What will the taxes actually be?

The $140,000 school exemption started in 2025, not 2026

This is the single most common error in DFW property tax content right now, and it is worth being precise about because it changes real numbers.

Texas Senate Bill 4 raised the school district homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000. Voters confirmed it as Proposition 13 on November 4, 2025. The part almost everyone gets wrong: the increase applied to tax years beginning January 1, 2025. It was not a 2026 change. It was already on your 2025 bill.

We verified this directly against the counties' own live systems rather than trusting a rate sheet. Collin County's tax estimator returns a $140,000 exemption on a 2025 Frisco ISD calculation. Denton County's returns $140,000 on Northwest ISD. Both for tax year 2025.

If a calculator or guide is telling you $100,000, or telling you the $140,000 starts in 2026, it is running on stale data and every school district figure it gives you is wrong. On most homes in this corridor that is a difference of several hundred dollars a year, and the school district line is the largest line on your bill.

Sources: Texas SB 4, 89th Legislature. Texas Proposition 13 (2025). Verified against the Collin County and Denton County tax estimators on July 17, 2026.

Five cities in this corridor sit in two counties, and the difference is real money

Southlake, Westlake, Trophy Club, Flower Mound, and Roanoke each straddle the Tarrant/Denton county line. Same city. Same school district. Different county, and a materially different tax bill.

The reason is the county-wide stack. Tarrant County layers four entities on every property: the county itself, JPS Health Network, Tarrant County College, and the Tarrant Regional Water District. Together that is 0.489980 per $100. Denton County has no hospital district and no community college district. Its county-wide total is 0.185938.

That is a gap of about 0.30 per $100, and it applies to the whole value of the home.

Nothing about the house changed. Only which side of an invisible line it sits on. Most buyers have no idea, and most calculators ask you to pick a county before they will tell you anything, which means you have already guessed before you started.

If you are looking at a specific address in one of these five cities, ask us and we will confirm which county the parcel actually falls in.

Two cities raised their homestead exemptions in June 2025

Both of these took effect on 2025 tax bills, and both are recent enough that a lot of published rate information has not caught up yet. If you own in either city, this is money.

Flower Mound went from 12.5% to 20%

The Flower Mound Town Council voted unanimously on June 16, 2025 to raise the town's homestead exemption to 20%, the maximum a Texas municipality is allowed to offer. The original proposal was 17.5%; council took it to the cap. It was the fifth consecutive year the town increased it.

On a $1,500,000 Flower Mound home, moving from 12.5% to 20% is roughly $435 a year off the town portion alone.

Colleyville went from 7% to 14%

Colleyville City Council approved a 7-point increase on June 3, 2025, bringing the city's homestead exemption to 14% for 2025 residential property taxes.

On a $1,500,000 Colleyville home, that exemption is worth about $655 a year compared to having none.

Why this matters for any estimate you find online

Homestead exemptions are set by city council and can change any year, usually in June. Tax rates are adopted separately in the fall. That means a rate table published in the spring can be accurate on rates and out of date on exemptions by summer, and most published tables are never revisited.

We pull every figure on this page directly from the county's own system rather than from a rate sheet, and we re-verify on both cycles: June for exemption votes, September for rate adoption. Every number here is reconciled to the penny against the county's official totals. The verification date is at the bottom of your results for exactly this reason.

Sources: Flower Mound Town Council, June 16, 2025. Colleyville City Council, June 3, 2025. Rates and exemptions verified against the Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant county systems on July 17, 2026.

The number that will surprise you most is the MUD

Municipal Utility Districts, Public Improvement Districts, and water districts are the most commonly missed line on a DFW tax bill, and they are frequently the most expensive one.

On a $1,000,000 Frisco home in Collin County Water District #3, the water district costs $8,937 a year. That is larger than the Frisco ISD line on the same bill. Denton County MUD #16, Legends Ranch MUD, and Collin County MUD #6 all sit at 1.20 per $100, which is roughly $18,000 a year on a $1.5M home.

There is no public map of MUD and PID boundaries. They are created by the hundreds, they change, and no one publishes them in a usable form. This is exactly why our calculator asks you rather than guessing, and why an address-lookup calculator would give you a confident wrong answer. Newer developments almost always have one. Established neighborhoods usually do not.

What the estimate will not tell you

The most important thing to understand about any property tax estimate, including this one: your appraised value is not your purchase price.

The appraisal district sets your appraised value independently. It may be well below what you paid, particularly at higher price points where sales are not always visible to the district. Texas is a non-disclosure state, and above roughly $3M a meaningful share of transactions never appear in MLS at all.

Two other things worth knowing:

• The 10% homestead cap limits how fast your appraised value can rise each year. It is not a cap on your tax bill. If rates go up, your bill goes up.
• New owners can file for the homestead exemption in the year of purchase. You do not have to wait until January.

If you are trying to understand what a specific property will actually cost to hold, that is a conversation, not a calculator.

2025 verified tax rates

Every figure below was pulled from the Collin, Dallas, Denton, or Tarrant county systems and reconciled against their official totals. Rates are per $100 of taxable value. Last verified July 17, 2026.

County-wide entities (apply to every property in the county)

City tax rates and homestead exemptions, 2025

School district tax rates and exemptions, 2025

MUD, PID and water district rates, 2025

Rates are adopted each fall, typically in September. Cities frequently change homestead exemptions by council vote in June. This page is re-verified on both cycles.