Start with the estimator
The property tax calculator covers all 254 Texas counties. Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Brazoria, and Galveston use county tax office rates where those were collected. Other counties use the Comptroller tax year 2025 file posted January 2026. Local optional exemptions outside those five counties are not filled in unless you type them.
For a $400,000 City of Houston homestead in Houston ISD, tax year 2025, the core units without Houston City College come to $5,254.92. With the college checked, the same home is $5,582.94. That pair is the same method as the calculator. It leaves out any MUD. The methodology shows the line-by-line table.
Who does what
The appraisal district appraises the property. In Houston that is the Harris Central Appraisal District. A city, a county, a school district, or a special district then adopts a rate under the Tax Code’s truth-in-taxation rules. The county tax office sends the bill and collects it. Confusing the appraisal with the rate is how a “tax rate” rumor gets treated as a bill.
The state residence homestead exemption is $140,000.00 off school taxes (Tax Code §11.13(b)). It does not, by itself, reduce a city, county, or MUD. Those units reduce the bill only when they have adopted their own exemption. Houston ISD adds 20% of appraised value on top of the state amount. Harris County and the City of Houston also have a 20% local homestead in the HCAD file. The age-65 or disabled school exemption is an additional $60,000.00 (Tax Code §11.13(c)), and it can come with a school tax ceiling. The two state school amounts for age and disability do not stack.
Filing is optional and goes to the appraisal district. The Comptroller’s exemption page is the statewide description: comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/exemptions, checked 2026-10-07.
Deadlines that are in the statute
If you protest an appraisal, Tax Code §41.44 generally sets the deadline at May 15, or 30 days after the appraisal district delivers the notice of appraised value, whichever is later. A protest is optional.
Taxes are due on receipt. Under Tax Code chapter 31, a bill that is not paid before February 1 is delinquent. Penalty and interest then follow the statute, which is why the February date matters more than the month the bill happened to arrive.
Read next
- Texas property tax exemptions walks through the state amounts the calculator uses.
- Protest firm or do it yourself compares the two ways to challenge an appraisal. It does not quote a contingency fee, because this dataset does not have one.
- Data sources and gaps, including the Harris over-65 conflict that is deliberately left out.
City guides use the same core stacks: