I have written about the Texas disabled veteran exemptions statewide. This is the northeast Tarrant County version, because up here the numbers are large enough to change what house someone can afford — and because Southlake has a filing problem that no other city I work in has.
A veteran rated 100 percent, or rated individually unemployable and paid at the 100 percent rate, gets a total exemption on the appraised value of their residence homestead. The whole value, not a slice of it.
What that is worth depends entirely on where the house is:
| City | Median home value | Combined rate | Exemption worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southlake | $1,014,500 | 1.71% | about $14,800/yr |
| Keller | $594,300 | 1.86% | about $8,800/yr |
Census 2020–2024 median owner-occupied values; 2025 tax year combined rates, which is the last complete adopted set — Tarrant County College has since adopted 0.120000 and Carroll ISD 0.926900 for 2026. Your actual bill depends on your appraised value, not the city median.
Call it fifteen thousand dollars a year in Southlake. That is roughly $1,230 a month that stops coming out of the payment — which in underwriting terms is often the difference between qualifying for a Southlake house and not.
Here is something nobody expects. For veterans with a rating below the total-exemption threshold, Texas gives a fixed dollar amount off the value, by tier:
| Disability rating | Off the value |
|---|---|
| 10% to 29% | $5,000 |
| 30% to 49% | $7,500 |
| 50% to 69% | $10,000 |
| 70% to 100% | $12,000 |
Because it is a fixed amount off the value, what it saves you depends on your tax rate, not your home price. And Keller’s rate is higher than Southlake’s.
Meanwhile the total exemption is worth far more in Southlake, because it wipes out a much bigger number. Both things are true at once and they confuse people constantly.
Most of Southlake is in Tarrant County. A portion is in Denton County — Denton County lists Southlake among its cities and carries “Southlake, City” as a taxing entity on its own truth-in-taxation table.
Keller has no such problem — it is entirely in Tarrant County, so every Keller homeowner files with TAD.
There is a second consequence. Denton County has no hospital district, no junior college district and no regional water district levy of the sort Tarrant County has, which takes roughly three tenths of a point off the combined rate. But the Denton side is also likely served by a different school district with a higher rate than Carroll ISD’s, which gives a good part of that back. Same city, different county, different school, different bill — price the actual parcel.
And the free help most people never use: Tarrant County Veteran Services, 1200 Circle Dr., Fort Worth, (817) 531-5645. They assist with identifying and completing the forms at no charge.
If you close mid-year you do not wait until January. The Comptroller is explicit on the total exemption: a person qualifying after January 1 of a tax year may receive it immediately on qualification, for the applicable portion of that year.
And the one that catches everybody: the seller’s exemption does not come with the house. It is personal to the qualifying owner. You inherit nothing and must file in your own name.
This is lender practice rather than law, which is exactly why it gets missed — and at Southlake numbers it is a big miss.
At application, your property taxes get estimated from the appraisal district’s current record — which reflects the seller’s situation, not yours. For a totally exempt veteran buying in Southlake, that can mean well over $1,000 a month of phantom tax sitting inside your qualifying ratio and your escrow deposit. It can be the difference between an approval and a decline on a house you would actually own tax-free.
Ask your loan officer three questions, at application and not at closing:
Some lenders will do it with the VA award letter in the file. Some will not. It varies, and at this price point it is worth asking two of them.
Texas voters raised the school district homestead exemption to $140,000 in November 2025, with an additional $60,000 for homeowners 65 or older or disabled. For a veteran with a partial rating, that ordinary exemption is doing far more work than the $12,000 veteran exemption is — in Keller, $140,000 off the school district’s 1.0852 rate is about $1,519 a year against the veteran exemption’s $223.
Stack them. They are not alternatives.
There is also a new exemption worth knowing about, approved by Texas voters in November 2025: a surviving spouse of a veteran who died from a condition presumed under federal law to have been service connected now gets a total homestead exemption regardless of the veteran’s rating at death. That is the PACT Act population, and almost nobody has heard of it. Details in the statewide guide.
It is a total exemption on the appraised value of your residence homestead, so what it saves depends on your home's value, your combined tax rate, and which other exemptions you would otherwise hold. At Southlake's median owner-occupied value of about $1,014,500 it is worth roughly $14,800 a year; at Keller's median of about $594,300, roughly $8,800. Those are lower than simply multiplying value by rate, because without the total exemption you would still hold the ordinary homestead exemptions — the $140,000 school district exemption and the local-option percentage exemptions several Tarrant County taxing units grant. Your actual figure depends on your appraised value rather than the city median. You qualify at a 100 percent rating or with a determination of individual unemployability paid at the 100 percent rate.
Because it is a fixed amount off the property's value rather than a credit against the tax bill, so what it saves you is $12,000 times your tax rate — and Keller's combined rate of about 1.86 percent is higher than Southlake's 1.71 percent. That works out to roughly $223 a year in Keller against about $206 in Southlake, even though Southlake homes cost nearly twice as much. The total exemption for a 100 percent rating behaves the opposite way, because it wipes out the entire value.
It depends on which county your specific parcel is in, because Southlake spans two. Most of the city is in Tarrant County, filed with the Tarrant Appraisal District — exemption applications go to TAD at 2500 Handley-Ederville Rd., Fort Worth, 817-284-0024. TAD publishes a separate mailing address for exemption filings, so confirm it before you post anything. A portion of Southlake is in Denton County, which means filing with Denton Central Appraisal District instead. Confirm the county on the appraisal district record rather than the listing; filing with the wrong district can cost you a year. Keller is entirely in Tarrant County, so Keller homeowners always file with TAD.
No. Texas exemptions are personal to the qualifying owner, so you inherit nothing and must apply in your own name. You do not have to wait for the next January, though: the Comptroller states that a person qualifying for the total disabled veteran exemption after January 1 of a tax year may receive it immediately on qualification, for the applicable portion of that year. The standard filing deadline is April 30, with late filing allowed up to five years after the delinquency date for these exemptions.
That is lender practice rather than law, and it varies, which is why you should raise it at application rather than closing. At application your taxes are normally estimated from the appraisal district's current record, which reflects the seller's situation — for a totally exempt veteran buying in Southlake that can put well over $1,000 a month of tax that you will never pay inside your qualifying ratio and escrow deposit. Ask whether the lender will underwrite to the exempt figure, what documentation of your rating they need, and how the escrow analysis will handle it in year two.
Yes, and for a partial rating the ordinary homestead exemption is usually worth far more. Texas voters raised the school district homestead exemption to $140,000 in November 2025, with an additional $60,000 for homeowners 65 or older or disabled. In Keller, $140,000 against the school district's 1.0852 rate is worth about $1,519 a year, compared with about $223 for the $12,000 veteran exemption. They are not alternatives — file for both.
Have a rating and looking at Southlake or Keller? Send me the address you are considering. I will tell you which county the parcel is in, which appraisal district you file with, and roughly what the exemption does to the monthly payment — which at these values is often the whole question. I am a REALTOR and not a tax professional, so treat it as a starting point rather than the final word.
Ask me before you fileChecked September 2026. Texas tax rates are adopted each August and September and VA rules change — confirm current figures with your lender, the VA, or your appraisal district before you rely on them. I am a REALTOR, not a lender or a tax professional.
REALTOR® · BHHS PenFed Realty Texas
I help buyers and sellers across the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex — Fort Worth, Burleson, Southlake, Crowley and Keller, and the surrounding Dallas area. I write these because they are the questions I answer on the phone every week, and most people never get a straight answer to them. If you have one I have not covered, ask me — I will probably turn it into the next post.