Travis County Property Tax & Sales Tax

Travis County Tax Rates - At a Glance

Travis County Current Tax Rates Summary

Tax Type	Rate	Notes
Property Tax (combined)	~2.05% 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

Travis County Property Tax

Travis County property tax comes in two numbers that are easy to confuse. The county's own adopted rate is $0.375845 per $100 of value for the 2025 tax year - exact, from the county's adopted FY2026 budget and 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 (Central Health and Austin Community College). Combined, the typical total effective rate in Travis County is about 1.54% of market value - an estimate from Census ACS 2019-2023 5-year data (median real estate taxes paid $7,487 divided by median home value $487,600). Because the mix of taxing units differs from parcel to parcel, there is no single "Travis County rate" for a full bill; the figure below is a worked example.

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

School district City County Healthcare + college districts

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

Taxing unit	Rate /$100	Type
Austin ISD	$0.9252	School
City of Austin	$0.524017	City
Travis County	$0.375845	County
Central Health (Travis County Healthcare District)	$0.1180	Healthcare
Austin Community College	$0.1034	College
Nominal total	~$2.0465	~2.05%

County rate from the Travis County 2025 adopted tax rate; the other unit rates are each unit's adopted 2025 rate (Austin ISD, City of Austin, Central Health, Austin Community College). This example is for a City of Austin / Austin ISD parcel; your total depends on your city, school district, and special districts.

Two things stand out. First, the school district ($0.9252) is the single largest slice - on its own it is nearly two and a half times the entire Travis County levy ($0.375845). Second, the nominal stacked rate of about $2.0465 per $100 (~2.05%) is higher than the ACS effective rate of about 1.54%. That gap is mostly exemptions: the school district, the biggest unit, only taxes value above the $140,000 homestead exemption, and several Travis 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 ~45% City ~26% County ~18% Central Health + ACC ~11%

On a typical City of Austin / Austin ISD parcel, the school district is about 45% of the bill (Austin ISD $0.9252 / $2.0465 nominal total). The city is roughly 26%, Travis County about 18%, and the healthcare and college districts (Central Health and Austin Community College) about 11% 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 an Austin 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 - but in Travis 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 Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD).

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 $487,600 Austin ISD home with a homestead exemption, the school district taxes only $487,600 - $140,000 = $347,600, while the county, city, healthcare, and college 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: Travis 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 Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD) 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 TCAD appraiser, a formal Appraisal Review Board (ARB) hearing, or TCAD's online protest process. File and track everything at traviscad.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 Travis County property tax

Sources: Travis County Truth-in-Taxation Summary (county rate, 2025), the City of Austin, Austin ISD, Central Health, and Austin Community College adopted 2025 rates, Travis Central 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 Travis 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 Travis County you register and title through the Travis 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.

Travis County Sales Tax

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

Austin (Travis County) sales tax components

Component	Rate
Texas state rate	6.25%
City of Austin	1.00%
Capital Metro (CapMetro transit)	1.00%
Travis 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 Travis County. Qualifying groceries are exempt from sales tax.

Real Example: a $450,000 Austin Home

Here is how the numbers flow on a representative $450,000 City of Austin / Austin ISD home with a homestead exemption (owner under 65), using the school-district homestead only:

• Market value: $450,000.
• Homestead exemption: the school-district homestead exemption removes $140,000 from the Austin ISD taxable value, so the school district taxes $310,000. The city, county, healthcare, and college districts tax the full $450,000 in this simplified example (local-option homestead exemptions would lower some lines further).
• Stacked total: school $310,000 × 0.9252% = ~$2,868; city $450,000 × 0.524017% = ~$2,358; county $450,000 × 0.375845% = ~$1,691; Central Health + Austin Community College on $450,000 = ~$996.
• Estimated annual bill: about $7,914 per year.
• Monthly equivalent: about $659 per month.
• Effective rate: about 1.76% of market value in this simplified example - higher than the county-wide ACS median effective rate of about 1.54% once local-option exemptions and the appraisal cap are applied across all parcels.

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.