Burnet County Property Tax & Sales Tax

Burnet County Tax Rates - At a Glance

Burnet County Current Tax Rates Summary

Tax Type	Rate	Notes
Property Tax (combined)	~1.75% of value	No single county rate - the sum of school district, city, and county on a City of Marble Falls / Marble Falls ISD parcel. Representative nominal stack; typical effective rate runs about 1.13% of market value.
County's own rate	$0.3323 / $100	Burnet County government portion only (General $0.2863 + Special road $0.0460); among the lower county rates in Texas
Hospital / college district	None	Burnet County has no countywide hospital district and no community college taxing district
Annual Vehicle (Car) Tax	None	Texas levies no annual value-based vehicle property tax
Sales Tax	8.25%	6.25% state + 2.0% local (Marble Falls / Burnet); no county sales tax; groceries and most unprepared food exempt
Homestead Exemption	$140,000 school + 10% cap	Statutory school-district homestead; several cities add local-option homestead exemptions; over-65 owners get an additional $60,000 school exemption.
Due Date	January 31	Delinquent February 1; statewide protest deadline May 15

Burnet County Property Tax

Burnet County property tax comes in two numbers that are easy to confuse. The county's own adopted rate is $0.3323 per $100 of value for the 2025 tax year - and it is only the Burnet County government's portion. Your actual bill is the sum of every overlapping taxing unit that covers your parcel: your school district, your city, and the county. Combined, the typical total effective rate in Burnet County is about 1.13% of market value - an estimate from Census ACS 2023 5-year data (median real estate taxes paid $3,495 divided by median home value $310,500). Because the mix of taxing units differs from parcel to parcel, there is no single "Burnet County rate" for a full bill; the figures below are worked examples.

Burnet County's own rate of $0.3323 is posted as two units: Burnet County General ($0.2863) and a Burnet County Special road fund ($0.0460). Together they are among the lower county rates in Texas, and the county keeps bills down further because it has no countywide hospital district and no community college taxing district - two lines that inflate bills in many Texas counties. What makes Burnet distinctive instead is geography: it is the heart of the Texas Highland Lakes (Lake LBJ, Lake Buchanan, Inks Lake, and Lake Marble Falls) northwest of Austin, so it is dotted with small lakeside resort and retirement cities - Horseshoe Bay, Granite Shoals, Cottonwood Shores, Meadowlakes, Highland Haven, Double Horn - each setting its own city rate, plus nine county emergency-service districts (ESDs) that fund rural fire and EMS.

How a typical Burnet County (City of Marble Falls) bill is built (taxing-unit stack)

School district City County

City of Marble Falls / Marble Falls ISD parcel - adopted rates per $100 (2025 tax year)

Taxing unit	Rate /$100	Type
Marble Falls ISD	$0.885500	School
City of Marble Falls	$0.535000	City
Burnet County	$0.332300	County
Nominal total	~$1.752800	~1.75%

Rates from the Burnet Central Appraisal District 2025 Tax Rates schedule. This example is for a City of Marble Falls / Marble Falls ISD parcel; your total depends on your city and school district. The other main school district is Burnet Consolidated ISD ($0.871000), and part of the county is in Lampasas ISD ($1.015200). Other cities include Burnet ($0.6131), Granite Shoals ($0.5424), Cottonwood Shores ($0.4998), Bertram ($0.4417), Horseshoe Bay ($0.26775), Meadowlakes ($0.2456), Highland Haven ($0.1505), and Double Horn ($0.0652). Some parcels also carry a Burnet County emergency-service district (ESD 1-9) or a municipal utility district such as Highway 71 MUD or Kingsland MUD.

Where your property-tax dollar goes

Marble Falls ISD ~50.5% City ~30.5% County ~19.0%

On a typical City of Marble Falls / Marble Falls ISD parcel, Marble Falls ISD is about 50.5% of the nominal bill ($0.885500 / $1.7528 nominal total), the City of Marble Falls about 30.5%, and Burnet County about 19.0%. Percentages are rounded and use the nominal posted rates before any exemption - after the $140,000 school-district homestead exemption (and the local-option homestead exemptions the county's cities grant), the taxable amount drops sharply, which is part of why the county's typical effective rate (about 1.13%) sits below the nominal stacked rate (about 1.75%).

Who appraises, bills, and collects in Burnet County

• The Burnet Central Appraisal District sets appraised values, processes homestead exemptions, and runs protests, at burnet-cad.org (512-756-8291).
• The Burnet County Tax Office (Tax Assessor-Collector) collects the property tax and also handles vehicle registration and titling, with offices in Burnet and Marble Falls, at burnetcountytexas.org.

For value questions, start with the appraisal district; to pay, start with the Burnet County Tax Office.

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, and you generally apply through the Burnet Central Appraisal District. For a Marble Falls ISD parcel, the statewide school-district 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.

Several Burnet County cities also grant local-option percentage homestead exemptions (for example the City of Marble Falls and the City of Horseshoe Bay), but the exact per-unit amounts vary and were not fully extracted in this pass. Because a percentage exemption interacts with each unit's own value, the calculator below models only the statutory $140,000 school-district homestead and treats its output as the conservative (high) end - a real Marble Falls homestead bill is lower. Confirm the exact exemptions on your account with the Burnet Central Appraisal District.

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.

Key dates: payment is due January 31 and unpaid amounts become delinquent February 1. The statewide protest deadline is May 15 or 30 days after your appraisal notice is delivered, whichever is later. Texas Tax Code Section 1.06 rolls any deadline that falls on a weekend or holiday to the next business day. We were not able to extract a Burnet County-specific penalty-and-interest schedule from an official source in this pass, so no penalty percentages are stated on this page.

How to protest your appraisal

Protests go to the Burnet Central Appraisal District, which publishes its protest procedures and deadlines and runs the property search and appeals process. File and track everything at burnet-cad.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 Burnet County property tax

Sources: Burnet CAD 2025 Tax Rates (county rate and the Marble Falls-area unit rates), the Burnet Central Appraisal District (appraised values and exemptions), the Texas Comptroller (sales tax), and Census ACS 2023 5-year estimates (typical effective rate). See the tax guides for how Texas homestead, protest, and appraisal-cap rules work.

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 Burnet 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 Burnet County you register and title through the Burnet 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.

Burnet County Sales Tax

The combined sales tax rate in the City of Marble Falls is 8.25% - the Texas maximum. It is made up of the 6.25% state rate plus a 2.0% local rate (the city and its economic-development corporations). Burnet County does not levy its own county sales tax, so outside a city the rate is just the 6.25% state rate. Texas law caps the total local portion at 2.0%, so once a city reaches 2%, no further local rate can stack on top - which is why 8.25% is the maximum combined sales tax here.

City of Marble Falls (Burnet County) sales tax components

Component	Rate
Texas state rate	6.25%
Burnet County	0.00%
City of Marble Falls (local)	2.00%
Combined rate	8.25%

The 2.00% local share is the maximum Texas allows and is entirely local here (Burnet County collects no county sales tax); in Marble Falls it is split between the city and its economic-development corporations. Outside city limits the rate is 6.25%. Groceries and most unprepared food are exempt from sales tax.

Real Example: a $310,500 Marble Falls Home

Here is how the numbers flow on a representative $310,500 City of Marble Falls / Marble Falls ISD home (the county median value) with a homestead exemption (owner under 65), applying only the school-district homestead to the school unit:

• Market value: $310,500.
• Homestead exemption: the $140,000 school-district exemption drops the Marble Falls ISD taxable value to $170,500. The other two units tax the full $310,500 in this simplified example.
• Stacked total: school $170,500 × 0.885500% = ~$1,510; city $310,500 × 0.535000% = ~$1,661; county $310,500 × 0.332300% = ~$1,032.
• Estimated annual bill: about $4,203 per year.
• Monthly equivalent: about $350 per month.
• Effective rate: about 1.35% of market value in this simplified example.

How this compares to the county-wide median. The Census ACS county-wide median bill is about $3,495 (roughly 1.13% effective). This Marble Falls city example lands above that, and that is expected: Marble Falls is an incorporated city that also carries a full three-unit stack, while much of Burnet County is unincorporated lakefront and rural land (no city rate), and the City of Marble Falls grants a local-option homestead this simplified example does not model. A homesteaded rural parcel (school + county only) on the same $310,500 value would pay closer to $2,542 (about 0.82%). A non-homestead $310,500 Marble Falls parcel would pay closer to the full nominal ~1.75%, or about $5,443, while a real over-65 homestead - with the extra $60,000 school exemption and any local-option amounts - would be lower than this example.

Limitations:

• Your total varies by school district and city; a Burnet, Granite Shoals, Horseshoe Bay, Burnet CISD, Lampasas ISD, or rural parcel uses a different stack.
• Local-option city homestead exemptions (and over-65, disability, and disabled-veteran exemptions) are not modeled in the simplified example above; this example applies only the school-district homestead, so a real homesteaded city bill is lower.
• Burnet County's exact penalty-and-interest schedule was not available from an official source in this pass and is not stated here.
• New-construction homes are often taxed on land only in the first year, then jump once the structure is on the roll.
• This is an estimate, not a parcel-exact bill. The typical effective rate is a Census ACS estimate, not a guaranteed rate.