How your property tax bill works (DRAFT – not published)

In short

Your bill is your home’s value, minus exemptions, times the tax rates. Three main groups touch it. The appraisal district sets the value. Each local government sets a rate. The county tax office sends the bill. If you think your value is too high, you can protest it each spring.

The 30-second version

• Step 1, value. The appraisal district (WCAD) sets your home’s value as of Jan 1.¹
• Step 2, exemptions. If the home is where you live, part of the value is not taxed. For school taxes, $140,000 is not taxed.²
• Step 3, rates. The county, your city, your school district and others each set a rate in late summer. We call each of these a “taxing unit”: any local government that can tax your home.³
• Step 4, the bill. The county tax office adds it up and mails one bill in the fall. It is due by Jan 31.⁴

The simple math

For each taxing unit on your bill: (value − exemptions) ÷ 100 × rate = tax. Rates are written “per $100 of value.” So a rate of 42 cents means $0.42 for each $100.

Example (made-up home, school part only): a home worth $400,000. Take off the $140,000 school exemption. That leaves $260,000. At a school rate of $1.00 per $100, the school tax is $2,600. Each other unit (county, city and more) is figured the same way with its own rate and exemptions.²

Who does what

There is also a fourth group. The appraisal district sets value. The Appraisal Review Board (ARB), a panel of local residents, hears protests. Each taxing unit sets its rate. The county tax office bills and collects.¹³ Who to call for what: which tax office does what.

Ways your bill can be lower

• Homestead exemption. You must apply. It is not automatic. School districts must exempt $140,000. People 65 or older, or disabled, get $60,000 more off school taxes.²
• Tax ceiling (“freeze”). Once you get the 65-or-older exemption, your school tax on that home generally cannot go up, unless you add on to the home.²
• Homestead value cap. The taxed value of your homestead generally cannot rise more than 10% a year, even if the market value rises faster.⁵
• Protest. You can protest your value, usually by May 15 or 30 days after your notice.¹

Why bills go up even when rates drop

If values go up faster than rates go down, the bill still rises. That is why the state makes each unit show its no-new-revenue rate. That is the rate that would bring in about the same money as last year from the same properties. A unit that adopts a higher rate is raising taxes, even if the rate went down from last year.³

Example: for 2026 bills (the county’s budget year that started Oct. 1, 2026, called FY2027), Williamson County adopted 42.2 cents, counting its main rate and its road rate together. That total equals the combined no-new-revenue rate. (The main rate alone was a bit above its own no-new-revenue rate, and the road rate was below its own.)⁶ For 2025 bills (FY2026) the two rates added to 41.4 cents, the highest it could adopt without an election (see the county overview page).

So what: look at the no-new-revenue rate on your notice. If a unit adopts more than that, it is choosing to collect more from the same homes.

The other side (counterweight)

• A higher value does not always mean a higher bill. Exemptions, the homestead cap and rate cuts can offset it.²⁵³
• Most of your bill is set by local elected boards, not by the appraisal district or the tax office. You can speak at their rate hearings each August and September.³
• When the school homestead exemption goes up, the state constitution calls for formulas to protect school districts from the lost tax money. This page does not measure how much of the loss is made up.⁷

Questions to ask

• Where does the appraisal district post each owner’s value and exemptions?
• Where does the tax office post the rate each unit adopted?

Changes to this page

• Nov. 2, 2026: Rewrote the questions to ask so each is open, neutral and addressed to the public body.
• Nov. 2, 2026: Added questions to ask.
• Nov. 2, 2026: We checked the rate figures against their sources. We replaced an other-side point that had no source.

Your property tax, step by step

1. Start: how your bill works → 2. Key dates → 3. Exemptions → 4. Protest your value → 5. Paying and getting help → 6. Appeals after the ARB → 7. Who does what → 8. Rate limits

Short reference pages: Where your tax bill goes · A 2026 bill, worked out · Estimated-tax website · Exemption checklist · Glossary

See a worked example: where your tax bill goes.

More detail: property tax calendar · property tax collection start to finish · property tax exemptions · paying property taxes and deadlines

Footnotes

1. Williamson Central Appraisal District, Annual Report 2025 (Nov 2025), pp. 11–12, 16–24. https://www.wcad.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Annual-Report-2025.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Texas Comptroller, “Property Tax Exemptions” (Tax Code §11.13(b), (c), (n)). https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/exemptions/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. Texas Comptroller, “Truth-in-Taxation: Tax Rate Adoption.” https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/truth-in-taxation/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Texas Tax Code §31.02 (taxes due on receipt, delinquent if not paid before Feb 1). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TX/htm/TX.31.htm ↩

5. Texas Tax Code §23.23 (homestead appraisal limit). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TX/htm/TX.23.htm ↩ ↩²

6. Williamson County Truth-in-Taxation site (the state-required tax-rate database linked from Texas.gov/PropertyTaxes), https://williamsonpropertytaxes.org, tax year 2026 (FY2027) rows, checked 2026-11-01. Williamson County: last year 0.369447, no-new-revenue 0.376230, voter-approval 0.405896, adopted 0.381218. Williamson County FM/RD (road levy): last year 0.044329, no-new-revenue 0.045317, voter-approval 0.047309, adopted 0.040329. Totals are our math. (/) ↩

7. Texas Constitution art. VIII §1-b(c) (legislature to provide formulas to protect school districts from revenue loss). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/GetStatute.aspx?Code=CN&Value=8.1-b ↩