How Beaverton City Limits Affect Homeowners' Monthly Costs

"We are to the marrow now," Beaverton City Council President John Dugger said in July 2026, as the council voted to add two new charges to residents' utility bills. "This isn't the end of the hard decisions," Mayor Lacey Beaty added.

Those charges started on August 1, 2026. They apply to homes inside Beaverton city limits, and they don't show up on any listing. A buyer comparing two homes with "Beaverton, OR" in the address can't see from the address whether either one carries them. Many homes with a Beaverton mailing address sit in unincorporated Washington County, where a different set of agencies sends the bills. What separates the two homes is a jurisdiction line, and on the city side the costs are already scheduled to rise each year.

A fee schedule that is already written

The City of Beaverton's July 2026 council recap lays out both fees. The Street Maintenance Fee is $5 a month for a single-family home starting in August. It rises $5 a year until it reaches $15 in 2028. The General Services Fee is $9.50 a month per single-family home, with an 8% annual escalator. The city says the general services money supports public safety, planning, library operations and neighborhood programs, and does not fund new programs.

Here is how the two fees add up over time for a single-family home. The 2027 and 2028 general services figures are our own estimates, assuming the 8% escalator applies once a year:

The Oregonian/OregonLive's July report gave slightly different terms for the street fee: $3.61 to $5 a month, reaching $15 in 2029. The table uses the city's own published schedule. Either way, the direction is the same.

Utility rates went up too. The council approved increases of about 9% for water, 7% for sewer and 5% for stormwater. By the city's estimate, a two-person household's water bill goes from $52.53 to $57.43 a month. Some customers first saw the new fees on their September bills because of billing cycles. That means a utility bill a seller provides from before September may not show them yet.

Why the city added a fee instead of raising its tax rate

For every dollar of Washington County property tax that Beaverton residents pay, 21 cents goes to the City of Beaverton, according to Interim City Manager Elizabeth Coffey, as reported by Beaverton Valley Times. The other 79 cents goes to other government bodies. The city has also already used its remaining room under Oregon's property tax limits. In 2023 the council raised the city's rate from $4.23 to $4.62 under Measure 50, the 1997 law that capped each Oregon city's permanent rate.

With the rate maxed out and its share small, the city's remaining options were fees, cuts or levies. It has used all three. Beaverton has cut more than 40 positions over three years and had to close a $16 million gap in its $514 million budget for fiscal 2026-2027. In March, a city staff report compared Beaverton with seven Oregon cities of similar size. Only Beaverton and Eugene charged no monthly service fee, and the others charged between $10.50 and $32.31 a month. OregonLive also reported that Portland, Salem and Tigard have adopted similar road or general services fees.

So a fee that rises every year is now part of how the city funds itself. This is the main reason a buyer should treat the fees as a recurring cost of owning inside city limits, rather than as a one-time increase that will level off.

The line on the map that decides who pays

The new fees appear on the sewer portion of City of Beaverton customers' bills, charged per equivalent dwelling unit. That's how Tualatin Valley Water District describes them on its billing page. TVWD sends combined bills that include sewer and surface water charges from either Clean Water Services or the City of Beaverton, depending on where the home is.

Here the mailing address stops being useful. TVWD's service area maps show that the district serves urban unincorporated Washington County, including Aloha, Bethany, Cedar Hills, Cooper Mountain, Metzger and Rock Creek. It also serves parts of Beaverton, Hillsboro and Tigard. Water service areas don't match city limits, and neither do postal addresses.

Homes in unincorporated areas pay for some of the same services through other charges:

• Roads: Owners inside the Urban Road Maintenance District pay $0.2456 per $1,000 of assessed value, according to Washington County. The county says a home assessed at $300,000 pays less than $75 a year.
• Patrol services: Aloha, Bethany, Cedar Mill, Cooper Mountain and Raleigh Hills are among the communities Washington County serves through the Enhanced Sheriff's Patrol District. Voters approved its local option levy at $0.83 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2022. A 2026 county budget presentation says the service continues through 2028.
• Water: For a residential 5/8-inch meter, TVWD currently charges a fixed $31.38 a month, plus $10.38 per hundred cubic feet for the first 28 units. Starting November 1, 2026, a typical single-family home will pay another $3.11 a month.

The structures differ in a way that matters for planning. The county road and patrol charges are based on assessed value and appear on the property tax statement. The city fees are flat monthly amounts on the utility bill, and they rise on a schedule. Two homes with the same assessed value can end up with different yearly costs depending on which side of the line they're on, and that difference changes over time. Each district boundary has to be checked separately for each parcel. Unincorporated doesn't automatically mean a home is inside URMD or ESPD.

What hasn't been decided yet

Some future costs on the city side are still open. At a September 8, 2026 work session, the council looked at about $2.5 million in possible mid-year cuts, and the packet stated that no formal action would be taken that night. Coffey recommended $750,000 in near-term savings from underspending and efficiencies, with further reductions deferred to fiscal 2027-28. According to a city update recorded in neighborhood association minutes on September 22, the council agreed to move that $750,000 package forward in a supplemental budget. Two larger scenarios of $1.8 million each were presented as examples only.

The same September presentation listed a $5 million operating levy as "under exploration," marked tentatively for May 2027. It also listed a possible transient lodging tax increase in fall 2027. The city had already postponed a public safety levy from May 2026 to May 2027 after polling showed a lukewarm response. As of early October 2026, the materials we reviewed show no formal referral to the ballot and no announced tax rate. If a levy does pass, it would apply in addition to fees that are already rising each year, and only inside city limits.

How to check a specific Beaverton address

The regional market leaves room for this kind of homework. In August 2026, the Portland metro area had 3.8 months of inventory and an average total market time of 57 days. The median sale price was $540,000, down 1.8% from August 2025. Those are metro-wide numbers, not Beaverton-only figures, but they describe a market where most buyers aren't forced to decide in a single weekend.

1. Confirm the parcel's jurisdiction using the address-based lookup tools from TVWD and Washington County. Don't go by the city name in the listing.
2. Ask for a utility bill from September 2026 or later. Look at the sewer portion to see whether the City of Beaverton fees appear.
3. Ask for the most recent property tax statement and check for URMD and ESPD line items if the home is unincorporated.
4. Plan for the scheduled increases: the city street fee reaches $15 in 2028, the general services fee rises 8% a year, and TVWD adds $3.11 a month on November 1.
5. Follow the May 2027 levy discussion if the home is inside city limits.

This isn't tax or financial advice. Each of these numbers comes from a public source that you or your lender can confirm directly.

Quick answers

Does a Beaverton mailing address mean the home pays the new city fees? Not necessarily. The fees apply to City of Beaverton utility customers inside city limits, and many homes with Beaverton addresses are in unincorporated Washington County.

Is there help for households struggling with the fees? Yes. OregonLive reported that eligible residents can get help with these and other utility charges up to three times a year through the nonprofit Community Action.

Has the May 2027 levy been approved for the ballot? As of early October 2026, the city lists it as tentative, at about $5 million in operating revenue, with no rate announced.

If you're weighing a Beaverton home and want to know which bills it will actually carry, The Lankheet Group can look up the parcel's jurisdiction and districts and estimate the scheduled fee increases before you write an offer. Sellers can ask us for a Free Home Valuation that shows how these costs factor into pricing on your side of the city line.