Montgomery County Property Tax & Sales Tax

Montgomery County Tax Rates - At a Glance

Montgomery County Current Tax Rates Summary

Tax Type	Rate	Notes
Property Tax (combined)	~1.91% of value	No single county rate - the sum of county, hospital, college, city, and school district. Representative nominal stack; typical effective rate runs about 1.37%.
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	Plus Montgomery County local homestead 20% + $50,000 over-65; over-65 adds $60,000 school exemption
Due Date	January 31	Delinquent February 1; protest deadline May 15

Montgomery County Property Tax

Montgomery County property tax comes in two numbers that are easy to confuse. The county's own adopted rate is $0.377 per $100 of value for the 2025 tax year - exact, from the Montgomery County Tax Office Truth-in-Taxation table (maintenance-and-operations $0.3325 plus debt service $0.0445). 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, the countywide Montgomery County Hospital District (MCHD, $0.0473), and - across most of the county - Lone Star College ($0.1060). Combined, the typical total effective rate in Montgomery County is about 1.37% of market value - an estimate from Census ACS 2024 1-year data (median real estate taxes paid $4,985 divided by median home value $363,200). Because the mix of taxing units differs from parcel to parcel, there is no single "Montgomery County rate" for a full bill; the figure below is a worked example.

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

School district City County Hospital + college districts

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

Taxing unit	Rate /$100	Type
Conroe ISD	$0.9496	School
City of Conroe	$0.4272	City
Montgomery County	$0.3770	County
Lone Star College	$0.1060	College
Montgomery County Hospital District	$0.0473	Hospital
Nominal total	~$1.9071	~1.91%

Rates from the Montgomery County Tax Office Truth-in-Taxation table (county, MCHD, City of Conroe, Conroe ISD, 2025) and Lone Star College (2025 adopted). This example is for a City of Conroe / Conroe ISD parcel and excludes any MUD; your total depends on your city, school district, and special districts. Montgomery ISD parcels are not in the Lone Star College district.

Two things stand out. First, the school district ($0.9496) is the single largest slice - on its own it is more than twice the entire Montgomery County levy ($0.377). Second, the nominal stacked rate of about $1.9071 per $100 (~1.91%) is higher than the ACS effective rate of about 1.37%. That gap is mostly exemptions and the county mix: the school district only taxes value above the $140,000 homestead exemption, the county grants a 20% local homestead, and much of the county's value sits in The Woodlands, which has no city tax and pulls the county-wide median down.

Where your property-tax dollar goes

School district ~50% City ~22% County ~20% Hospital + college ~8%

On a typical City of Conroe / Conroe ISD parcel, the school district is about 50% of the bill (Conroe ISD $0.9496 / $1.9071 nominal total). The city is roughly 22%, Montgomery County about 20%, and the hospital district plus Lone Star College about 8% 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 Conroe 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. The school-district exemption lowers the school-district taxable value only - and Montgomery County adds a local-option homestead exemption of 20% off the value the county taxes, plus an extra $50,000 county exemption for over-65 or disabled owners. Check your parcel's full exemption list with the Montgomery Central Appraisal District (MCAD).

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 $363,200 Conroe ISD home with a homestead exemption, the school district taxes only $363,200 - $140,000 = $223,200, while the county, city, hospital district, and college tax up to the full value (the county applies its own 20% local-option exemption first). That single school-district difference is why the exemption matters most against the largest unit.

Key dates: Montgomery 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 Montgomery Central Appraisal District (MCAD) 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 an MCAD appraiser, a formal Appraisal Review Board (ARB) hearing, or MCAD's online protest process. File and track everything at mcad-tx.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 Montgomery County property tax

Sources: the Montgomery County Tax Office Truth-in-Taxation table (county, MCHD, City of Conroe, Conroe ISD rates, 2025), Lone Star College taxpayer information (2025 adopted rate), the Montgomery Central Appraisal District (exemptions, protest, dates), and Census ACS 2024 1-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 Montgomery 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 Montgomery County you register and title through the Montgomery 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.

Montgomery County Sales Tax

The combined sales tax rate in Conroe is 8.25%. It is built from the state rate plus a local component - and Montgomery County itself levies no county sales tax.

Conroe (Montgomery County) sales tax components

Component	Rate
Texas state rate	6.25%
City of Conroe	2.00%
Montgomery 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 the city 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 Montgomery County. In unincorporated areas like The Woodlands, the 2% local portion comes from special districts rather than a city, but the combined rate is still 8.25%. Qualifying groceries are exempt from sales tax.

Real Example: a $363,000 Conroe Home

Here is how the numbers flow on a representative $363,000 City of Conroe / Conroe ISD home with a homestead exemption (owner under 65), using the school-district homestead only and excluding any MUD:

• Market value: $363,000.
• Homestead exemption: the school-district homestead exemption removes $140,000 from the Conroe ISD taxable value, so the school district taxes $223,000. The city, county, hospital district, and college tax the full $363,000 in this simplified example (the county's own 20% local-option exemption would lower its line).
• Stacked total: school $223,000 × 0.9496% = ~$2,118; city $363,000 × 0.4272% = ~$1,551; county $363,000 × 0.377% = ~$1,369; MCHD $363,000 × 0.0473% = ~$172; Lone Star College $363,000 × 0.1060% = ~$385.
• Estimated annual bill: about $5,595 per year, before any MUD.
• Monthly equivalent: about $466 per month.
• Effective rate: about 1.54% of market value in this simplified example - higher than the county-wide ACS median effective rate of about 1.37%, because the City of Conroe / Conroe ISD combination is one of the higher-rate stacks, while much of the county sits in The Woodlands (no city tax) and long-held homesteads benefit from the 10% cap and the county's 20% exemption.

Limitations:

• Your total varies by school district, city, and any special district covering your parcel; a MUD is common in The Woodlands and other master-planned communities and is not included above.
• Local-option exemptions (the county 20% and $50,000 over-65, plus disability, disabled-veteran, and any city, hospital, or school 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.