Lamar County Property Tax & Sales Tax

Lamar County Tax Rates - At a Glance

Lamar County Current Tax Rates Summary

Tax Type	Rate	Notes
Property Tax (combined)	~1.80% of value	No single county rate - the sum of school district, city, county, and Paris Junior College on a City of Paris / Paris ISD parcel. Representative nominal stack; typical effective rate runs about 0.87% of market value.
County's own rate	$0.306300 / $100	Lamar County government portion only: M&O $0.293600 + debt (I&S) $0.012700
Hospital / college district	College yes, hospital no	Paris Junior College ~$0.066328 (pending exact 2025 confirmation); no countywide hospital district
Annual Vehicle (Car) Tax	None	Texas levies no annual value-based vehicle property tax
Sales Tax	8.25%	6.25% state + 0.50% Lamar County + 1.50% city (Paris); groceries and most unprepared food exempt
Homestead Exemption	$140,000 school + 10% cap	Statutory school-district homestead; over-65 owners get an additional $60,000 school exemption.
Due Date	January 31	Delinquent February 1; statewide protest deadline May 15

Lamar County Property Tax

Lamar County property tax comes in two numbers that are easy to confuse. The county's own adopted rate is $0.306300 per $100 of value for the 2025 tax year - and it is only the Lamar County government's portion. Your actual bill is the sum of every overlapping taxing unit that covers your parcel: your school district, your city (if any), the county, and the Paris Junior College district. Combined, the typical total effective rate in Lamar County is about 0.87% of market value - an estimate from Census ACS 2024 5-year data (median real estate taxes paid $1,748 divided by median home value $200,700). Because the mix of taxing units differs from parcel to parcel, there is no single "Lamar County rate" for a full bill; the figures below are worked examples.

Lamar County's own rate of $0.306300 is a single county levy, split for accounting into a maintenance-and-operations rate ($0.293600) and a debt or interest-and-sinking rate ($0.012700). On top of the county, most parcels also carry the Paris Junior College district (about $0.066328 for 2025, which we flag as pending exact confirmation from the college). There is no countywide hospital district. Paris is the county seat and largest city, a Northeast Texas regional center near the Red River and the Oklahoma border, well known for its downtown plaza, the historic Culbertson Fountain, and its 65-foot Eiffel Tower replica wearing a red cowboy hat; Reno, Blossom, Deport, and Roxton are the other incorporated communities.

How a typical Lamar County (City of Paris) bill is built (taxing-unit stack)

School district City County Community college

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

Taxing unit	Rate /$100	Type
Paris ISD	$0.960900	School
City of Paris	$0.463870	City
Lamar County	$0.306300	County
Paris Junior College	$0.066328	College
Nominal total	~$1.796998	~1.80%

County rate from the Lamar County FY2025-2026 adopted budget; Paris ISD rate from the district's official Tax Rate History; City of Paris rate from Form 50-212 (the 2025 voter-approval/adopted rate); Paris Junior College rate is pending exact 2025 confirmation. This example is for a City of Paris / Paris ISD parcel; your total depends on your city and school district. Lamar County's other school districts include North Lamar ISD, Chisum ISD, Prairiland ISD, and Roxton ISD (their exact 2025 rates were not individually verified in this pass). Unincorporated Paris ISD parcels pay no city rate.

Where your property-tax dollar goes

Paris ISD ~53.5% City ~25.8% County ~17.0% Paris JC ~3.7%

On a typical City of Paris / Paris ISD parcel, Paris ISD is about 53.5% of the nominal bill ($0.960900 / $1.796998 nominal total), the City of Paris about 25.8%, Lamar County about 17.0%, and Paris Junior College about 3.7%. Percentages are rounded and use the nominal posted rates before any exemption - after the $140,000 school-district homestead exemption the taxable amount drops sharply, which is part of why the county's typical effective rate (about 0.87%) sits well below the nominal City-of-Paris stacked rate (about 1.80%): most Lamar County parcels are rural or in smaller cities with lower or no city rate, and many carry over-65 school-tax ceilings.

Who appraises, bills, and collects in Lamar County

• The Lamar County Appraisal District sets appraised values, processes homestead exemptions, and runs protests, at lamarcad.org (903-785-7822).
• The Lamar County Tax Assessor-Collector collects the property tax and also handles vehicle registration and titling, at lamarcountytx.gov.

For value questions, start with the appraisal district; to pay, start with the Lamar County Tax Assessor-Collector.

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 Lamar County Appraisal District. For a Paris 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.

Some Lamar County cities also grant local-option homestead exemptions, but the exact per-unit amounts vary and were not fully extracted in this pass. Because those interact 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 over-65 homestead bill is lower. Confirm the exact exemptions on your account with the Lamar County 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 Lamar County-specific delinquent 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 Lamar County Appraisal District, which publishes its protest procedures and deadlines and runs the property search and appeals process. File and track everything at lamarcad.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 Lamar County property tax

Sources: the Lamar County FY2025-2026 adopted budget (county rate), the Paris ISD Tax Rate History (school rate), the City of Paris Form 50-212 (city rate), the Lamar County Appraisal District (appraised values and exemptions), the Texas Comptroller (sales tax), and Census ACS 2024 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 Lamar 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 Lamar County you register and title through the Lamar County Tax Assessor-Collector.

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.

Lamar County Sales Tax

The combined sales tax rate in the City of Paris is 8.25% - the Texas maximum. It is made up of the 6.25% state rate, a 0.50% Lamar County rate, and a 1.50% City of Paris rate. Lamar County does levy its own 0.50% county sales tax, which applies countywide - so even outside a city the rate is 6.75%. Texas law caps the total local portion at 2.0%, so once the county's 0.50% and the city's 1.50% are combined, no further local rate can stack on top - which is why 8.25% is the maximum combined sales tax here.

City of Paris (Lamar County) sales tax components

Component	Rate
Texas state rate	6.25%
Lamar County	0.50%
City of Paris	1.50%
Combined rate	8.25%

The 2.00% local share is the maximum Texas allows and here is split between the 0.50% county rate and the 1.50% city rate. Outside city limits the rate is 6.75% (state plus the countywide 0.50%). Groceries and most unprepared food are exempt from sales tax.

Real Example: a $200,700 Paris Home

Here is how the numbers flow on a representative $200,700 City of Paris / Paris 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: $200,700.
• Homestead exemption: the $140,000 school-district exemption drops the Paris ISD taxable value to $60,700. The other units tax the full $200,700 in this simplified example.
• Stacked total: school $60,700 × 0.960900% = ~$583; city $200,700 × 0.463870% = ~$931; county $200,700 × 0.306300% = ~$615; Paris JC $200,700 × 0.066328% = ~$133.
• Estimated annual bill: about $2,262 per year.
• Monthly equivalent: about $189 per month.
• Effective rate: about 1.13% of market value in this simplified City-of-Paris example.

How this compares to the county-wide median. The Census ACS county-wide median bill is about $1,748 (roughly 0.87% effective). This City of Paris homestead example (~1.13%) lands above the county median because Paris has a relatively high city rate plus the college tax, while most Lamar County parcels are rural or in smaller cities (or unincorporated with no city rate at all) and many carry over-65 school-tax ceilings. A homesteaded parcel with no city rate (school + county + college, roughly $1,331 on the same $200,700 value) would pay closer to 0.66%, and a real over-65 homestead - with the extra $60,000 school exemption and the school-tax ceiling - would be lower still. A non-homestead $200,700 Paris parcel would pay closer to the full nominal ~1.80%, or about $3,610.

Limitations:

• Your total varies by school district and city; a North Lamar, Chisum, Prairiland, Roxton, or unincorporated 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.
• The City of Paris rate ($0.463870) is the 2025 voter-approval/adopted rate from Form 50-212, and the Paris Junior College rate ($0.066328) is pending exact 2025 confirmation; both are flagged for verification.
• Lamar County's exact delinquent penalty-and-interest schedule was not available from an official source in this pass and is not stated here.
• This is an estimate, not a parcel-exact bill. The typical effective rate is a Census ACS estimate, not a guaranteed rate.