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County guide · Yolo County
The hidden cost of buying in Yolo County
Yolo does not hide its costs in the tax rate. It hides them in flat per-parcel charges — school parcel taxes, special-district assessments, a citywide levee levy — which means two houses in the same city can carry very different bills, and the cheaper house often pays the higher percentage.
Property tax
What you'll actually pay in property tax
Yolo County property tax starts at the Proposition 13 base of 1.00% of assessed value, then adds voter-approved bond debt service and, crucially, a layer of fixed direct charges that are levied per parcel rather than per dollar of value. Measured the way a buyer actually feels it — total annual bill divided by market value — the county median runs about 1.32%, above the California median near 1.21%. But the city medians tell a more useful story: Woodland about 1.07%, Winters about 1.27%, West Sacramento about 1.38%, Davis about 1.43%, and unincorporated El Macero next to Davis about 1.63%.
1.00%
Prop 13 base rate
California Constitution art. XIIIA §1 — the statutory floor every parcel starts from.
1.07–1.43%
City medians, effective
Woodland 1.07% · Winters 1.27% · West Sacramento 1.38% · Davis 1.43%. Median annual bill ÷ market value, April 2026.
The tail
Where the money hides
Woodland has the county's lowest median AND a 90th percentile near 1.91% — that gap is Spring Lake. Always price the parcel, not the city.
The supplemental bill
The one-time tax bill that surprises buyers
This is the bill that surprises the most Yolo County buyers. When you close, the Assessor resets the home to your purchase price. The gap between the seller’s old assessed value and your new price is taxed once — a one-time supplemental bill, prorated for the months left in the fiscal year (July 1–June 30). It arrives separately from your regular annual bill, generally within a year of closing, and lenders do not escrow for it.
Davis resale, closes September
Prior assessed value
$340,000
Your purchase price
$720,000
Supplemental assessment
$380,000
Full-year supplemental (~1.12%)
$4,256
Proration factor (Sep)
×0.75
Estimated supplemental bill
$3,192
West Sacramento (Southport), closes December
Prior assessed value
$260,000
Your purchase price
$520,000
Supplemental assessment
$260,000
Full-year supplemental (~1.12%)
$2,912
Proration factor (Dec)
×0.5
Estimated supplemental bill
$1,456
Woodland resale, closes March (two bills)
Prior assessed value
$210,000
Your purchase price
$470,000
Supplemental assessment
$260,000
Full-year supplemental (~1.12%)
$2,912
Proration factor (Mar)
×0.25
First bill (partial year)
$728
Plus a second bill of ≈$2,912 for the full following fiscal year (closings Jan–May generate two).
A Yolo wrinkle: the supplemental only reprices the value-based part
How the proration works
Jul
0.92
Aug
0.83
Sep
0.75
Oct
0.67
Nov
0.58
Dec
0.50
Jan
0.42
Feb
0.33
Mar
0.25
Apr
0.17
May
0.08
Jun
1.00
Sources
Yolo County Tax Collector — supplemental tax information — FY 2025–26
CA BOE — Supplemental Assessments — R&TC §75 et seq.
Mello-Roos + flat charges
The flat charges that decide a Yolo tax bill
Yolo has genuine Mello-Roos in the newer master-planned areas, but it also has three other kinds of flat charge that behave like Mello-Roos on the bill and are almost never described that way in a listing: school parcel taxes, landscaping-and-lighting assessments, and a citywide flood-protection assessment in West Sacramento. All of them are fixed dollars per parcel. All of them are invisible in a mortgage calculator.
Older Woodland, older Winters, established Davis without a CFD
Bonds and small direct charges only. This is where the county’s 1.05–1.15% bills live.
Low
Davis, most parcels
School and city charges are fixed dollars, so they land hardest as a percentage on the least expensive homes. A $400k Davis house pays the same school charges as an $900k one.
Flat, stacked
Spring Lake · Southport · newer riverfront
A CFD special tax plus maintenance and lighting assessments. We do not publish a dollar range for these because the county does not publish one per tract — read the parcel bill.
CFD + more
Every West Sacramento parcel
The WSAFCA special benefit assessment for flood-protection capital work has been on Yolo tax bills since fiscal 2007-08, balloted citywide rather than by subdivision.
Flood levy
Davis
Up to six Davis Joint Unified charges — two bonds, two parcel taxes and two CFDs — plus the city’s Measure O open-space special tax. Measure N, renewed in March 2024, runs about $768/yr; CFD No. 1 about $327. Exemptions exist for Measures G and N and a 50% exemption for CFD No. 1; none for the 2000 bond, the 2018 bond or CFD No. 2.
Woodland (Spring Lake)
Three separate lines on a Spring Lake bill: the Spring Lake Community Facilities District, the Spring Lake Landscaping and Lighting Assessment District, and a Sports Park Maintenance CFD. Older Woodland generally carries none of the three.
West Sacramento
CFDs concentrated in Southport and the newer riverfront development — plus the citywide WSAFCA flood assessment, which is not a CFD and applies whether or not the parcel is in a special-tax district.
Winters + unincorporated
Little master-planned build-out means Mello-Roos is uncommon; county service areas, road and lighting districts and private well/septic responsibility are the costs to ask about instead.
How to check a specific parcel
Pull the parcel’s current secured tax bill by APN from the Yolo County Tax Collector — every special tax and assessment shows as its own fixed "direct charge" line. This is the only definitive figure, and in Yolo it is usually several lines, not one.
In Davis, check which school charges carry exemptions (Measures G and N, and a 50% exemption on CFD No. 1) and which do not — a senior seller’s bill may be materially lower than the one you will inherit.
Buying new construction? California law requires the builder to give you a Notice of Special Tax before you sign if a CFD applies — no notice generally means no Mello-Roos, but it says nothing about assessments.
In West Sacramento, ask for the flood assessment and any reclamation-district charge as separate figures from any CFD line.
Fire risk + insurance triggers
Fire-hazard zones and the FAIR Plan
For most of Yolo County the wildfire answer is genuinely boring, and that is worth saying plainly: Davis, Woodland and West Sacramento sit on flat irrigated valley floor with no wildland interface, stay largely outside the High and Very High zones on CAL FIRE’s 2025 maps, and price on the standard admitted insurance market. The exposure is concentrated on the western third of the county, where the ground rises into the Blue Ridge — and that is where the insurance market gets difficult fast.
Davis, Woodland, West Sacramento
Flat, built-out Local Responsibility Area. Standard carriers, ordinary premiums. Water risk matters here; fire risk mostly does not.
Winters and the western city edges
Grass and oak woodland begins immediately west of town. The Putah Fire burned along Highway 128 west of Winters in June 2026. Which side of the line a parcel sits on can change the quote by thousands.
Capay Valley, Esparto, Guinda, Rumsey
Rural western Yolo. Expect carrier declines, FAIR Plan reliance and defensible-space obligations — plus well, septic and propane costs that never appear on a listing.
Unincorporated valley floor (Clarksburg, Knights Landing, Yolo, Zamora)
Farmland rather than wildland. Flood and levee questions matter far more than fire here.
What triggers the CA FAIR Plan — and what it does not cover
Insurance ranges
What insurance runs by area — fire and flood
Insurance in Yolo County splits cleanly along the same east-west line as the fire map, with one important addition: in the valley cities the policy that actually costs you extra is often flood, not fire. Price both.
Davis · Woodland · West Sacramento (valley cities)
95616 · 95618 · 95695 · 95776 · 95605 · 95691
Standard admitted market. Add a separate flood policy where the parcel is in a mapped SFHA.
≈$1,300–$2,200/yr
Winters and the western city edges
95694
Depends heavily on the parcel’s hazard-zone designation, not the city.
≈$2,000–$4,500+/yr
Capay Valley, Esparto, Guinda, Rumsey
95606 · 95627 · 95637 · 95679
Frequently FAIR Plan fire coverage plus a DIC wrap — price the combination, not the FAIR premium alone.
≈$3,000–$8,000+/yr
Flood policy, where required
Cache Creek · Putah Creek · West Sacramento levee system
A separate NFIP or private policy on top of homeowners. The Woodland figure is the city’s own published range for a single-family home in the SFHA.
≈$600–$3,000/yr
For reference, a standard admitted California homeowners policy averages roughly $1,480/yr while the California FAIR Plan averages roughly $3,000–$3,200/yr statewide. The ranges above are dwelling- and zone-driven cohort estimates, not quotes — get an actual bound quote for a specific address before you remove contingencies.
Flood — the Yolo risk
Water is the Yolo County risk — and it shows up twice
Yolo is the county where a buyer has to take flood seriously, and it arrives two different ways. First as insurance: parts of northern and eastern Woodland sit in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area fed by Cache Creek, whose levees carry roughly a 10-year level of protection and last overtopped in February 2019 — about 1,000 mapped properties, 779 of them residential as of December 2023, each facing a lender-required flood policy the city puts at roughly $600 to $3,000 a year. Parcels along the Putah Creek corridor at Winters can be mapped too. Second as a tax line: every parcel in West Sacramento pays toward the levee system through the WSAFCA special benefit assessment, whether or not it is in a mapped zone, and reclamation-district charges can appear on top. Flood damage is never covered by a homeowners policy.
Check both maps, not one
Utility territory
Valley Clean Energy — a local provider, not a cheap one
Yolo County has no cheap municipal electric utility, and this is the point most buyers moving from Sacramento or Roseville get wrong. Valley Clean Energy is the default electricity provider in Davis, Woodland, Winters and unincorporated Yolo County — locally governed, not-for-profit, higher renewable content — but it is a community choice aggregator: it buys the power while PG&E still owns the poles and sends the bill. West Sacramento is not in VCE at all and is straight PG&E. Either way you are budgeting in PG&E territory. Here is the same 750 kWh month against the regional benchmarks (June 2026):
SMUD (across the river in Sacramento)
$149/mo
Roseville Electric (Placer benchmark)
$156/mo
PG&E delivery — all of Yolo, VCE or not
$290/mo
That gap is about $140 a month, permanently, against an otherwise identical house across the Sacramento River. It is one of the largest single hidden costs in the county and it appears on no listing.
VCE has served Davis, Woodland and unincorporated Yolo since June 2018 and added Winters in January 2021; enrollment is automatic for PG&E customers in those areas, with an opt-out available, and VCE appears as a line item on the PG&E bill. PG&E residential (Schedule E-1, eff. June 1, 2026): Tier 1 ≈ $0.326/kWh, Tier 2 ≈ $0.407/kWh, plus a fixed monthly Base Services Charge (~$24 standard) introduced March 2026. Gas is PG&E countywide. Rural parcels in western Yolo often add propane, a well and a septic system — delivered-fuel and maintenance costs that appear on no utility comparison.
Sources
Want the real number for one specific home?
Paste any Yolo County address into the live tool. It reads the parcel’s tax-rate area, fire-zone status, and utility territory, and shows the full monthly picture — every figure labeled with its source.
FAQ
Yolo County hidden costs, answered
Why is Davis property tax so high when the rate is normal?
Because most of what makes a Davis bill large is not a rate at all. A Davis tax bill can carry as many as six separate school district charges — two bonds, two parcel taxes and two community facilities districts — plus the city’s Measure O open-space special tax. Measure N alone runs about $768 a year and CFD No. 1 about $327. These are flat dollar amounts per parcel, so they do not shrink with a cheaper house: measured as a percentage of value, Davis runs about 1.43% at the median and close to 1.98% at the 90th percentile. Exemptions exist for some of these charges but not for the bonds or CFD No. 2.
Does Yolo County have Mello-Roos?
Yes, but concentrated rather than widespread. The real CFD exposure is in Woodland’s Spring Lake area and in West Sacramento’s Southport and riverfront development. Older Woodland, older Winters and much of established Davis carry no CFD special tax. What Yolo does have everywhere is other flat charges — school parcel taxes, landscaping and lighting assessments, county service areas — that behave the same way on your bill. Always pull the actual parcel bill: in this county it is usually several separate direct-charge lines rather than one.
Will I need flood insurance in Yolo County?
You might, and it is the most commonly missed cost here. Parts of northern and eastern Woodland sit in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area from Cache Creek — roughly 1,000 mapped properties, 779 of them residential as of December 2023 — and the city puts typical single-family flood premiums at about $600 to $3,000 a year. Parcels near the Putah Creek corridor at Winters can be mapped as well. In an SFHA a federally backed lender must require the policy for the life of the loan, and flood damage is never covered by homeowners insurance. Run the address through FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center before you write an offer.
What is the West Sacramento flood assessment?
It is a special benefit assessment levied by the West Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency — a joint powers authority of the city with Reclamation Districts 900 and 537 — to fund levee and flood-protection capital work. It has appeared on Yolo County tax bills since fiscal 2007-08, and unlike a CFD it was balloted citywide rather than by subdivision, so essentially every parcel in the city pays something. Reclamation-district charges can show as their own lines too. None of this is the same as flood insurance, which is a separate requirement if the parcel is in a mapped zone.
Does Valley Clean Energy save me money on electricity?
Not materially, and it is important to be clear about that. VCE is a community choice aggregator serving Davis, Woodland, Winters and unincorporated Yolo County: it procures the power with higher renewable content and is locally governed, but PG&E still owns the delivery system and sends the bill, so a Yolo electric bill lands in the PG&E range — roughly $290 a month at 750 kWh as of June 2026. That is about double SMUD across the river in Sacramento. West Sacramento is not in VCE and is straight PG&E. There is no cheap municipal utility anywhere in Yolo County.
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