Texas property tax rates by county

What a Texas county rate is, and what it is not

More than 4,796 local taxing units in Texas. Several types of taxing units may tax your property. The governing body of each of these local governments determines the amount of property taxes it wants to raise and sets its tax rate. (Texas Comptroller, Property Tax System Basics.) Appraisal districts, administered by a chief appraiser, appraise your property's value as of Jan. 1 each year. The Comptroller collects every unit's adopted rate and publishes them each year; the 2025 files list 4,862 taxing units: 254 counties, 1,013 school districts, 1,092 cities and 2,503 special districts such as municipal utility, emergency services, hospital, water and junior college districts.

A Texas rate is dollars per $100 of taxable value. The Comptroller's Truth-in-Taxation pages state rates as a rate per $100 of taxable value. The county file confirms it: for every county, the rates times taxable value divided by 100 reproduce the "calculated levy" column to within a dollar. A property's tax is the sum over every unit it sits in of taxable value ÷ 100 × that unit's rate. Tax Code section 26.09(c): the assessor subtracts any partial exemption from the appraised value, applies the assessment ratio, subtracts any partial exemption from the assessed value to reach taxable value, and multiplies the taxable value by the tax rate. (Tex. Tax Code § 26.09 (texas.public.law copy, verified May 26, 2025; last amended by Acts 2023, 88th Leg., 2nd C.S., ch. 1).) Exemptions differ by taxing unit: Tax Code section 11.13(b) requires school districts to provide a $140,000 residence homestead exemption, section 11.13(d) lets any taxing unit adopt a local option homestead exemption, and counties that collect farm-to-market or flood control taxes must provide a $3,000 homestead exemption against those taxes, so the taxable value on the school district line of a bill is usually lower than on the county line. (Texas Comptroller, Property Tax Exemptions, updated December 11, 2025.)

The medians in the chart are of rates, not of bills: the median county is $0.4900 per $100, the median city $0.47805 per $100, the median school district $0.9658 per $100 and the median special district $0.3600 per $100. A home inside a county, a city and a school district at those medians would add up to about $1.9339 per $100 before any special district, which is why the county rate on this page is often the smaller part of a Texas bill. School district rates ran from $0.286335 per $100 to $1.5302 per $100; 343 special districts, 3 cities and one county (Culberson) carry the file's asterisk, which the Comptroller says means the appraisal district did not provide the requested rates, and are left out of every median.

Worked example: Harris County, Houston and Houston ISD

On $300,000 of taxable value: Harris County $300,000 ÷ 100 × $0.38096 = $1,142.88; City of Houston × $0.51919 = $1,557.57; Houston ISD × $0.8783 = $2,634.90. Together, $1.77845 per $100 and $5,335.35 a year, of which the county's share is 21%. The single $300,000 taxable value is illustrative: with the school district homestead exemption, the Houston ISD line of a real homestead bill is figured on a lower taxable value than the county line. Special districts come on top where they cover the property: the Comptroller's file also lists, under Harris County's number, Harris County Flood Control District at $0.04966, Harris County Hospital District at $0.18761, Port of Houston Authority at $0.0059, among others. Which of them apply to a given property is on that property's bill.

Inside a county rate

The county file splits each county's rate into up to three funds, general fund (GF), road and bridge (R&B) and the file's FMFC fund, and each fund into a maintenance-and-operations (M&O) rate and an interest-and-sinking (I&S) rate. The Comptroller's Truth-in-Taxation page says M&O (maintenance and operations) includes such things as salaries, utilities and day-to-day operations, and debt service covers the interest and principal on bonds and other debt secured by property tax revenues. In 2025, 150 of the 249 ranked counties levy an I&S rate, 81 a separate road and bridge rate and 76 an FMFC rate. The FMFC rate is levied on its own taxable value column, which in most counties is a little higher than the general one.

The file also reports each county's no-new-revenue rate and voter-approval rate. The Comptroller describes the no-new-revenue tax rate as one that would produce the same amount of taxes if applied to the same properties taxed in both years, and the voter-approval tax rate as a calculated maximum rate allowed by law without voter approval. These columns are shown below as published; 10 counties report no no-new-revenue rate and 7 no voter-approval rate (0 in the file), and in 45 counties the total county rate is above the reported voter-approval rate. The file does not say why, and a rate above that figure is not by itself a sign of anything wrong: The Comptroller's Truth-in-Taxation page describes calculations under which a rate can be set above the voter-approval rate without an automatic election, among them the de minimis rate for smaller taxing units (voters may petition for an election) and the voter-approval rate calculated for a declared disaster area. In 3 of the 45 the file's own cells point to an entry problem instead (marked † below). This page draws no conclusion about any county; the county's own rate order is the authority.

All 253 counties, 2025

Highest total county tax rate first; click a heading to sort. Rates are dollars per $100 of taxable value. "Levy" is the file's calculated levy, which the Comptroller says does not reflect actual collections. "Tax on $300,000" applies the county rate alone. "School districts" counts the districts numbered under the county and gives their median rate.

† Fort Bend County: two of the file's rate cells for this county carry the same figure and the total is above the voter-approval rate in the same row, the pattern of a figure entered twice; shown as printed but not ranked, not used in medians or totals, and the county's own rate order is the figure to rely on (no-new-revenue $0.418595, voter-approval $0.460677, total $0.8240; GF I&S and FMFC I&S both $0.110000). Fort Bend County's "2025 Tax Rate for Adoption" document (commissioners court agenda, September 23, 2025) lists a total county rate of $0.412000 per $100 (general fund $0.278, road and bridge $0.024, interest and sinking $0.110), half the $0.824 in the Comptroller's file (checked October 26, 2026).

† Jeff Davis County: two of the file's rate cells for this county carry the same figure and the total is above the voter-approval rate in the same row, the pattern of a figure entered twice; shown as printed but not ranked, not used in medians or totals, and the county's own rate order is the figure to rely on (no-new-revenue $0.60841, voter-approval $0.68675, total $1.3735; GF M&O and GF I&S both $0.686750).

† Reagan County: the file prints a general fund rate of 0 and a total county tax rate far below the county's own no-new-revenue and voter-approval rates in the same row; shown as printed but not ranked (no-new-revenue $0.155537, voter-approval $0.170743, total $0.0152).

† Van Zandt County: two of the file's rate cells for this county carry the same figure and the total is above the voter-approval rate in the same row, the pattern of a figure entered twice; shown as printed but not ranked, not used in medians or totals, and the county's own rate order is the figure to rely on (no-new-revenue $0.376512, voter-approval $0.417681, total $0.6992; GF M&O and FMFC M&O both $0.299600).

Not listed: Culberson County, because the file marks the county with an asterisk, which the Comptroller's page says means the appraisal district did not provide the requested rates; every rate in its row is 0.

The five counties with the largest county levies, Harris, Travis, Dallas, Bexar, Williamson, account for 40% of the $15.6 billion the 249 ranked counties levy in the file, and 5 of the five sit below the median county rate: Harris $0.38096 per $100, Travis $0.375845 per $100, Dallas $0.2155 per $100, Bexar $0.299999 per $100, Williamson $0.413776 per $100. Across those 249 counties, taxable value for the county funds is 71% of market value ($4.66 trillion of $6.56 trillion), and the county levies come to 0.24% of market value, our arithmetic on the file's columns.

School district rates inside the largest counties

School district rates differ more within a county than county rates differ between neighbours. The chart takes the ten counties with the largest county levy and shows the lowest and highest rate among the school districts the Comptroller numbers under each. A district's number places it in one county even where its boundary crosses into another.

How to protest a Texas appraisal

A Texas rate is set by each taxing unit and is not appealed; what an owner can protest is the appraisal district's value, and the official route runs through the appraisal review board. From the Comptroller's Appraisal Protests and Appeals page (updated July 31, 2026):

1. Protest to the appraisal review board (ARB): May 15 or 30 days from the appraisal district notice, whichever is later. "In most cases, you have until May 15 or 30 days from the appraisal district notice's delivery date — whichever is later." The same page also says the 30 days run from the date the appraisal district mails the notice, not the delivery date; the notice itself and the ARB give the date that applies.
2. Appeal the ARB order to district court: within 60 days of receiving the ARB's written order. "Within 60 days of receiving the ARB's written order, you must file a petition for review with the district court." The page says undisputed taxes may have to be paid before the delinquency date.
3. Or request regular binding arbitration through the Comptroller: within 60 days of receiving notice of the order. Available for a residence homestead of any value or property appraised at $5 million or less.
4. Or appeal to the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH): notice of appeal to the chief appraiser within 30 days of receiving the order; $1,500 deposit within 90 days. "If the property value as determined by the ARB order is over $1 million, you may be able to file an appeal with SOAH." Limited to market value or unequal appraisal disputes, and not industrial property.

Generally, taxpayers have until Jan. 31 of the following year to pay their property taxes. On Feb. 1, penalty and interest charges begin to accumulate on most unpaid tax bills. (Texas Comptroller, Property Tax System Basics.) The county's appraisal district and tax assessor-collector are listed in the Comptroller's county directory.

Questions

Other states

Town-by-town rates: New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maine and Massachusetts. County averages: Oregon and Nevada. The states page compares them.

Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, 2025 County Rates and Levies (XLSX); Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, 2025 Cities, Counties, School Districts and Special Districts rates (XLSX); Texas Comptroller, Tax Rates and Levies. Every row of the county file carries version "Working" dated 01/28/2026. The Comptroller publishes the list not later than Jan. 1 of the following year and updates the city, county and special district rates and levies by August 31; it says it may publish subsequent updates, so the information is subject to change. Rules: Texas Comptroller, Property Tax System Basics; Tex. Tax Code § 26.09 (texas.public.law copy, verified May 26, 2025; last amended by Acts 2023, 88th Leg., 2nd C.S., ch. 1); Texas Comptroller, Tax Rate Calculation (Truth-in-Taxation); Texas Comptroller, Property Tax Exemptions; Texas Comptroller, Tax Rates and Levies. Checks: two independent reads of both workbooks (openpyxl, and the xlsx's own XML parsed directly) agree in every cell; for every county, M&O + I&S equals each fund's total, and the three fund totals add up to the total county tax rate; the calculated levy reproduces from rate x taxable value / 100 for all 254 counties (largest difference $0.49), which is what fixes the rates as dollars per $100 of taxable value; the total-rates file's 254 county rows carry the same names and total rates as the county file; every unit the total-rates file numbers -02 is named as a school district (ISD, CISD, CSD, CCSD or MSD) and no other unit is; taxable value is at or below market value in every county. Units are classed by the last part of the Comptroller's taxing unit ID: -00 county, -02 school district, -03 city; every other suffix is counted as a special district (MUDs, emergency services, hospital, water, college and other districts). The first three digits are a county number; a district that spans counties is listed once, under one county's number. The Comptroller's page does not document the ID format: this is our reading of it, checked by name (every -02 unit is named as a school district and no other unit is; every -03 unit carries a place name and none is named as a district or authority). Last checked October 26, 2026. See the methodology. Not tax or legal advice.