

• Why do Helena and West Helena show the same millage?+

  Both cities levy 6 mills, made up of 5 mills general, 0.5 mills fire and 0.5 mills police, and both sit inside the Helena-West Helena school district at 43.85 school mills. That gives each a combined 60.55 mills, the highest rate published for the county, with the 10.7 mill county levy included.

• How do I search Phillips County property records?+

  The assessor sponsors a real estate search through ARCountyData, and the collector sponsors a tax record search on the same platform. Both are free, and Phillips County parcels are also mapped in the county's ArcGIS parcel viewer at experience.arcgis.com.

• Can I pay Phillips County property taxes online?+

  Phillips County is accepted by the Arkansas tax payment portal run by CountyService.Net at taxpayment.countyservice.net. The sheriff's office separately hosts a Pay Taxes Online page that reads Coming Soon, so use the CountyService.Net portal and confirm the accepted tax year at checkout.

• Who are the Phillips County assessor and collector?+

  Jerome Turner is the county assessor, in Suite 100 at 620 Cherry Street, Helena, on (870) 338-5535, with the office email [email protected]. Neal Byrd Sr is the sheriff and collector at 620 Cherry Street, on (870) 338-5580. The assessor sets values and the collector takes payment.

• How much is the homestead credit in Phillips County and where do I file it?+

  The maximum is $600 on a 2026 bill under Act 330 of 2025, rising to $675 on a 2027 bill under HB1103, Act 174 of 2026. File with the Phillips County Assessor's Office at 620 Cherry Street, Suite 100, Helena, since the assessor registers homesteads in every Arkansas county.

Nearby county pages

Official sources