Property Tax Texas: Rates, Exemptions, and the 2026 System

Texas property tax is set entirely by local governments, so what you pay depends on where the property sits. The typical Texas homeowner pays a median of $4,232 a year on a median home value of $283,800, an effective property tax rate of 1.49 percent, but county averages run from 0.41 percent in McMullen County to 2.03 percent in El Paso County. The Texas property tax calculator below applies your county’s average effective rate, the median amount property owners actually pay divided by the median home value from US Census data, and shows your estimated annual bill next to the median bill where you live. Because the averages reflect bills after the exemptions homeowners typically claim, enter the full value of the property without subtracting anything.

Understanding Property Taxes in Texas

Texas levies no personal income tax, and the Texas Constitution flatly prohibits a state property tax, so there is no statewide rate at all. Instead, every dollar is raised locally: the county, the city, the school district, and often special districts each set tax rates on the same parcel, and your property tax bill is the stack of all of them. That structure is how Texas taxes real estate, and it is why property taxation here carries so much weight. Local property tax revenue is what schools, sheriffs, roads, and hospital districts run on, and it is why the state’s property tax burden looks heavy in every national comparison. The Tax Foundation’s state rankings consistently place Texas in or near the top ten for effective rates, and Texas ranks that high precisely because property taxes fund what income taxes cover elsewhere. The trade shows up on the other side of the ledger too: the state leans on a 6.25 percent sales levy plus up to 2 percent local sales tax instead of wages.

How the Texas Property Tax System Works

The property tax system runs on a yearly cycle written into the Texas Tax Code. On January 1, your county appraisal district sets the appraised value of your property at market value, and a lien automatically attaches to any property owned on that date. In spring the appraisal district mails notices, and each property owner has until May 15, or 30 days after the notice, to protest an unfair tax assessment before the appraisal review board. Through the summer and fall, local governments in Texas hold Truth-in-Taxation hearings and set tax rates for the coming bills. The county tax assessor-collector then mails tax bills in October, with property taxes due by January 31 at the county tax office or online. The Texas Legislature writes the rules, but every rate decision and every dollar collected is local.

Texas Property Tax Rates by County in 2026

Because each bill stacks several local rates, no two parcels share exactly the same property tax rate in Texas, and there is no single official total tax rate per county. The honest county-level number is the average effective property tax rate: the median amount owners actually pay divided by the median value, from Census American Community Survey data. On that measure, the highest property taxes sit in El Paso County at 2.03 percent, with rural Menard at 1.95 percent, Fort Bend at 1.86 percent, and Webb at 1.80 percent, and the highest property tax rates otherwise cluster in the metros: Harris at 1.62 percent, Tarrant at 1.65 percent, Dallas and Collin at 1.58 percent, Denton and Williamson at 1.61 percent. Travis County’s 1.48 percent looks moderate, but on a $523,000 median home value it produces the state’s largest median property tax payment at $7,727. The lowest rates in any county in Texas belong to rural places like McMullen and Borden, both under half a percent. Notice the split: half of Texas counties average under 1.19 percent, yet the typical homeowner pays 1.49 percent, because most Texans live in the higher-rate metro counties. Texas tax rates also drift year to year as appraisals and budgets move, which is why higher property tax rates in a fast-growing suburb can outpace a slow rural county even when the posted rates barely change.

How Property Tax in Texas Works: Appraisal to Your Bill

Here is how property taxes work on any parcel: the assessed value of the property is multiplied by each local tax rate, then summed across every taxing unit, and everyone who owns property in Texas will pay property taxes to several units at once. The county appraisal district determines value; the taxing units set the rates; the tax assessor-collector sends one combined bill and will collect property taxes for all of them. Two levers protect homeowners on the value side. First, the appraised value of your property can be protested every year, and Texas property owners protest in enormous numbers because the appraisal, not the rate, is where Texas homeowners can actually move the bill. Second, a homestead’s taxable value cannot rise more than 10 percent a year regardless of what the market does, and a temporary 20 percent circuit-breaker cap covers many non-homestead properties through the end of 2026.

Texas Property Tax Exemptions and the Homestead Exemption

Exemptions are the other lever, and they got dramatically bigger. In November 2025, voters approved Proposition 13, raising the Texas homestead exemption for school district levies from $100,000 to $140,000, applied beginning with the 2025 tax year. Proposition 11 passed alongside it, lifting the additional exemption for owners 65 or older or disabled from $10,000 to $60,000, so a qualifying senior now removes $200,000 of value from the school side of the bill, and their school amount is frozen at a ceiling in the year they qualify. Cities, counties, and special districts can layer optional property tax exemptions of up to 20 percent of value on top, and disabled veterans have their own schedule up to a full exemption. The general homestead exemption is claimed once under Tax Code Section 11.13 with Form 50-114, filed free with the appraisal district, and it renews automatically. If you bought recently and never filed, you can claim up to two prior years retroactively. One caution for this page’s calculator: the county averages already reflect what owners pay after typical exemptions, so apply your own exemption math only when working from actual local rates.

Tax Bills, Deadlines, and Unpaid Property Taxes

Tax payments are due when bills land in the fall, with a hard delinquency date of February 1. Unpaid property taxes pick up a 6 percent penalty plus interest immediately, climbing to 12 percent by July, when collection attorneys can add up to 20 percent more. Because the tax lien has been sitting on the property since January 1, a delinquent account can ultimately end in foreclosure, and Texas law lets over-65 homeowners defer payment instead, with interest accruing at a reduced rate. Mortgages spread property tax payments through escrow automatically, but the annual property tax amount still moves your monthly payment every year, which is exactly what the monthly figure in the calculator above is for.

The Average Property Tax and What Comes Next

Statewide, the average property tax picture for 2026 is the one above: a $4,232 median payment, a 1.49 percent effective tax rate against total property value in the typical case, and a legislature that keeps buying rates down with state money, more than $50 billion of relief this cycle by the Governor’s count. Appraisal notices arrive each spring, local rate hearings run through September, and the Census updates its county medians annually, at which point every county on this page will be refreshed. If you are comparing counties for a move, run the same home value through the calculator in each one, then check what the school district and any municipal utility district add where you are actually buying; that last layer explains most surprises on a first Texas tax bill.

County figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates (table-based summary file), tables B25103 (median real estate taxes paid) and B25077 (median home value); effective rate is the ratio of the two. Estimates are county averages, not quotes; confirm your parcel with the county appraisal district and tax assessor-collector.