"The City does not levy property tax." That line appears in Ballwin's 2026 budget, adopted December 1, 2025, right after a paragraph about falling sales-tax receipts. The city's budget page says the rate has been rolled back to $0 every year since 1987. City services are paid for mainly by sales taxes, taxes on utility bills and recreation revenue.
If you're comparing west St. Louis County suburbs, you'll see that $0 on a tax bill and probably assume the city is simply cheap to live in. Ballwin's money comes from three places that have nothing to do with what your house is worth: what shoppers spend on Manchester Road, how many people live inside the city limits, and how much residents pay for gas, water and electric. All three moved in 2025 and 2026. When the Board of Aldermen met this fall to plan next year's budget, the new revenue idea on the table was a use tax.
The zero is one line on a longer bill
Start with the bill itself. St. Louis County's 2025 tax rate book, which is still the newest one on the Collector of Revenue's page, lists each city's residential rate per $100 of assessed value.
| City | 2025 municipal residential rate per $100 assessed value | 2025 sewer lateral fee |
|---|---|---|
| Ballwin | $0.0000 | $28 |
| Chesterfield | $0.0000 | $28 |
| Wildwood | $0.0000 | not compared here |
| Ellisville | $0.1100 | $28 |
| Manchester | $0.3090 | $50 |
At 2025 rates, Manchester's city line works out to $309 for every $100,000 of assessed residential value. Ellisville's works out to $110. Ballwin's is nothing. That sounds like a big difference until you remember that the city line is one row on a bill that also includes the school district, the fire district and countywide levies. Ballwin is served by three separate fire districts and by both the Rockwood and Parkway school districts. So two Ballwin homes with the same value can get different total bills depending on which districts they sit in. What the $0 really tells you is that the city portion of your bill won't rise when your assessment does.
Look at the sewer lateral line too. Ballwin's $28 assessment applies to homes with six or fewer units and pays for repairs to the sewer line between a house and the main. At the September 28, 2026 budget workshop, the city administrator said that fund has a healthy balance and can't be used for stormwater problems.
Trash is another cost that doesn't show up on the tax bill. Ballwin doesn't collect trash itself. It contracts with Republic Services at negotiated prices that depend on whether a household picks a 48-, 65- or 95-gallon cart, and the hauler bills you directly. When you compare carrying costs between suburbs, add that bill in.
Half the sales tax arrives by headcount
If homeowners don't pay for city services through property tax, the money comes from shoppers. According to the 2026 budget, sales taxes make up 43.6% of all city revenue. Ballwin's 2025 annual financial report explains how the countywide 1% sales tax reaches the city. About half comes from sales at businesses inside Ballwin. The other half comes from a countywide pool that is split by population. On top of that, the city levies its own half-cent parks tax and half-cent capital improvement tax, and it gets a share of a half-cent countywide public safety tax.
The store half is easy to picture. When Omaha Steaks held a grand opening for its new store at 15305 Manchester Road in Central Plaza on August 5, 2026, that added another register to the city's own sales base. The city counts 349 licensed businesses in what it describes as a mostly residential, fully developed community.
The pool half pays by the person. That's why annexation appears in the budget's revenue section. The budget says the pool money "could be increased in the future through annexation of adjacent unincorporated residential areas." It notes that the Cascades and Charleston Oaks subdivisions added 502 residents when they joined on January 1, 2023, and that Arbor Trails and Arbor Crest would add another 349.
Both of those annexations went through. The St. Louis County Boundary Commission approved Arbor Crest and Arbor Trails, and the city's welcome pages for Arbor Crest and Arbor Trails told residents they would become part of Ballwin on April 1, 2026. Ballwin police replaced St. Louis County police, and residents became eligible for resident pricing at city programs and facilities. Those subdivisions asked to join. Their arrival also adds to the population count that the pool money is based on.
Utility bills fund the city as they climb
The third source is less obvious. Ballwin collects a gross receipts tax on utility bills, and the budget says those receipts "continue to increase each year along with utility rate increases." It names the 2025 increases directly: 10% for gas, 11% for water and 12% for electric. A Ballwin household pays nothing to the city on its tax bill but helps fund the city every time it pays a utility bill. When utility rates go up, so does the city's revenue.
Some smaller sources are moving the other way. The same budget notes that telephone receipts are falling as landlines get canceled, that state law is cutting the cable franchise fee from 5% in 2022 to 2.5% in 2027, and that the city collects no franchise revenue from fiber internet or streaming services.
2025 was the first soft year
According to the annual financial report, sales-tax receipts grew an average of 3% a year over the past five years, with a 3% decrease in 2025. The report says much of that growth came from inflation. It also lists online shopping eating into the sales-tax base as a continuing concern, alongside rising costs for utilities, insurance, equipment and contracted services. The 2026 budget, written before that year ended, reported that collections for the first nine months of 2025 were 2.5% behind the same months of 2024. It named economic uncertainty around tariffs as one cause and budgeted no sales-tax growth for 2026.
At the same time, the city planned to spend more on its streets. The 2026 budget sets aside $2,944,878 for contracted street and sidewalk work, including $2,028,193 for replacing concrete slabs and $812,461 for milling and repaving asphalt. That is nearly 18% more than the year before. The city's own street assessment puts the cost of holding its average street rating steady at $1.8 million a year. The General Fund plan for 2026 shows $26,027,316 in revenue against $27,046,759 in expenses. After a $320,000 transfer, that leaves a deficit of $1,339,443, covered by savings.
The city can afford to do that. At the end of 2025, its unassigned General Fund balance equaled 63% of General Fund operating spending, far above the 25% minimum its policy requires. Reserves are what keep the property-tax line at $0 in a year when sales tax doesn't cover the spending.
The county answer failed, so the question came home
Ballwin's financial report, dated May 5, 2026, pointed to one fix in particular. Neither the city nor the county had a use tax, the county planned to put one on the 2026 ballot, and the city estimated that passage would bring Ballwin more than a million dollars a year.
That measure was Proposition U, a 3.5% use tax on online purchases delivered into St. Louis County from out-of-state sellers. St. Louis Public Radio reported that it got just 35% of the vote on August 4, 2026. County voters also rejected a use tax in 2022. The same story quoted 7th District Councilman Mark Harder, R-Ballwin: "We're going to have to make some tough decisions, hard decisions, going forward." So the million dollars Ballwin had been counting on won't arrive through the county.
Nearly eight weeks later, the same idea came up at City Hall. The minutes of the September 28, 2026 budget workshop record Finance Officer Denise Keller walking the Board through operating revenues and sales-tax ratios. Mayor Mark Stallmann then asked about a possible use tax. The Board discussed whether such a tax could have an end date. City Administrator Eric Sterman said it could, that the Board would decide that and where the money would go, and that successful use taxes usually carry a specific message and a specific fund. The minutes record a discussion, not a proposal or a vote. A second workshop was held on October 12. Under the city's budget process, the Mayor and Board hold workshops and at least one public hearing before adopting the next budget by December 31.
Every revenue idea the city has written down or discussed recently stays away from property: annexing more residents, collecting a use tax on online purchases, and riding higher utility receipts. The $0 property-tax line has lasted almost four decades because the city keeps finding ways around it. What a Ballwin owner will actually notice in the coming budgets is likely to come through shopping, online orders and utility bills, not the property-tax statement.
This post is general information, not tax, legal or financial advice. Tax rates, fees and ballot measures change, so confirm your own situation with a qualified professional and the county's current records.
Quick answers
Does Ballwin charge a city property tax in 2026? No. The city's budget page says the rate has been rolled back to $0 every year since 1987, and the county's 2025 rate book lists Ballwin's municipal residential rate at $0.0000.
Does that mean a Ballwin home has no property tax bill? No. School, fire and county levies still apply, along with the $28 sewer lateral fee.
Has Ballwin adopted a use tax? No. The Board talked about one at its September 28, 2026 budget workshop, and the 2027 budget is still being worked out.
Did the Arbor Crest and Arbor Trails annexations happen? Yes. Both were approved by the St. Louis County Boundary Commission, and residents became part of Ballwin on April 1, 2026.
At Boutique Realty, we compare the full cost of owning a home in each west St. Louis County suburb we serve, including the trash contract, the sewer lateral fee and what City Hall is discussing this budget season. If you're weighing Ballwin against its neighbors, Get Your Instant Home Valuation and let's look at the full monthly cost for the homes on your list.
