Bexar County Property Tax & Sales Tax

Bexar County Tax Rates - At a Glance

Bexar County Current Tax Rates Summary

Tax Type	Rate	Notes
Property Tax (combined)	~2.27% of value	No single county rate - the sum of county, city, school district, and special districts. Representative nominal stack; typical effective rate runs lower.
Annual Vehicle (Car) Tax	None	Texas levies no annual value-based vehicle property tax
Sales Tax	8.25%	6.25% state + local portion capped at 2.0%; qualifying groceries exempt
Homestead Exemption	$140,000 school + 10% cap	Over-65 or disabled: additional $60,000 school exemption + school-tax ceiling
Due Date	January 31	Delinquent February 1; protest deadline May 15

Bexar County Property Tax

Bexar County property tax comes in two numbers that are easy to confuse. The county's own adopted rate is $0.276331 per $100 of value for the 2025 tax year - exact, from the Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector's official 2025 tax-rate notice. But that is only the county government's portion. Your actual bill is the sum of every overlapping taxing unit that covers your parcel: your school district, your city, the county, and the countywide districts (University Health, Alamo Colleges, the San Antonio River Authority, and the county's Road and Flood Control fund). Combined, the typical total effective rate in Bexar County is about 1.81% of market value - an estimate from Census ACS 2019-2023 5-year data (median real estate taxes paid $4,429 divided by median home value $244,100). Because the mix of taxing units differs from parcel to parcel, there is no single "Bexar County rate" for a full bill; the figure below is a worked example.

How a typical San Antonio bill is built (taxing-unit stack)

School district City County Hospital + college + special districts

City of San Antonio / North East ISD parcel - adopted rates per $100 (2025 tax year)

Taxing unit	Rate /$100	Type
North East ISD	$0.9822	School
City of San Antonio	$0.541590	City
Bexar County	$0.276331	County
University Health System (county hospital district)	$0.276235	Hospital
Alamo Colleges (community college district)	$0.149150	College
Bexar County Road and Flood Control	$0.023668	Special
San Antonio River Authority	$0.018300	Special
Nominal total	~$2.2675	~2.27%

Countywide entity rates from the Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector 2025 official tax-rate notice (Bexar County, University Health, Alamo Colleges, San Antonio River Authority, Road and Flood Control) and the City of San Antonio adopted 2025 rate ($0.541590 = M&O $0.33009 + debt $0.21150). This example is for a City of San Antonio / North East ISD parcel; your total depends on your city, school district, and special districts.

Two things stand out. First, the school district ($0.9822) is the single largest slice - on its own it is more than three times the entire Bexar County levy ($0.276331). Second, the nominal stacked rate of about $2.2675 per $100 (~2.27%) is higher than the ACS effective rate of about 1.81%. That gap is mostly exemptions: the school district, the biggest unit, only taxes value above the $140,000 homestead exemption, and several Bexar units grant additional local-option homestead exemptions, so the rate people actually pay on market value is lower than simply adding the posted rates together.

Where your property-tax dollar goes

School district ~43% City ~24% County ~12% Hospital + college + special ~21%

On a typical City of San Antonio / North East ISD parcel, the school district is about 43% of the bill (North East ISD $0.9822 / $2.2675 nominal total). The city is roughly 24%, Bexar County about 12%, and the hospital, college, and special districts (University Health, Alamo Colleges, Road and Flood Control, and the San Antonio River Authority) about 21% combined. Percentages are rounded and use the nominal posted rates before any exemption.

Homestead exemption, the 10% cap, and key dates

If you own and occupy your home as your principal residence on January 1, you can claim a residence homestead exemption. For a San Antonio-area school district parcel, that exemption removes $140,000 from the value the school district taxes for the 2025 tax year. If the owner is 65 or older, an additional $60,000 ISD exemption applies, plus a school-tax ceiling (freeze) that caps the school portion of the bill going forward. The school-district exemption lowers the school-district taxable value only - but in Bexar County several other units also give homeowners a break through local-option homestead exemptions (a percentage off value that the county, city, and some districts may adopt). Check your parcel's full exemption list with the Bexar Appraisal District (BCAD).

Separately, the 10% homestead appraisal cap limits how much your homestead's appraised (taxed) value can rise to 10% per year, not counting new improvements. The cap applies to the appraised value used for your bill, not the market value the appraisal district sets, and it starts the year after you first qualify for the homestead exemption.

Worked example: on a $244,100 North East ISD home with a homestead exemption, the school district taxes only $244,100 - $140,000 = $104,100, while the county, city, hospital, college, and special districts tax up to the full value (less any local-option exemptions they grant). That single school-district difference is why the exemption matters most against the largest unit.

Key dates: Bexar County property tax is due January 31 and becomes delinquent February 1, when a 6% penalty plus 1% interest begins and increases monthly. To challenge your value, file a protest with the Bexar Appraisal District (BCAD) by May 15, or 30 days after your appraisal notice is mailed, whichever is later.

How to protest your appraisal

You can pursue an informal review with a BCAD appraiser, a formal Appraisal Review Board (ARB) hearing, or BCAD's online protest process. File and track everything at bcad.org. Some private firms offer to handle protests for a percentage of any tax savings; such firms exist and charge a contingency fee, but we do not cite any savings figure or success rate as fact - results vary by parcel and year.

Estimate your Bexar County property tax

Sources: Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector - Tax Rates (countywide entity rates, 2025), the City of San Antonio and North East ISD adopted 2025 rates, Bexar Appraisal District (exemptions, protest, dates), and Census ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimates (typical effective rate).

Vehicle Taxes in Texas

Unlike many states, Texas does not levy an annual value-based property tax on cars or other vehicles. There is no yearly "car tax" bill in Bexar County. Instead, vehicle taxes in Texas work two ways:

• One-time motor-vehicle sales/use tax of 6.25% at purchase. For a private-party sale, the tax is charged on the greater of the actual sales price or 80% of the vehicle's Standard Presumptive Value (SPV). A vehicle received as a gift is taxed at a flat $10 instead.
• A flat annual registration fee (plus any local add-ons), which is a fixed fee, not a tax on the vehicle's value. In Bexar County you register and title through the Bexar County Tax Office.

So if you searched for a Texas car or vehicle sales tax, the answer is the one-time 6.25% charged when the vehicle is titled - there is no recurring vehicle property tax to budget for each year.

Bexar County Sales Tax

The combined sales tax rate in the City of San Antonio is 8.25%. It is built from a state rate plus local components - and Bexar County itself levies no county sales tax.

San Antonio (Bexar County) sales tax components

Component	Rate
Texas state rate	6.25%
City of San Antonio	1.125%
San Antonio MTA (VIA transit) + Advanced Transportation District	0.875%
Bexar County	0.00%
Combined rate	8.25%

Texas law caps the total local portion at 2.0%. This is a shared ceiling, not additive past 2%: once city, transit, and any special-purpose district rates add up to 2%, no further local rate can stack on top. That is why 8.25% is the maximum combined sales tax anywhere in Texas, including Bexar County. Qualifying groceries are exempt from sales tax.

Real Example: a $300,000 San Antonio Home

Here is how the numbers flow on a representative $300,000 City of San Antonio / North East ISD home with a homestead exemption (owner under 65), using the school-district homestead only:

• Market value: $300,000.
• Homestead exemption: the school-district homestead exemption removes $140,000 from the North East ISD taxable value, so the school district taxes $160,000. The city, county, hospital, college, and special districts tax the full $300,000 in this simplified example (local-option homestead exemptions would lower some lines further).
• Stacked total: school $160,000 × 0.9822% = ~$1,572; city $300,000 × 0.5416% = ~$1,625; county $300,000 × 0.2763% = ~$829; University Health $300,000 × 0.2762% = ~$829; Alamo Colleges + Road & Flood + River Authority on $300,000 = ~$573.
• Estimated annual bill: about $5,427 per year.
• Monthly equivalent: about $452 per month.
• Effective rate: about 1.81% of market value in this simplified example - very close to the county-wide ACS median effective rate of about 1.81%.

Limitations:

• Your total varies by school district, city, and any special district covering your parcel.
• Local-option exemptions (county, city, and district homestead percentages, plus over-65, disability, disabled-veteran) vary by unit and can lower the bill further; this simplified example applies only the school-district homestead.
• New-construction homes are often taxed on land only in the first year, then jump once the structure is on the roll.
• A newly purchased home can reset toward your purchase price in year two, before your own homestead cap takes hold.
• This is an estimate, not a parcel-exact bill. The typical effective rate is a Census ACS estimate, not a guaranteed rate.