Comal County Property Tax & Sales Tax

Comal County Tax Rates - At a Glance

Comal County Current Tax Rates Summary

Tax Type	Rate	Notes
Property Tax (combined)	~1.75% of value	No single county rate - the sum of county, city, and school on a New Braunfels / New Braunfels ISD parcel. Representative nominal stack; typical effective rate runs about 1.13%.
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 + 20% county + 10% cap	Over-65 adds $60,000 school exemption plus a school-tax ceiling
Due Date	January 31	Delinquent February 1; protest deadline May 15

Comal County Property Tax

Comal County property tax comes in two numbers that are easy to confuse. The county's own adopted rate is $0.269000 per $100 of value for the 2025 tax year (maintenance-and-operations $0.223000 + debt service $0.046000), plus a countywide Lateral Road unit of $0.036015 for a total of about $0.305 - that is only the Comal 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, the Lateral Road unit, and in some areas an Emergency Services District (ESD). Combined, the typical total effective rate in Comal County is about 1.13% of market value - an estimate from Census ACS 2024 5-year data (median real estate taxes paid $4,833 divided by median home value $427,200). Because the mix of taxing units differs from parcel to parcel, there is no single "Comal County rate" for a full bill; the figure below is a worked example.

How a typical New Braunfels bill is built (taxing-unit stack)

School district City County (incl. Lateral Road)

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

Taxing unit	Rate /$100	Type
New Braunfels ISD	$1.037700	School
City of New Braunfels	$0.408936	City
Comal County (incl. Lateral Road)	$0.305015	County
Nominal total	~$1.7517	~1.75%

Rates from the Comal County 2025 Tax Rates for all Taxing Units schedule (Comal County $0.269000 + Lateral Road $0.036015, City of New Braunfels $0.408936, New Braunfels ISD $1.037700). This example is for a City of New Braunfels / New Braunfels ISD parcel; your total depends on your city, school district, and special districts. Much of New Braunfels and the surrounding county sits in Comal ISD ($1.074800) instead, and some addresses add an Emergency Services District (ESD, ~$0.05 to $0.10).

Two things stand out. First, the school district ($1.0377) is the single largest slice - on its own it is more than three times the entire Comal County levy ($0.269000). Second, the nominal stacked rate of about $1.7517 per $100 (~1.75%) is above the ACS effective rate of about 1.13%. That gap is mostly exemptions: the $140,000 school-district homestead exemption plus Comal County's 20% local-option homestead exemption remove a large share of the taxable value on a median home, so the rate people actually pay on market value is lower than adding the posted rates together.

Where your property-tax dollar goes

School district ~59% City ~23% County ~17%

On a typical City of New Braunfels / New Braunfels ISD parcel, the school district is about 59% of the nominal bill (New Braunfels ISD $1.0377 / $1.7517 nominal total), the City of New Braunfels about 23%, and Comal County (including the Lateral Road unit) about 17%. Percentages are rounded and use the nominal posted rates before any exemption - after the $140,000 school homestead exemption and the county's 20% homestead exemption, the school slice shrinks and the city becomes a larger share of what you actually pay.

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 New Braunfels ISD 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. On top of that, Comal County grants a 20% local-option homestead exemption to all homeowners, which lowers the value the county taxes. The school-district exemption lowers the school-district taxable value only - the county, city, and any special districts still tax your value (less their own local-option exemptions). Check your parcel's full exemption list with the Comal 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. In a fast-appreciating market like the San Antonio-to-Austin corridor, this cap is often what keeps a long-time owner's bill well below a recent buyer's.

Worked example: on a $427,200 New Braunfels ISD home with a homestead exemption, the school district taxes only $427,200 - $140,000 = $287,200, while the county (after its 20% homestead exemption) and the city tax the rest. That single school-district difference is why the exemption matters most against the largest unit on the bill.

How to protest your appraisal

You can pursue an informal review with a Comal Appraisal District appraiser, a formal Appraisal Review Board (ARB) hearing, or the district's online protest process. The protest deadline is May 15 (business personal property renditions are due April 15). File and track everything at comalad.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 Comal County property tax

Sources: the Comal Appraisal District and the Comal County 2025 Tax Rates for all Taxing Units schedule (county, city, and school rates, 2025), the Comal County Tax Office (payment, dates), and Census ACS 2024 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 Comal 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 Comal County you register and title through the Comal 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.

Comal County Sales Tax

The combined sales tax rate in New Braunfels is 8.25%. It is built from the state rate plus a local component - and Comal County levies a 0.5% county sales tax.

New Braunfels (Comal County) sales tax components

Component	Rate
Texas state rate	6.25%
City (New Braunfels)	1.50%
Comal County	0.50%
Combined rate	8.25%

Texas law caps the total local portion at 2.0%. This is a shared ceiling, not additive past 2%: once the city, county, 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 Comal County. In New Braunfels the local 2% is split between the city (1.5%) and Comal County (0.5%); the mix differs by city and by unincorporated area. Qualifying groceries are exempt from sales tax.

Real Example: a $427,200 New Braunfels Home

Here is how the numbers flow on a representative $427,200 City of New Braunfels / New Braunfels ISD home (the county median value) with a homestead exemption (owner under 65), using the school-district homestead only and applying no other local-option exemptions:

• Market value: $427,200.
• Homestead exemption: the school-district homestead exemption removes $140,000 from the New Braunfels ISD taxable value, so the school district taxes only $287,200. The county and city tax the full $427,200 in this simplified example (before the county's own 20% homestead exemption, which would lower the county portion further).
• Stacked total: school $287,200 × 1.0377% = ~$2,981; city $427,200 × 0.408936% = ~$1,747; county $427,200 × 0.305015% = ~$1,303.
• Estimated annual bill: about $6,031 per year.
• Monthly equivalent: about $503 per month.
• Effective rate: about 1.41% of market value in this simplified example. This is above the county-wide ACS median effective rate of about 1.13% because Comal County's 20% local-option homestead exemption, the school-tax cap, and lower-rate areas (not modeled here) pull the county average down.

Limitations:

• Your total varies by school district, city, and any special district covering your parcel; many Comal County parcels sit in Comal ISD instead of New Braunfels ISD, and some add an ESD not modeled here.
• Local-option exemptions - especially Comal County's 20% homestead exemption, plus over-65, disability, and disabled-veteran exemptions - 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.