There are two Texas homestead laws. One is automatic, unlimited, written into the constitution, and protects your house from creditors. The other requires a form, has a deadline, and knocks money off your school taxes. They share a word and nothing else, and almost every Texan I talk to thinks they have one when they mean the other.
Texas has two homestead laws. Homestead protection is automatic and shields your home from most creditors, limited by acreage rather than value. The homestead exemption is a tax break you apply for (Form 50-114, by April 30). For 2026 it takes $140,000 off your school district value, plus $60,000 if you are 65 or older or disabled, and cities, counties and special districts may add up to 20 percent.
The history behind them is stranger than you would expect, including the part where Texas got the idea from Mexico.
The Congress of the Republic of Texas guaranteed to citizens and heads of families “fifty acres of land or one town lot, including his or her homestead, and improvements not exceeding five hundred dollars in value” — safe from creditors.
The Texas State Historical Association calls it “the first act of this sort” and describes homestead exemption as “Texas's particular contribution to jurisprudence.”
A detail I like: the same Congress, on the same day, passed the Republic's foundational education act. One sitting. Protect the home, educate the children.
This is the part that surprised me most.
In 1829, the legislature of Coahuila y Texas passed Decree No. 70, exempting from creditors' claims lands received from the sovereign and certain movable property. Texas A&M's real estate research center credits Stephen F. Austin with persuading that legislature to adopt it, at a time when his colonists were being pursued by creditors back in the United States.
The decree was repealed in 1831, but as the Texas State Historical Association puts it, the principle “remained alive in Texans' minds and was a model for the Texas act of 1839.”
So the most aggressively pro-debtor property law in America — in the state most associated with rugged individualism — arrived through Spanish and Mexican civil law. Texas's real innovation was not the idea. It was making it permanent, and then constitutional.
Which happened in 1845, and the reason is wonderful: it went into the constitution, per a later legislative resolution, “to prevent its demise at the hands of future legislatures.” Texans did not trust their own legislature with it. The acreage jumped from 50 to 200 at the same time.
| Forced-sale protection | Property tax exemption | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | Constitution Art. XVI §§50–51; Property Code ch. 41 | Tax Code §11.13 |
| Protects against | Creditors seizing and selling your home | Part of your value being taxed |
| Do you apply? | No — automatic | Yes — Form 50-114 |
| Dollar limit | None — limited by acreage, not value | $140,000 off school district value |
| Cost | Nothing | Nothing — filing is free |
One of these is automatic and unlimited. The other takes a form and a deadline.
Under Property Code §41.002:
There is no dollar cap. Texas Monthly, quoting University of Texas bankruptcy professor Jay Lawrence Westbrook, described the protection as “the most generous and absolute in the nation.”
The protection is not absolute. These cut through it:
And a timing rule that matters: the homestead must be established before the lien attaches.
A provision almost nobody knows: under §41.001(c), the proceeds of a homestead sale stay protected for six months. If you sell and are between houses, that money is not sitting there naked.
Think about that next to everything above. Texas invented the homestead exemption in 1839 and then would not let you borrow against your own equity until January 1, 1998 — after voters approved a constitutional amendment in November 1997. A hundred and fifty-nine years. Same impulse: the home is not collateral.
The 1997 protections are still in force and are unusually strong: 80 percent maximum loan-to-value, a 12-day cooling-off period before closing, a 3-day right of rescission, non-recourse except for fraud, and judicial foreclosure only — a lender needs a court order.
2017's Proposition 2 cut the cap on fees from three percent to two, excluding the appraisal, survey, title policy premium and title examination report. It also let farm and ranch owners take home equity loans while keeping agricultural valuation, and ended the old “once a home equity loan, always a home equity loan” rule — a seasoned home equity loan can now be refinanced into an ordinary purchase-money loan.
These are current for tax year 2026, from the Texas Comptroller:
| Exemption | Amount |
|---|---|
| School district general residence homestead | $140,000 |
| Additional, age 65+ or disabled | $60,000 |
| Combined, age 65+ or disabled | $200,000 |
Both of those went up in the November 2025 election, and both passed overwhelmingly:
| Year | Measure | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Proposition 4 | $40,000 → $100,000 |
| 2025 | Proposition 13 | $100,000 → $140,000 |
| 2025 | Proposition 11 | 65+/disabled add-on $10,000 → $60,000 |
| 2025 | Proposition 7 | Extends an exemption to surviving spouses of veterans who died of a service-connected disease |
Both increases were retroactive to the 2025 tax year, so there is no ambiguity about 2026.
There is a widespread assumption that because a senior's school taxes are frozen by the over-65 tax ceiling, a bigger exemption does nothing. That is wrong.
Tax Code §11.26 requires the ceiling to be recalculated downward when those exemptions rise. The freeze floor moves down with them. Seniors get the benefit.
Two more things about the ceiling worth knowing. It can ratchet down but not up — if next year's tax is lower, that becomes the new ceiling. And it transfers to a new home as a percentage, not a dollar amount, which matters a great deal to a downsizing seller. It does not follow you automatically; you have to file a transfer certificate.
An appraisal district may not raise a homestead's appraised value above the lesser of market value, or last year's appraised value plus 10 percent plus the value of new improvements.
What it does not do:
The Texas Attorney General has issued a consumer alert about businesses sending official-looking letters offering a “designation of homestead” for a fee. The AG's office received over a hundred complaints. Counties make the exemption available free. Tarrant Appraisal District says so on its own site: there is no fee for filing.
These work precisely because the legitimate five-year re-verification letters exist. If you get something asking for money, it is not from the appraisal district.
Burleson straddles the Tarrant/Johnson county line, and people file with the wrong district regularly.
Local optional exemptions — cities, counties and special districts may each offer up to 20 percent of appraised value, minimum $5,000 — change by council vote every year. I am deliberately not printing current local percentages here because they would be wrong within twelve months. Both appraisal districts publish a current exemptions-by-jurisdiction list; pull that, or ask me.
An unlimited homestead exemption is an invitation, and Texans accepted it.
Texas Monthly documented the pattern: Dr. Denton Cooley, the world-famous heart surgeon, kept a million-dollar River Oaks homestead through bankruptcy. Others kept ranches and mansions.
Former governor John Connally filed for bankruptcy in August 1987 after a real estate partnership collapsed, auctioned his possessions in January 1988 — and kept his 200-acre Floresville homestead while renting a one-bedroom apartment in Houston. Two hundred acres. Exactly the rural family limit.
In Matter of Reed (Fifth Circuit, 1983), a men's clothing store owner making about $180,000 a year sold antiques, gold coins and a gun collection days before filing bankruptcy and poured roughly $45,000 into his mortgages — about $30,000 to wipe out the second lien and $15,000 against the first — converting assets creditors could reach into a homestead they could not.
The court's move is the instructive part. Texas law protected the homestead regardless. But federal bankruptcy law denied him his discharge. He kept the house and stayed liable for every debt.
“It would constitute a perversion of the purposes of the Bankruptcy Code to permit a debtor earning $180,000 a year to convert every one of his major nonexempt assets into sheltered property on the eve of bankruptcy with actual intent to defraud his creditors and then emerge washed clean of future obligation by carefully concocted immersion in bankruptcy waters.”
Congress closed the other door in 2005. Federal bankruptcy law now caps the homestead exemption for property acquired within 1,215 days — about three years and four months — before filing. That cap is currently $214,000, and it adjusts every three years.
Which means the shield is still effectively unlimited for a long-time Texas homeowner. The cap mostly bites people who moved to Texas recently — which was rather the point — and, to the extent of any new equity, a Texan who bought a more expensive home within the last three years and four months.
A hundred and eighty-seven years ago a legislature in a country that no longer exists decided that a person who owed money should not lose the roof over their family. It is still in the constitution, and it still works. The other one just needs you to send in a form by April 30.
For tax year 2026 the school district general residence homestead exemption is $140,000, per the Texas Comptroller. There is an additional $60,000 exemption for homeowners age 65 or older or with a qualifying disability, so the combined figure for those homeowners is $200,000. Both amounts rose in the November 2025 election - Proposition 13 raised the general exemption from $100,000 to $140,000 and Proposition 11 raised the age-65-and-disabled addition from $10,000 to $60,000 - and both were retroactive to the 2025 tax year. Local taxing units may also offer optional exemptions of up to 20 percent of appraised value, which change annually. Confirm current figures with the Texas Comptroller and your appraisal district.
No, and the timeline makes it impossible. Houston's first term as president of the Republic of Texas ended December 10, 1838, and the homestead act passed January 26, 1839 - forty-seven days later, when Mirabeau B. Lamar was president. Credit is usually given to Senator Emory Rains of Shelby and Sabine; the Texas Historical Commission marker states he helped pass the act, and Rains County is named for him, though historians have debated the law's actual authorship for more than a century. It is also worth knowing Texas did not invent the concept outright: the legislature of Coahuila y Texas passed a similar decree in 1829 - Texas A&M's real estate research center credits Stephen F. Austin with persuading that legislature to adopt it - and the Texas State Historical Association describes it as a model for the 1839 act.
File when you close, not in January. Advice to wait until January 1 has been out of date since SB 8 took effect on January 1, 2022. Under current law a buyer who acquires property after January 1 of a tax year may receive the exemption immediately on qualification, prorated for the remainder of that year, provided the previous owner did not already receive the same exemption on that property that year. If you are 65 or older the rule is more generous still: under Tax Code section 11.42(c) the over-65 and disabled exemptions take effect as of January 1 of the year you qualify and apply to the entire tax year, not prorated. The regular deadline is April 30, and you can file late - up to two years after the delinquency date - and receive a refund. The application is Comptroller Form 50-114, it is free, and your driver's license address must match the property address, which is the most common reason applications are rejected. Confirm with your appraisal district.
No, and this surprises buyers every year. The appraisal cap limits a homestead's appraised value to the lesser of market value or last year's appraised value plus 10 percent plus the value of new improvements - but it begins on January 1 of the year after the owner first qualifies, and a new buyer does not inherit the prior owner's capped value. If you buy a home a family owned for twenty years, its appraised value may sit far below market because of two decades of caps, and it will be reassessed to full market value for you in your first full tax year. A tax estimate based on the seller's payment history can be badly misleading on a long-held home. The cap also does not limit your tax bill, since rates can rise, and it does not cover new improvements. Confirm specifics with the appraisal district before relying on any tax estimate.
They are two entirely separate laws that share a word. Forced-sale protection comes from the Texas Constitution Article XVI sections 50 and 51 and Property Code chapter 41; it is automatic, requires no application, has no dollar cap in state court, and shields your home from most creditors - limited by acreage rather than value, at up to 10 acres urban, 200 acres rural for a family or 100 for a single adult. The property tax exemption comes from Tax Code section 11.13; you must apply using Form 50-114 by April 30, and it removes a set dollar amount from your taxable value. One is automatic and unlimited. The other takes a form and a deadline. Confirm your own situation with a real estate attorney or your appraisal district.
Usually not, but the protection has specific exceptions. Texas homestead protection against forced sale is automatic and has no dollar cap, but these debts can still reach the home: purchase money - your mortgage; property taxes and federal tax liens; properly executed mechanic's and materialman's liens with a written contract; owelty of partition, including a court-ordered division in a divorce; and home equity loans and reverse mortgages meeting constitutional requirements. Timing matters - the homestead must be established before the lien attaches. One lesser-known provision: under Property Code section 41.001(c), proceeds from selling a homestead remain protected for six months, which matters if you are between houses. Confirm your circumstances with a Texas attorney.
No. Filing is free, and anyone charging you for it is running a scam the Texas Attorney General has issued a consumer alert about. Businesses send official-looking letters offering a 'designation of homestead' for a fee; the AG's office has received over a hundred complaints, and notes that counties make the standard homestead exemption available free to property owners. Tarrant Appraisal District states on its own site that there is no fee for filing. These scams work partly because legitimate letters also exist - the chief appraiser is required by statute to review every residence homestead exemption at least once every five years, so a re-verification request from your appraisal district is real. The difference is that the real one never asks for money.
Buying a house someone has owned a long time? Send me the address before you rely on any tax estimate. The appraisal cap resets when you buy, and the payment the seller has been making may be nothing like the one you will get. I would rather show you that number now than have you find it in October.
Ask me about a tax estimateChecked September 2026. Where sources disagree I have said so in the text rather than quietly picking one. Laws, rates and standards change — verify anything you are relying on with the relevant agency or a licensed professional.
REALTOR® · BHHS PenFed Realty Texas
I help buyers and sellers across the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex — Fort Worth, Burleson, 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.