What's Inside Coralville's Property Tax Rate, and Which Parts Iowa's New Cap Leaves Alone

Coralville's general fund levy for the 2026–27 tax year is $7.70838 per $1,000 of taxable value. The statewide average city general levy is $7.69283. That puts Coralville a fraction of a penny above average on the levy most people picture when they think of a city tax: the one that pays for police, streets, parks and the library.

Coralville's total city rate is $14.70389 per $1,000, compared with $11.84107 in North Liberty and $11.53383 in Solon. The general fund accounts for almost none of that difference. Most of it comes from three smaller levies for employee benefits, debt service, and liability insurance. Iowa's 2026 property tax law caps revenue growth at 2%, but it exempts those levies by name.

If you're a buyer comparing carrying costs across the Iowa City metro, that matters more than the headline rate. Here is how Coralville's levy breaks down, and what the new law can and cannot change.

Where the Gap Actually Lives

ITR Local publishes the components of Coralville's FY2027 city levy next to statewide averages, and the pieces add up exactly to the Johnson County Auditor's published total.

Two lines stand out. The employee benefits levy is more than twice the statewide average, and the debt service levy is about 75% higher. The insurance levy is actually well below average. Benefits, debt service and insurance together come to $6.19551, or about 42% of Coralville's total city rate.

In the county's own format, which splits each city's rate into a "general" column and a "special" column, Coralville shows $9.22141 general and $5.48248 special. North Liberty shows $7.80743 and $4.03364. For Coralville, the special column is debt service plus employee benefits, and the general column includes transit and insurance along with the general levy. The gap between the two cities is close to evenly split between the two columns.

The Levies the Cap Was Written Around

Senate File 2472 passed on the last day of the 2026 session, 41–1 in the Senate and 61–22 in the House. The governor signed it May 18, 2026. Its main feature is a 2% cap on growth in local government property tax revenue, which the Iowa League of Cities summary says applies to city budgets for fiscal years beginning on or after July 1, 2027.

According to The Gazette's reporting on the bill, the levies outside the cap include debt service, school funding, community college levies, and insurance and other employee benefits. Those are the same three levies that make up about 42% of Coralville's rate.

Coralville City Administrator Kelly Hayworth told The Gazette the exemption was the right call: "Because those are two things that we obviously can't control, and the last couple of years we've seen significant increases in."

The cap mainly restrains the general levy, and that is where Coralville already sits at the statewide average. The levies that make Coralville's rate higher than its neighbors' are outside the new limit.

Why the Debt Line Is There

Coralville's debt has been rated for years. In March 2026, Fitch Ratings affirmed the city's Issuer Default Rating at BBB with a Stable Outlook. Fitch had affirmed the same BBB rating in April 2025. Fitch called Coralville's long-term liability burden exceptionally high because of past debt issued for economic development projects. It put 2025 liabilities at 480.7% of governmental revenue, with carrying costs equal to 35.6% of governmental spending.

Those projects were mostly financed through tax increment financing, or TIF, which repays project debt with the property tax growth inside a designated district. Coralville's FY2025 audit shows the Mall/Highway 6 TIF fund ending the year with a negative balance of $24,438,380. That figure is a fund deficit. It is not the remaining bond principal. Fitch flagged large interfund payables in both the Mall/Highway 6 TIF fund and the Iowa River Landing fund and said they could require support from the city's general fund.

So the debt service levy is only part of the story. Some of the cost of Coralville's development history is visible on the tax bill as $2.12 per $1,000. Some of it shows up in other ways, including pressure on the general fund that Fitch says it is watching.

The One Lever the Council Pulled This Year

Coralville's rate moved during the spring budget process, and almost all of the movement came from a single levy. At the March 24, 2026 public hearing on the maximum levy, Deputy City Administrator Ellen Habel explained that the council had set the transit levy at its maximum of $0.95, up from $0.62 the year before, and that this accounted for the difference residents were seeing from last year's levy. At the same hearing, Finance Director Ann Hester reported that taxable values had risen 4.76% and that the state's 2% limitation factor, under the 2023 property tax law, held general fund growth to 2.70%.

At the April 28 budget hearing, the council cut the transit levy from $0.95 to $0.80. That brought the proposed total of about $14.85 down to the $14.70389 now on the county schedule. The city estimated residential city taxes would fall by $27.55 per $100,000 of value, largely because the statewide residential rollback dropped from 47.43% to 44.53%. That estimate covers the city portion only. The minutes don't say every property's total bill will go down.

Transit was the most adjustable piece of the rate. The benefits and debt levies stayed where they were.

One House, Four Cities

Here is an illustration using one home assessed at $300,000 and the county's 2026–27 residential rollback of 44.5345%. The rollback brings taxable value to about $133,604. The figures below are before the homestead credit or any other credits. They show the gap between cities, not anyone's actual bill. Consolidated rates include county, school district, community college, assessor and city levies, and are shown here for homes in the Iowa City Community School District levy area, plus Solon's own district.

Coralville isn't the highest-rate city in the metro. Iowa City is, by about $86 a year on this example house. The gap between Coralville and North Liberty is about $382 a year at the city level, and the full consolidated gap is very close to that number. Inside Coralville, homes in the Clear Creek Amana levy area carry a consolidated rate of $39.67947, about $28 more per year on the same house.

Coralville's benefits, debt and insurance levies cost about $828 a year on this example house. That money sits outside the 2% cap.

You can plug different assessed values into our mortgage calculator and see how the tax line changes your monthly payment. It works alongside our earlier piece on how interest rates affect buying power in Coralville.

What Changes on a 2027 Bill

SF 2472 makes two changes that will affect Coralville homeowners differently from the cap.

The first is the homestead benefit. The Iowa Department of Revenue says the old credit, worth the taxes on $4,850 of a homestead's value, becomes an exemption of 10% of taxable value, with a minimum of $5,500 and a maximum of $20,000. It starts with assessment year 2026, which means the taxes paid in September 2027 and March 2028. Using this year's rollback as a placeholder, the example house above would get an exemption of about $13,360 in taxable value. Because the exemption grows with taxable value, the dollar benefit is larger in higher-rate cities like Coralville and Iowa City.

The second is TIF. Under the League of Cities summary, existing perpetual TIF districts drop to 60% of increment after 20 years, except to pay existing bonds, and new districts are capped at 23 years. Normally, when a TIF district expires, the property value it captured joins the general tax base. Hayworth raised a concern about how that works under the new cap: "If you have a large project in a TIF, when that pulls off, you won't be able to gain that new value … and there's really an incentive not to do economic development projects for that very simple reason." Coralville hasn't published a district-by-district analysis, and no one has forecast what this means for future rates.

The law also limits general fund reserves to 35% of budgeted spending. Fitch's downgrade triggers for Coralville include general fund reserves falling below 22.5% of spending because of reliance on TIF or hotel funds.

A Few Straight Answers

Is Coralville's tax rate the highest in the metro? No. For 2026–27, Iowa City's city rate of $15.43305 and consolidated rate of $40.11418 are both higher than Coralville's.

Does the 2% cap apply to the bills being paid now? No. The League of Cities summary says it applies to budgets for fiscal years beginning on or after July 1, 2027.

Where can I check these rates myself? The Johnson County Auditor's levy schedule, dated July 13, 2026, lists every city and school district levy area in the county. For anything about your own situation, talk with a tax professional.

When you compare Coralville with its neighbors, the levy split is part of what you're paying for. The agents at Blank and McCune, The Real Estate Company can pull the tax history on any Coralville home you're considering and walk you through how its rate compares with other cities on your list. Find Your Agent and start with the numbers on the house you're looking at.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.