Moving here Kamas
One ZIP code, two counties, and four different markets inside it
The 84036 question, and which Kamas you are buying.
Tuhaye, Victory Ranch, Hideout, SkyRidge and Deer Vista all carry Kamas mailing addresses and none of them is in the city. Most sit across the line in Wasatch County with different taxes, schools and services, which is why two honest sources can publish Kamas medians that differ by a factor of two. Here is how to tell them apart, and what the town itself actually costs to live in.
Southern Utah is my home turf. Kamas is not, so these pages are researched rather than lived: checked against city, county and venue sources, and dated so you can see how fresh they are. For the on-the-ground work here I lean on a Summit County partner agent.
Start here
One ZIP code, two counties, and about four very different markets.
Kamas the city is a place of about 2,100 people on roughly a square mile and a half of grid at 6,690 feet, in the southwest corner of Summit County. 84036, the ZIP code that says Kamas on the envelope, is very much larger than that and does not stop at the county line.
Five substantial resort and luxury developments carry Kamas mailing addresses while sitting outside the city, most of them across the line in Wasatch County: Tuhaye, Victory Ranch, Hideout, SkyRidge and Deer Vista. They have different property tax areas, a different county government, a different school district and different service providers from the town whose name is on their post.
The consequence is arithmetic. A published median for Kamas that sweeps the whole ZIP is measuring resort country. One that uses in-town property records is measuring the town. Both get printed, they can differ by a factor of two, and neither source is lying. Before you read any Kamas number, find out which geography it covers.
The town, not the ZIP
2,100
people inside the city
6,690 ft
the valley floor
5
resort developments with Kamas addresses outside it
2
counties inside one ZIP code
The comparison that matters
In the city, or in the ZIP code.
This is the table to keep open while you read listings. Everything in the right hand column can carry a Kamas address, and none of it is the town.
| Inside Kamas city limits | The 84036 resort ring | |
|---|---|---|
| County | Summit | Largely Wasatch, across the line |
| Government | Kamas City, mayor and council | Wasatch County, or a separate town such as Hideout |
| Schools | South Summit District, all three schools in Kamas | A different district; confirm per parcel |
| Water and sewer | Kamas City, partly spring fed | Development or district systems, varying by project |
| Nightly rentals | No new ones permitted since March 2025 | Varies, and in several places they are the business model |
| What you are buying | A town lot, an in fill house or valley acreage | A resort development lot inside an amenity community |
This table is a starting point rather than an authority. Confirm the county, the tax area, the school district, the utility provider and the rental rules for the exact parcel with the county recorder and the relevant city or county planning office before writing an offer.
Never take a ZIP wide number as the town's number. Insurance quotes, price medians, days on market, school ratings, tax estimates and demographic summaries are all commonly published at ZIP code level, and for 84036 that mixes a working ranch town in Summit County with luxury resort developments in Wasatch County. The result reads as one market and is at least two. Ask any source which geography it is describing, and if it cannot tell you, do not use the figure.
What it costs to run
Taxes, water and the bills nobody quotes you.
The structural costs inside the city are reasonable for what the address delivers. Combined sales tax runs 7.65 percent. Utah assesses a primary residence at 55 percent of market value, and with a modest city levy the effective property tax on a primary home in the Kamas tax area works out to roughly a third of a percent of market value. Confirm the current figure with Summit County, because rates are set annually and a second home is assessed differently from a primary one.
Water and sewer moved in 2025 for the first time in years. The city council adopted new rates on 27 May 2025, the first water increase since 2022 and the first sewer increase since 2011. A household using 15,000 gallons a month goes from 31 dollars to 38, with roughly three dollars a year added after 2026 through to 2031. Heavier commercial users such as laundromats and car washes pay multiples of the residential figure.
The utilities themselves are a mixed bag with one genuine bright spot. Kamas City provides culinary water, drawn partly from springs, along with city sewer inside town. Rocky Mountain Power serves electricity. Natural gas does not reach every rural parcel, so gas against propane is an address by address question. Internet is the good news: All West Communications has been headquartered in Kamas since 1912 and serves most of town with fibre, though availability still varies by address.
| Service | In town | On valley acreage |
|---|---|---|
| Culinary water | Kamas City, partly spring fed | Commonly a private well; test it and check the right |
| Sewer | Kamas City system | Commonly septic; check feasibility and the last inspection |
| Electricity | Rocky Mountain Power | Rocky Mountain Power, with connection cost varying by distance |
| Gas | Generally available | Often propane, because the main does not reach every parcel |
| Internet | All West fibre across most of town | Varies sharply; verify the exact address before relying on it |
| Irrigation | Not applicable to most town lots | A separate question from the deed, and shares do not always convey |
None of the above is a substitute for confirming with each provider for the specific address. In a valley where the parcel next door can be on a different arrangement, assuming the neighbours' setup is the most reliable way to be wrong.
The town's own institutions
A district headquarters, a clinic and a ranger office.
Kamas is the headquarters town of the South Summit School District, and all three of its schools sit inside the city: the elementary school, South Summit Middle School and South Summit High School. The district serves the whole Kamas Valley including Francis, Oakley, Marion, Peoa, Samak and Woodland. I do not rate schools and would steer you away from anybody who tells you which one is best; boundaries, programmes and third party ratings are things to review yourself against what matters to your household.
The facilities picture is moving. Bond proposals failed in 2017 and in 2019, and in October 2025 the board opened a fifteen to twenty year facilities plan alongside a feasibility study for a new elementary school on district ground in Francis, Oakley or Kamas. If school siting matters to your decision, that study is the document to follow rather than any current campus map.
Beyond the schools the town punches above its size. There is a family practice clinic in town, and Park City Hospital sits at the SR-248 junction on the Kamas side of Park City, roughly 13 miles out, with a full emergency department. The Heber-Kamas Ranger District keeps its Kamas office at 50 East Center Street. All West Communications, the telecom, has been headquartered here since 1912.
The drive
Ski country without the ski town address.
This is the trade the whole valley is built on, and it is worth doing the arithmetic honestly rather than romantically.
| From Kamas to | Distance | Typical drive | The honest note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Park City | About 16 miles on SR-248 | Roughly 22 minutes | Add real time on storm mornings; this road carries resort traffic |
| Deer Valley East Village | About 13 miles off US-40 | Around 20 minutes | The closest lift base to the town |
| Park City Mountain | About 16 miles | Roughly 22 minutes | The largest resort in the country by acreage |
| Woodward Park City | About 22 miles | Under half an hour | Action sports rather than a ski mountain |
| Heber City | About 16 miles on SR-32 | Roughly 19 minutes | The other direction for services and the hospital |
| Salt Lake City | About 42 miles | Around 48 minutes | US-40 then I-80 over Parleys, weather dependent |
| Salt Lake City airport | About 48 miles | Around 50 minutes | Add a margin in winter and on Sunday afternoons |
Drive times are the city guide's figures for ordinary conditions. Any of them can double in a storm or a holiday exodus, which is exactly the variable people underestimate when they buy sixteen miles from a resort.
There is public transport, and it is better than you would expect for a town this size. High Valley Transit runs Route 102 fare free between the Old Town Transit Center in Park City and the Francis City offices, through Kamas, on a commuter pattern of roughly 5:30 to 9:00 in the morning and 3:30 to 7:00 in the evening. It is a genuine option for a single commuter household and it is not a substitute for a vehicle.
On the skiing itself this companion defers. Kamas has no hill of its own and choosing between the mountains is a Park City subject, covered properly on the Park City skiing page. What belongs here is the buyer version: you can live 13 to 22 miles from four bases, pay Summit County taxes on a town lot rather than a resort one, and drive a canyon road on powder mornings with everybody else.
The rule that breaks spreadsheets
Inside the city, plan on no nightly rentals.
Short-term rentals were never a permitted use inside Kamas city limits, and on 11 March 2025 the council put that beyond argument. The ordinance stopped any new nightly rentals in the city, with a warning for a first violation and a 500 dollar fine if the letting continues. Operators already running one had until 10 April 2025 to document continuous use and take out a business licence with the city, and only those were grandfathered.
The council adopted a 1 percent transient room tax alongside the pause, which tells you the intention is to regulate and tax the existing handful rather than to open the market. The pause holds until the council writes fuller standards, and there is no published timetable for that.
The practical version is blunt. If nightly rental income is part of your purchase arithmetic, a lot inside Kamas city limits almost certainly does not work, and the developments in the 84036 ring that do allow it are in a different county with a different price. Confirm the current ordinance with Kamas City before you write an offer, and expect the answer inside the city to be no.
The town decided on purpose not to become a nightly rental market. Respect that in your numbers.
Three things on the table
Growth here is a live argument, not a forecast.
Everything below is genuinely undecided as of this update. Any one of them changes what the west side of this valley looks like in ten years, and all three are being argued at public meetings you can attend.
On the ballot
West Hills
A proposed town of about 3,600 acres along SR-248 between Kamas and Hideout. The Utah Supreme Court ruled on 2 July 2026 that it goes to the November 2026 general election.
The city guideBought and preserved
The Ure Ranch
834 acres at the entrance to town, closed for 25 million dollars on 15 December 2025, with easements barring development and about 454 acres proposed for recreation.
The water pageFinancing
High Star Ranch
After the city declined a special tax district, the DeJoria Center's new owners went to the municipal bond market in February 2026 for roughly 104.5 million dollars.
The ranked listUnchanging
The gate at mile 14.6
Whatever the valley decides about growth, thirty four miles of the highway east of town will still be behind a padlock every December.
The winter pageThe honest close
Who should pick this town on purpose.
Kamas rewards a specific set of priorities and frustrates another set, and it is worth being clear about which is which. It rewards anyone who wants land, a real winter, a road into the mountains from their own Main Street, a school district with its offices in town, and a fibre connection in a place that looks like it should not have one. Sixteen miles from a resort economy, on ground that is priced as farm valley rather than as resort.
It frustrates anyone who wants to walk to dinner, anyone whose purchase depends on nightly rental income, and anyone who has quietly assumed that being close to Park City means being a bit like Park City. It is not. It is a working town that happens to be near one, and the two things are not the same proposition at any price.
The homework list is short and it does not change: confirm the county, the tax area, the school district, the water and sewer arrangement and the rental rules for the exact parcel. Then ask how the driveway is reached in February. Everything else on this companion, from the byway to the water, is context for those five answers.
Keep reading
More of Kamas on The Local.
Things to do
The top 7, ranked
A rodeo week running since 1938, a 1918 soda fountain, a smokehouse up the byway.
Read the guideThe byway
The Mirror Lake Highway
Fifty four miles of state road, topping out at 10,715 feet. Gated at mile 14.6.
Read the guideThe high country
The Uinta lakes
Ruth, Lofty, Wall and the Bald Mountain summit, all day walks from the valley.
Read the guideWinter
The winter gate
What the map looks like once the plows stop fifteen miles east of Main Street.
Read the guideThe water
The Weber and the Provo
Two rivers, five creeks and a canal built to move one into the other.
Read the guideThe companion
Kamas, the whole picture
The byway, the lakes, the winter gate, the rivers and the ZIP code, in one place.
Read the pageQuick answers
Moving here, answered.
Because the 84036 ZIP code is much larger than the city and crosses a county line. A Kamas mailing address covers resort and luxury developments including Tuhaye, Victory Ranch, Hideout, SkyRidge and Deer Vista, most of which sit outside city limits in Wasatch County with different taxes, schools and services. A figure drawn from the whole ZIP is measuring resort country; one drawn from in-town records is measuring the town. Always ask which geography a number covers.
The city of Kamas is in Summit County, in its southwest corner. The confusion comes from the ZIP code rather than the town: 84036 extends across the county line, so several developments with Kamas addresses are governed by Wasatch County instead. On any specific parcel the county recorder's record is the authority, and it determines the tax area, the school district and which planning office writes the rules you will live under.
Inside the city, plan on no. Nightly rentals were never a permitted use, and an ordinance adopted on 11 March 2025 stopped any new ones, with a warning followed by a 500 dollar fine for continued violations. Existing operators had until 10 April 2025 to document continuous use and obtain a business licence, and only those were grandfathered. The city adopted a 1 percent transient room tax at the same time. Confirm the current position with Kamas City before making an offer.
In town, Kamas City provides culinary water drawn partly from springs along with city sewer, and Rocky Mountain Power serves electricity. Natural gas does not reach every rural parcel, so gas against propane is an address by address question. Internet is the standout: All West Communications has been headquartered in Kamas since 1912 and serves most of town with fibre. On valley acreage, expect a private well and septic instead of city services and verify both.
The council adopted new rates on 27 May 2025, the first water increase since 2022 and the first sewer increase since 2011. A household using 15,000 gallons a month moves from 31 dollars to 38, with roughly three dollars a year added after 2026 through 2031. Heavier commercial users such as laundromats and car washes pay multiples of the residential figure. Confirm the current schedule with Kamas City, since it steps up annually.
South Summit School District, whose headquarters and all three schools sit inside the city: the elementary school, South Summit Middle School and South Summit High School. The district serves the whole Kamas Valley including Francis, Oakley, Marion, Peoa, Samak and Woodland. Bond proposals failed in 2017 and 2019, and in October 2025 the board opened a fifteen to twenty year facilities plan with a feasibility study for a new elementary in Francis, Oakley or Kamas. Confirm boundaries with the district.
About 16 miles on State Route 248, roughly 22 minutes in ordinary conditions, and meaningfully longer on a storm morning because that road carries resort traffic. High Valley Transit runs Route 102 fare free between the Old Town Transit Center and the Francis City offices through Kamas, on a commuter pattern of roughly 5:30 to 9:00 in the morning and 3:30 to 7:00 in the evening. Salt Lake City is around 42 miles and the airport about 48.
Close enough to ski regularly and far enough that you are not paying a resort address. The newer Deer Valley East Village base off US-40 is the nearest lift access at roughly 13 miles, Park City Mountain and Deer Valley are both around 16 miles over SR-248, and Woodward Park City is about 22. Kamas has no hill of its own, so choosing between the mountains is covered on the Park City skiing page rather than here.
It is a proposed town of about 3,600 acres along State Route 248 between Kamas and Hideout. The proposal was pulled from the 2025 ballot when a district court found the state's incorporation process unconstitutional, and on 2 July 2026 the Utah Supreme Court reversed that decision and put the question on the November 2026 general election ballot. It needs majority support from voters inside the proposed boundaries. For Kamas it is the live question about what happens on the road in from Park City.
Which Kamas are you actually buying?
That is the whole question here, and it is answerable in an afternoon with the county parcel record, the district boundary map and one phone call to the city. Tell me the property you are weighing and I will put a Summit County partner agent on the ground work while I run the homework and the financing side with you.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.