For years, the rule of thumb around Fayetteville was simple. Move a few miles out of city limits and into Hope Mills, and your property tax bill drops, because you stop paying the city's rate on top of the county's. On the numbers both governments adopted in the same week this June, that rule has flipped. A home inside Fayetteville city limits is currently taxed at a combined county and municipal rate of 94.85 cents per $100 of assessed value. The same home value in Hope Mills is taxed at 112.4 cents. The gap runs the opposite direction from the old advice, and it didn't happen by accident. It came from two levers moving independently: a countywide tax that Fayetteville is specifically exempted from, and a town budget that just swung for the second time in two years.
Where the old assumption came from
A decade ago, the gap between the two was closer to rounding error. Cumberland County's own archived rate tables from fiscal year 2017 show the City of Fayetteville's combined rate at 1.2395 per $100 and Hope Mills at 1.25, a difference of about two and a half cents. Buyers who leaned on "Hope Mills is cheaper" weren't wrong. They were describing a real, if modest, gap that held for years.
That gap didn't grow because Fayetteville got more expensive. It grew because Hope Mills' own rate started moving on a schedule the city's didn't follow, and because one piece of the county's tax structure was never symmetrical between the two in the first place.
The tax Fayetteville doesn't pay
Cumberland County levies a countywide special recreation tax of 5.0 cents per $100 of valuation, funding county parks and recreation programs. CityView NC's reporting on the county's 2025 revaluation confirmed the detail that matters here: that recreation tax is levied everywhere in the county except in Fayetteville and Eastover. The county's own tax rates page lists the 5.0-cent rate without carving out an exception, but the practical effect on the ground is that city residents don't see it added to their bill, likely because Fayetteville already funds its own parks and recreation division inside its general city rate.
Hope Mills residents don't get that exemption. They pay the county's 5.0-cent recreation tax, and on top of it, the town levies its own 5.0-cent recreation tax to fund its Parks and Recreation Department. That's two separate recreation levies stacking on a Hope Mills bill where a Fayetteville bill carries zero.
Hope Mills' rate has moved twice in two years
The recreation tax stack explains part of the gap. The rest comes from the town's ad valorem rate itself, which has not sat still.
For fiscal year 2025-26, Hope Mills commissioners adopted a rate of 48 cents per $100, a decrease from the prior year, but a decrease shaped by a real budget problem. Cumberland County changed how it distributes sales tax revenue that year, moving from a per-capita formula to one based on property values, and Finance Director Drew Holland told the board the shift created a shortfall of just over $2 million for the town. Holland said at the time that a minimum ten-cent increase over the 41-cent revenue-neutral rate was necessary to close that gap, and the board landed on 48 cents.
Then, on June 22, 2026, the board voted 2-1 to adopt the FY2026-27 budget under ordinance 2026-004, raising the rate again, this time by 4.5 cents, to 52.5 cents per $100. The $23,538,359 operating budget restored $68,000 in police contract funding, added one firefighter position, and included a $24,000 match for a Safe Streets grant, alongside a 2.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment for town employees. Two commissioners were absent for the vote, and board members raised concerns on the record about approving a budget of that size without a full board present. The increase came weeks after an April 2026 state audit reviewed the town's reserve spending and internal financial controls, a review that had already shaped the prior year's rate decision.
None of this makes Hope Mills an outlier among small towns managing growth and a revenue formula change at the same time. It does mean the town's rate has been considerably less stable over the past two budget cycles than Fayetteville's, which held flat at 44.95 cents per $100 when the city council adopted its FY2027 budget the same week, with no increase at all.
What the combined math looks like on paper
| County ad valorem | County recreation tax | Municipal rate | Municipal recreation | Combined rate | Annual tax on $300,000 assessed value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fayetteville city limits | 49.9¢ | — | 44.95¢ | — | 94.85¢ | $2,845.50 |
| Hope Mills | 49.9¢ | 5.0¢ | 52.5¢ | 5.0¢ | 112.4¢ | $3,372.00 |
On a $300,000 assessed home, that's a difference of $526.50 a year, or roughly $44 a month once it lands in escrow. For a buyer running a tight monthly budget against a fixed housing allowance, that's not a rounding error. It's the reverse of what the old advice promised.
What this means for a real comparison
The number that matters here is assessed value, not purchase price, and it's worth checking a specific parcel's current assessment through Cumberland County's public tax records before assuming anything based on list price alone. Assessed values reset with the county's 2025 revaluation, and a home that looks similarly priced to one across the town line can carry a meaningfully different assessed figure.
It's also worth being precise about what this comparison covers. It's Fayetteville city limits against Hope Mills specifically. Unincorporated Cumberland County, places like Eastover or Stedman that don't carry a heavy municipal rate on top, sits in a different position entirely, since those areas pay the county rate without a municipal layer stacked on it. A buyer comparing three or four specific addresses across these lines should run each one separately rather than leaning on a single rule that used to apply to the whole corridor.
The infrastructure behind the number
Some of what's driving Hope Mills' budget pressure is visible in the ground right now. The Fayetteville Public Works Commission is partway through a $60.6 million sewer system upgrade specifically serving western Fayetteville and the Hope Mills area, laying more than 9.3 miles of new line. The route runs from the King Road and Jack Britt area along Stewart's Creek to Upchurches Pond, then along Big Rockfish Creek on Hope Mills' south side, ending near Golfview Road and Black Bridge Road. Planning started in 2018 and construction began in 2021. A segment connecting southern Hope Mills to the Jack Britt area was expected to finish in April 2026, and two remaining phases in the Hope Mills and Jack Britt corridor were scheduled to go out for bid in February 2026. PWC's engineering team has said the finished system will retire six to seven aging lift stations and add capacity without requiring new ones as the area grows.
That's a separate revenue stream from the town's general fund tax rate, but it's the kind of capital work that tends to show up eventually in how a town budgets and where its priorities sit. A buyer weighing Hope Mills against Fayetteville right now is weighing a town in the middle of both a budget correction and a genuine infrastructure build-out, not a town standing still.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the recreation tax exemption apply anywhere else besides Fayetteville? Eastover is the other municipality currently exempted from the county's 5.0-cent recreation tax, according to CityView NC's reporting on the 2025 revaluation. Other towns in Cumberland County, including Hope Mills, pay it.
Will Hope Mills' rate move again next year? There's no way to know that in advance, and the town's rate has moved in both directions over the past two budget cycles, down to 48 cents for FY2025-26 and back up to 52.5 cents for FY2026-27. Anyone comparing offers should check the current adopted rate each budget year rather than relying on last year's number.
How do I find the combined rate for a specific address? Cumberland County's Tax Administration Department handles assessment and billing for every municipality in the county, including Hope Mills, and its public tax records show the current assessed value tied to any parcel.
Running this math on one specific address, whether it's a resale in Hope Mills or a home closer to Fort Bragg inside Fayetteville proper, is exactly the kind of homework worth doing before an offer goes in rather than after. Charlize Vega walks military and first-time buyers through the real numbers on specific properties every week. Start Your Move — Book a Free Consultation.
