The 2026 property tax rate on a Southlake home in Tarrant County and Carroll ISD adds up to 1.6819 per $100 of value, before exemptions. Here is the part nobody says up front: that number is not your rate. Each line has its own exemption, your school district may be a different one, and the seller's bill tells you almost nothing about yours. So let's go line by line.
All the rates below are for the 2026 tax year, adopted this year. They come from the Tarrant County tax office's Truth in Taxation summary, and they replace the 2025 numbers you will still see on a lot of websites.
Add them up and you get 1.681900, down from 1.687880 last year. That is the headline. A lower rate does not automatically mean a lower bill, though, because your bill is rate times taxable value, and value is a separate fight.
The school line is more than half of the stack, and that is why the school district on your parcel matters so much more than the city.
This is where most online calculators fall apart. Each taxing unit treats a homestead differently, so you cannot apply one exemption to the total.
State rules also say a local percentage exemption cannot be less than $5,000. The county and hospital percentages are the 2024 decisions. I did not find a later change, but confirm them on your parcel.
This is an illustration, not a quote. Say your Southlake home is on the roll at exactly $1,000,000, it is your homestead, you are in Carroll ISD, and no over-65, disability or cap rules apply. Using the 2026 rates:
Total: about $14,239 a year, or about $1,187 a month if you escrow. With no exemptions at all, the same value would be $16,819. So the homestead exemption is worth roughly $2,580 a year at this value, and that is why you file it.
For a reference point, the city's budget puts the average appraised Southlake home at $1,085,031 and shows $2,483 for an average-valued home at the 0.29 rate. That is the city line, not the whole bill. People see a number like that and think taxes here are low. The city line is low. The stack is not.
About 22 percent of Southlake's land area is outside Carroll ISD, per the city, which I break down in my Southlake schools guide. Swap the school line and the stack changes:
Those totals assume the other four Tarrant County lines. On a $1,000,000 home the spread between the lowest and highest school rate is about $1,860 a year after the $140,000 exemption. Same city, same mayor, different bill.
Southlake also runs into Denton County. That part of the city pays Denton County's adopted rate of 0.183394 instead of Tarrant County's, it is appraised by Denton Central Appraisal District, and the rest of the stack can differ too. I am not going to give you a total for that side, because I would want to see the actual parcel. Pull the jurisdiction list on the property record.
A long-time owner may have a capped value, over-65 exemptions or a school tax ceiling that do not come with the house. I wrote a whole post on why the seller's tax bill is not yours. Read it before you estimate a payment.
The Comptroller says the general filing deadline is before May 1. If you buy after January 1, you may get the exemption for the applicable part of the year once you qualify, as long as the previous owner did not receive it that year. Ask the appraisal district how your closing date plays out.
The homestead cap limits how much your appraised value can rise, to 10 percent a year plus new improvements. It starts January 1 of the year after you qualify, so your first year is not protected. It limits appraised value, not your tax bill.
Also know the calendar. Tarrant Appraisal District reappraises residential property in odd-numbered years, which makes 2027 the next one. If you are buying now, expect a fresh look at your value in 2027. Denton County works on its own schedule.
I pull the parcel. Not the listing, the actual tax record: which school district, which county, which exemptions the seller has, and whether anything else is on the jurisdiction list. Then I estimate your number from the exemptions you would actually qualify for, and I tell you what I do not know.
I am not a tax advisor, so for your own situation go to the appraisal district or a tax professional. Rates reset every fall. If you are reading this after fall 2027, every number above is out of date.
For a home in Tarrant County and Carroll ISD, the five main lines add up to 1.6819 per $100 before exemptions: Carroll ISD 0.9269, City of Southlake 0.29, Tarrant County 0.186, the Hospital District 0.159 and Tarrant County College 0.12. Other school districts or the Denton County side will differ.
No. The school district exemption is $140,000 of value, while the city, Tarrant County and the Hospital District each use 20 percent. Tarrant County College is far lower, at 1 percent with a $5,000 minimum.
Your neighbor may have a capped value from years of homestead ownership, over-65 or disability exemptions, or a school tax ceiling. Those do not transfer with the house as a general rule. They may also be in a different school district. Check the property record before you compare.
Looking at a specific Southlake address? Send it to me and I will pull the school district, the county and the tax lines before you write an offer. More on the city is on my Southlake page.
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.
