The Texas property tax due date this year is really February 1, 2027

Your 2026 Texas property tax bill has to be paid by Monday, February 1, 2027. The usual Texas property tax due date is January 31, but January 31, 2027 is a Sunday, and Texas Tax Code Section 1.06 says a deadline that lands on a weekend moves to the next business day. So you get one bonus day this year (don’t spend it all in one place).

The Travis County Tax Office calendar says the same thing in plainer English, if January 31 falls on a weekend the deadline moves to Monday. And the day after that deadline is not gentle. Under Tax Code Section 33.01 a late bill picks up a 6 percent penalty plus 1 percent interest the first month, so 7 percent, just for being a day late. On a $10,115.58 bill that is $708.09. That is a car payment, for being one day late right.

So here is what this post covers. What changed in the Austin-area tax rates this fall, what that does to a real bill, exactly what late costs month by month, the payment plan most people over 65 don’t know about, what buyers who closed in 2026 should check on this bill, and the 2027 homestead filing window that opens January 1. I’ve been selling homes here since 2009 and the questions on this stuff do not change much, so lets get through it.

What changed in Austin-area tax rates this fall

Every rate in the table below is a 2026 tax year rate. They got adopted this fall, they are on the bill you are getting now, and they get paid in early 2027. People call these “2027 rates” all the time because of when the check clears. They are not. The 2027 rates get set next fall.

I pulled the adopted rates straight from the Travis County Tax Office 2026 rates and exemptions file and the Williamson County Tax Office 2026 tax rate information, and lined them up against last year. Rates are per $100 of taxable value.

Leander ISD and Round Rock ISD rates are from the Travis County Tax Office 2026 file. The Williamson County rate summary, when we checked it on November 11, 2026, still listed $1.1169 for Leander ISD and $0.9484 for Round Rock ISD. Your bill is the final word, so look at the rate printed on it. Hays County units are not in this table, check your bill or the Hays County tax office for those.

The headline is the City of Austin, up 5.59 cents per $100, from $0.524017 to $0.579948. That is the biggest move on the list. The City of Round Rock is right behind it at 5.10 cents. And the school districts, which are the biggest line on almost every bill around here, mostly went the other way. Austin ISD, Eanes ISD and Lake Travis ISD each dropped 0.68 cents per $100. Not a lot. But on a school line it adds up because the school line is so big.

Bee Cave stayed at two cents (it has been two cents for so long I’m not sure anyone there remembers how to change it). If you want the full side by side of what a house costs to own in each city, I did that in this post comparing property tax rates across the Austin metro, and the Travis County rate fight as it was happening this summer is in our post on the 2026 Travis County bill.

What the new rates do to a $600,000 Austin home

Rates on their own are kind of abstract, so lets put them on a house. The median single-family home that sold in Austin ISD between January and October 2026 went for $600,000, across 4,192 closed sales in our MLS data. So take a $600,000 home inside the City of Austin and Austin ISD, homestead exemption on file, owner under 65.

To keep it honest I held the value at $600,000 for both years and used the same general homestead exemptions both years: $140,000 off for Austin ISD, 20 percent off for Travis County, Central Health and the City of Austin, and 1 percent off for Austin Community College. That way the only thing moving is the rate.

So the same house, same value, costs $359.61 more this year, about 3.7 percent, and about three quarters of it is the city line. The school district actually gave a little back. Your own bill will move differently because your value moved too (or didn’t, depends on your street), but this is the rate part of the story with nothing else mixed in.

And look at what that homestead exemption is doing. Without it, the same house at 2026 tax year rates would owe $12,726.39. With it, $10,115.58. That is $2,610.81 a year, every year, for filling out one form.

What happens if you pay your property tax bill late

The penalty starts as soon as the deadline passes. Tax Code Section 33.01 sets the penalty at 6 percent for the first month and 1 percent for each month after that, until July 1, when it jumps to a flat 12 percent. Interest is a separate 1 percent per month and it keeps running until the bill is paid. Here is what that looks like on the $10,115.58 bill from the table above, using the same schedule the Travis County Tax Office publishes.

Pay it in July and you have handed over $1,820.80 for nothing. And July is where it can get worse. Section 33.07 lets a taxing unit that has hired a collection attorney add another penalty to taxes still unpaid on July 1, and Section 6.30 caps that attorney’s pay at 20 percent of the tax, penalty and interest collected. If a unit uses it, the law requires a notice of that penalty to go out 30 to 60 days before July 1, so you will hear about it. But by then the penalty and interest have been stacking up since February.

Two small things that save people. If you mail a check, Section 1.08 counts it as on time if it is postmarked by the due date, so a February 1 postmark works this year. And if you pay online, don’t wait until the last night. The Travis County calendar itself warns that online payments may slow near the deadline. I’d pay the week before, no big deal right.

Should you pay in December or January?

Same bill either way, so for most people the only real question is your income taxes. The Travis County Tax Office calendar flags December 31 as the date to pay if you want a paid receipt in this calendar year for IRS purposes. Whether paying in December actually helps you depends on whether you itemize and where you land on the federal limits for state and local taxes, and that is a question for your CPA, not your real estate broker (I am good at a lot of things, federal tax law is not on the list).

If your lender pays from escrow, this decision is mostly made for you. But still look. Ariely’s whole thing about the pain of paying is that the less you feel a payment, the less attention you pay to it, and escrow is the ultimate version of that. People with escrow go years without looking at their actual tax bill. Look at this one. Make sure the exemptions on it are right, and make sure the lender actually paid it.

Over 65 or disabled? You can pay in four pieces

This is the one most people miss. Tax Code Section 31.031 lets homeowners who are 65 or older or disabled and have that exemption, plus disabled veterans and the unmarried surviving spouses of disabled veterans with their exemption, pay their homestead taxes in four equal installments with no penalty and no interest.

The first installment goes in with a notice that you are using the plan. The statute lets you start it any time before March 1, 2027. After that the payments are due before April 1, before June 1 and before August 1. Miss one, and that installment picks up a 6 percent penalty plus interest. In Travis County you sign up online through your account (Payment Plans) or send a signed Letter of Intent with the first quarter, per the tax office installment page.

Texas law also has a half-now, half-by-July option in Section 31.03, but it only exists where the taxing unit adopted it. The Travis County installment page only describes the four-payment plan, so don’t assume you have the split option unless your tax office says so.

Bought a house in 2026? Check these three things on this bill

If you closed this year, this bill is a little different for you, and honestly it is the one I’d read most carefully.

1. Compare it to your closing statement. Paragraph 13 of the Texas resale contract, TREC form 20-19, prorates the current year’s taxes through the closing date. That proration was an estimate, because for most of 2026 this bill did not exist yet. The contract says that if the actual taxes for the year come in different from what got prorated, the parties shall adjust the prorations when the tax statements come out. And if the taxes were not paid at or before closing, the buyer pays the current year’s taxes. So you are paying this bill, and if the seller’s share was estimated low, the contract gives you a way to settle up.

2. Check whether the 2026 homestead exemption is on it. Under Tax Code Sections 11.42(f) and 11.43(d), if you bought after January 1 and the seller did not get the homestead exemption for 2026, you can apply for it for the part of 2026 you owned the home. You have until the first anniversary of your purchase date to apply. A lot of new buyers never hear about this one.

3. Make sure the bill got paid. If you have a mortgage with escrow, confirm with the lender. If you don’t, the bill is yours to pay by February 1, 2027.

The 2027 homestead exemption filing window: January 1 to April 30, 2027

Here is the date I actually care about most. Homestead eligibility is set by who owns and lives in the home on January 1 (Tax Code Section 11.42(a)). The application has to be filed before May 1, so for the 2027 tax year your window is January 1 through Friday, April 30, 2027 (Section 11.43(d)).

If you bought in 2026 and already filed, you’re fine, you don’t refile every year. Section 11.43(c) says once the exemption is allowed it stays on until the home changes owners or your eligibility changes. If you bought in 2026 and never filed, January is your month. And remember the $140,000 school exemption in the bill above comes from the constitutional amendment voters approved on November 4, 2025 (Texas Constitution Article VIII, Section 1-b(c)), so it is a big number now, which makes skipping the form expensive.

The full walk-through, the over-65 and disability amounts, late filing, the forms, all of it lives in our Texas homestead exemption guide. If you think your value is wrong rather than your exemption, that’s the Austin property tax protest guide, and the bigger picture is in the complete guide to Austin property taxes.

Want a second set of eyes on your bill?

If your bill doesn’t look right, the first question is usually whether the value on it matches what your house would actually sell for. That is a comp question, and comps are what we do all day at Neuhaus Realty Group. Pull up your bill, then reach out to me or get in touch with our team, and lets grab coffee and look at it together.

And remember the Texas property tax due date this year is Monday, February 1, 2027. Be safe, be good, and be nice to people.