Camarillo Property Tax: Rates, Exemptions, and Appeals

Property owners in Camarillo pay annual property tax at a total rate of roughly 1.09% to 1.18% of assessed value, depending on the specific tax rate area where the home sits.¹ That figure combines the 1% base levy required by California law with voter-approved bonds and local charges layered on top. Because Proposition 13 ties your assessed value to what you paid for the property rather than its current market value, two neighbors with identical homes can owe very different amounts.

How Your Assessed Value Gets Set

California’s Constitution caps the base property tax at 1% of a property’s “full cash value.”² For most homeowners, that value is simply the purchase price. The Ventura County Assessor locks it in as your base year value and uses it as the starting point for every future bill.

Each year after that, the Assessor can increase your assessed value by the lesser of 2% or the change in the California Consumer Price Index.³ A home purchased for $500,000 grows on the tax rolls by no more than $10,000 a year, even if the local market jumps 15%. Over time, the gap between market value and assessed value can grow wide, which is why long-time Camarillo owners often pay dramatically less than recent buyers on the same street.

A full reassessment to current market value happens only when the property changes ownership or new construction is completed.² Adding a bedroom, converting a garage, or building an accessory dwelling unit triggers reassessment on the new square footage. The existing structure keeps its old base year value.

What’s Actually on Your Tax Bill

The 1% base levy is only the starting line. Your statement will list several extra charges that push the effective rate above 1%, and in Camarillo the total for the 2025–26 fiscal year falls between about 1.0917% and 1.1782%.¹

Those extras come from two sources. Voter-approved bonds fund school construction, community college improvements, and other projects authorized at the ballot box; they appear as small percentage additions to your rate. Direct assessments are flat-dollar charges for localized services like street lighting, landscape maintenance, and flood control, calculated based on the benefit the parcel receives rather than its total value.

Mello-Roos in Newer Developments

Owners in newer Camarillo subdivisions often face an additional layer. Under California’s Community Facilities Act of 1982, local governments and developers can create special tax districts that finance roads, sewers, schools, and parks through long-term bonds. The annual repayment is passed to property owners in the district. Mello-Roos charges can add hundreds or thousands of dollars a year to a tax bill and don’t go away until the bonds are fully repaid. If you’re buying in a newer tract, ask for the total tax and assessment amount before making an offer. This is where buyers get surprised most often.

The Supplemental Bill After You Buy

Within weeks or months of closing on a Camarillo home, you’ll receive a supplemental tax bill that catches most first-time buyers off guard. It covers the difference between the property’s old assessed value and your new purchase price, prorated for the remaining months in the fiscal year.

The property tax fiscal year runs July 1 through June 30. If you buy in October at a price above the prior assessed value, the supplemental bill taxes you on the increase for the nine months left in the fiscal year. Depending on when the purchase falls relative to the January 1 lien date, you may receive two supplemental bills covering two overlapping fiscal years. These are one-time charges and won’t recur once your new base year value is enrolled on the regular assessment roll.

The supplemental bill is separate from your regular annual bill and has its own payment deadlines printed on the notice. Missing those deadlines triggers the same 10% penalty that applies to regular taxes.

Payment Deadlines and Late Penalties

Ventura County splits the annual bill into two installments:

First installment covers July through December. Due November 1, delinquent after December 10.⁴
Second installment covers January through June. Due February 1, delinquent after April 10.

Miss the December 10 deadline and a 10% penalty is added to the first installment immediately. Miss April 10 and you’ll owe a 10% penalty on the second installment plus a $30 administrative charge.⁵ When either delinquency date falls on a weekend or holiday, you have until the close of the next business day.

If taxes remain unpaid after June 30, the property goes into tax-defaulted status, a $15 redemption fee is added, and additional penalties begin accruing at 1.5% per month on the unpaid balance.⁵ A property can stay in default for up to five years before the county gains the power to sell it at public auction. One quirk on this one: if June 30 falls on a weekend or holiday, you must pay by the preceding business day to avoid default, not the following one.

How to Pay

The Ventura County Treasurer-Tax Collector handles all billing and payment. You’ll need your ten-digit Assessor’s Parcel Number, which appears on your bill and can also be looked up through the Ventura County Assessor’s property search page.⁶

The county’s online portal accepts both electronic checks and credit cards. The eCheck option carries a small flat fee. Credit cards are charged a convenience fee of around 2.15% of the payment amount, which on a $5,000 bill works out to more than $100. Electronic check is almost always the better choice online. After submitting, you’ll get a confirmation number as proof of payment.

If you prefer to pay in person or by mail, the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s office accepts checks and money orders. Mailed payments must be postmarked by the delinquency date to avoid penalties. If you’ve lost your bill, you can look up your account and request a duplicate through the Tax Collector’s website.

Exemptions Worth Claiming

Homeowners’ Exemption

If the property is your primary residence, you qualify for a $7,000 reduction in assessed value under Revenue and Taxation Code Section 218.⁷ At a 1.1% effective rate, that’s roughly $77 off your annual bill. The savings are modest but compound every year. You file a claim form with the Ventura County Assessor, provide your Social Security number, and confirm the property is your principal residence. Once filed, the exemption stays in place until you move out or transfer the property.

Disabled Veterans’ Exemption

Veterans with a 100% service-connected disability rating from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs qualify for a much larger exemption. The basic version removes up to $100,000 of assessed value from taxation. If household income falls below a specified threshold (originally $40,000, adjusted annually for inflation), the exemption rises to $150,000. Both amounts and the income limit are adjusted each year by the California Consumer Price Index.⁸ It also covers veterans who are blind in both eyes or who have lost the use of two or more limbs due to service-connected causes. You cannot claim both the homeowners’ and disabled veterans’ exemptions on the same property.

Proposition 19 Transfers

Homeowners who are 55 or older, severely disabled, or victims of a natural disaster can transfer their current assessed value to a replacement home anywhere in California, up to three times in a lifetime.⁹ If the replacement costs the same or less than the original, the old assessed value carries over completely. If it costs more, the difference in market value is added to the transferred base. The replacement must be purchased within two years of selling the original home.

For parent-to-child transfers, Proposition 19 tightened the old rules significantly. A child can inherit a parent’s low assessed value only if the child uses the home as their own primary residence and files for the homeowners’ or disabled veterans’ exemption within one year of the transfer.⁹ Even then, there’s a value cap: the exclusion protects only the parent’s assessed value plus $1,044,586 (the inflation-adjusted limit effective through February 2027). Any market value above that cap gets added to the assessed value. Investment properties and second homes inherited from parents no longer qualify for any exclusion at all and get reassessed to full market value.

Property Tax Postponement

California offers a state-funded program that lets qualifying homeowners defer their property taxes entirely, with the state placing a lien on the property instead. To qualify, you must be a senior, blind, or disabled, occupy the home as your primary residence, have at least 40% equity, and have annual household income of $55,181 or less.¹⁰ Deferred taxes accrue interest and must be repaid when the home is sold or ownership changes.

If Your Assessment Looks Too High

Decline-in-Value Reviews

When the market drops, your home’s current value can fall below its assessed value. Under Proposition 8, the Assessor is required to enroll whichever is lower: your factored base year value or the current market value as of January 1.¹¹ This temporary reduction lowers your bill for as long as the market stays depressed. Once values recover, the Assessor can increase the assessed value by more than 2% a year, but never above the original factored base year value. The review is supposed to happen automatically, but properties slip through the cracks, which is where the formal appeal process comes in.

Filing a Formal Appeal

If you believe your property is assessed above its market value, you can file an Assessment Appeal Application with the Ventura County Clerk of the Assessment Appeals Board. The regular filing window runs July 2 through September 15 each year.¹² You’ll need your Assessor’s Parcel Number and the assessed value from the notice the Assessor mails by August 1.⁴ Don’t submit evidence with the application itself; save your comparable sales data and market analysis for the hearing.

Filing an appeal does not pause your obligation to pay taxes on time. If you win, the county refunds the overpayment. For supplemental assessments, you have a shorter window: 60 days from the date the assessment notice was mailed.¹²

1
Ventura County. Tax Rate Statistics
2
Justia. California Constitution Article XIII A Section 1 – Tax Limitation
3
Justia. California Constitution Article XIII A Section 2
4
Ventura County Assessor. Important Dates
5
Ventura County Treasurer-Tax Collector. Redemption
6
Ventura County Assessor. Property Search
7
California State Board of Equalization. Homeowners Exemption Information Sheet
8
California Legislative Information. California Revenue and Taxation Code 205.5
9
California State Board of Equalization. Proposition 19 Fact Sheet
10
California State Controller. Property Tax Postponement
11
California State Board of Equalization. Decline in Value – Proposition 8
12
Ventura County. Filing Your Assessment Appeal