Texas law puts your home on two clocks at once: an annual valuation date and a reappraisal cycle that runs at least every three years.
- Texas property is valued as of January 1 every year, so your tax appraised value can change annually
- Appraisal districts must also follow a written reappraisal plan covering all property at least once every three years
- A 2025 change to the Tax Code now bars reappraisal plans from using schedules that block annual valuation compliance
- Mass appraisal means most homes are revalued from sales data, permits, and records rather than a visit
Look up your county’s current reappraisal plan, then read your notice closely. The schedule your district follows shapes what lands in your mailbox each spring.
Few property tax questions cause more confusion than this one, and the confusion makes sense, because two different rules run at the same time. So how often are homes reappraised in Texas? Your value is determined annually, while the full statutory reappraisal cycle runs on a longer schedule.
The Texas Comptroller confirms that Tax Code Section 25.18 requires appraisal districts to reappraise all property in their jurisdictions at least once every three years, and that Section 23.01 requires districts to comply with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice when using mass appraisal. Knowing how those two rules interact is the difference between assuming your value is frozen for three years and understanding that it can move every spring. If you own a home anywhere in the state, Texas property tax basics start right here.
How Often Are Homes Reappraised in Texas Under State Law?
Two answers exist, and both are correct. How often are homes reappraised in Texas? It depends on whether you are asking about your individual value or about the district’s overall work plan, because the Tax Code addresses each one separately. Homeowners often ask when homes are reassessed in Texas, using reassessment and reappraisal to mean the same thing. In Texas the operative term is reappraisal, and the figure it produces is your tax appraised value.
The January 1 Valuation Date Applies Every Year
Texas appraises all taxable property at its market value as of January 1 of each tax year. That figure becomes your tax appraised value, and it is the number a protest challenges.
Two things follow from that. First, January 1 is a measuring date, not a schedule. It tells the district which day to value your home as of, and it says nothing about how often the district has to do that work. Second, because state law asks for a January 1 value every single year, your number is open to change every single year. Your district is not required to land on the same figure twice in a row, and in most counties it does not.
So where does the three-year rule come in?
What the Three-Year Reappraisal Rule Actually Requires
The three-year rule governs the district’s own workload, not your value.
Each appraisal district’s board of directors adopts a written reappraisal plan, and that plan spells out the appraisal district valuation cycle your county follows. The plan covers the groundwork behind every value in the county: confirming which properties exist, updating characteristics like square footage and condition, defining market areas, building the valuation models, and reviewing the results. State law requires that groundwork to reach every property at least once every three years.
It helps to think of these as two separate jobs. Refreshing the underlying property data is the job with the three-year floor. Producing a January 1 value is the job that happens annually. A district can, and usually does, produce a new value for your home in years when it is not doing the deeper data refresh, because it still has fresh sales and market information to work from. The annual home appraisal in Texas carries on either way.
Three years is a floor, not a target. Most districts in populated counties review values every year. Boards develop these plans biennially and must finally approve them by September 15 of each even-numbered year, which means the plans covering 2027 and 2028 are being finalized this month. Texas property reappraisal schedules are public documents, so yours is worth pulling up on your district’s website.
The practical takeaway: do not assume your value is locked for three years. It is not.
What Changed About Texas Property Reappraisal in 2026?
The gap between those two rules created a real dispute, and the Legislature closed part of it. Senate Bill 973, effective September 1, 2025, amended the Tax Code so that a reappraisal plan may not include a standard or timeline that prevents the chief appraiser from appraising property as necessary to comply with the January 1 market value requirement. In plain terms, a district cannot use its own plan as a reason to skip valuing your property.
The dispute that prompted the change is still unfolding. The Tarrant Appraisal District moved residential property to a two-year appraisal district valuation cycle and voted in 2025 to continue it, with increases capped at 5% per cycle. In June 2026, board members discussed undoing the reappraisal freeze roughly a month after it became public that 190,000 to 200,000 homeowners potentially received overvalued property tax bills. No action was taken. That is why how often homes are reappraised in Texas can look different from one county to the next. State law sets a floor, and your county’s plan fills in everything above it.
One more 2026 item matters if you own property beyond a primary residence. The 20% circuit breaker limitation on non-homestead real property is written to expire December 31, 2026. Unless the Legislature extends it, rentals and second homes lose that cushion beginning with the 2027 tax year.
What Does a Reappraisal Actually Involve?
Texas property reappraisal is a data exercise, not a home inspection. The annual home appraisal in Texas runs on statistical models rather than house calls. Districts use mass appraisal, which means they build models for defined market areas and apply them to thousands of properties at once. Sales records, deed filings, building permits, aerial imagery, land-based photographs, surveys, maps, and property sketches all feed the district’s process.
That is why “nobody came to my house” is not evidence of an error. The Tax Code expressly allows districts to identify properties through physical inspection or by other reliable means. When field staff do go out, they measure and observe from the outside. They are documenting square footage, condition, and exterior characteristics, not touring your kitchen.
This is also why interior remodeling generally does not move your number. Refinishing a bathroom or replacing countertops is invisible to a mass appraisal model. What does change the picture is added square footage or a permanent improvement: a room addition, an in-ground pool, a garage conversion, or a detached garage. Major permitted work can also prompt a records update, since permits are one of the data sources districts monitor.
Why Did My Tax Appraised Value Change This Year?
If you have ever wondered when homes are reassessed in Texas, the honest answer is that the trigger is the calendar rather than any single event at your address. Several forces can move your figure, sometimes together. The most common are:
- Neighborhood market movement. Statewide averages hide enormous local variation. The Texas Real Estate Research Center’s 2026 Texas real estate forecast projects a 1.3% increase in the statewide median home price this year, landing near $334,000, while individual submarkets move well outside that average in both directions.
- New closed sales data. Districts recalibrate their models as recent sales come in. A cluster of strong sales in your subdivision can lift an entire market area.
- Added square footage or permanent improvements. These add value on top of any market change.
- Updated property characteristics. A permit, a re-measure, or a records update can revise condition, effective age, or improvement details.
- Correction of earlier information. If your district previously carried an inaccurate detail about your home, fixing it can move the number in either direction.
- Reaching your district’s scheduled reappraisal year. In counties running a multi-year cycle, several years of market movement can arrive in a single notice.
Notice what is absent from that list. January 1 is the date your value is measured as of. It is a snapshot date, not a reason your value rose.
Does a Reappraisal Mean Your Property Taxes Will Increase?
Not automatically, and not proportionally. Your tax appraised value is the starting figure. Exemptions come off it to produce your taxable value, and each local taxing entity then applies its own rate. The factors your property taxes are based on include all three inputs, and rates are not adopted until September and October, months after values are settled.
Exemption levels matter here too. Texas voters approved Proposition 13 in November 2025, raising the school district residence homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000, and the increase applies to tax years beginning January 1, 2025. For most homeowners, a bill still rises when the tax appraised value rises, just rarely dollar for dollar. In years when exemption growth or local rate cuts outpace a value increase, a bill can hold flat or even fall. Our breakdown of the 2025 propositions walks through how the amounts apply.
How Does the Homestead Cap Affect Reappraisal?
The 10% homestead limitation does not stop a reappraisal. Your district can still raise your tax appraised value by whatever the market supports. What the cap limits is how fast the taxable side climbs once you have an active homestead exemption and a full qualifying base year behind you. Because partial years do not count, a recent buyer typically is not protected until the third calendar year of ownership. For long-tenured homesteaders, the taxable figure can sit well below the tax appraised value for years. Our guide to the 10% homestead exemption cap covers the mechanics in full.
What Should You Do When Your Home Is Reappraised?
Your Notice of Appraised Value arrives by April 1 for homesteaded single-family residences and by May 1 for other property. Districts are not required to send one when the increase is $1,000 or less, so no notice does not mean no change, and your right to file holds either way.
Most counties label the figure you would protest as Market Value, with Net Appraised Value and a per-entity Taxable Value table below it. That Market Value line is the tax appraised value discussed throughout this article, and it is the number your protest addresses.
Two things belong on your protest radar:
- Compare the number against closed sales. Look at homes that actually sold in the 12 months preceding January 1 of the tax year. Because Texas does not require sale prices to be disclosed publicly, verified closed sales carry weight at a hearing where estimates from general real estate websites do not.
- Note your filing window. Our step-by-step protest guide covers the May 15 deadline, the 30-day alternative when a notice arrives late, and the counties that expect evidence at the time of filing.
Whatever that comparison shows, filing every year is the right call. A protest is how you test the number, and you cannot know whether your tax appraised value is fair without running the process.
Two other items are worth handling in the same sitting, though neither one is a reason to protest and neither belongs in your protest preparation. If your square footage, room count, or listed features are wrong, that correction goes directly to the CAD as a separate administrative matter, and the district may need to verify the change or re-measure before updating its records. Likewise, exemption applications and any county request to confirm your eligibility are handled directly with the CAD. Both are worth doing, and both sit outside the protest process entirely.
Can You Protest a Reappraised Property Value in Texas?
Yes. A protest challenges the tax appraised value on one of two grounds: that the value is too high, or that your property is unequally appraised compared with similar properties under the equal and uniform standard in Tax Code Section 41.43. Equity comparisons require proper adjustments for the many characteristics that differ between homes, which is why casually comparing your figure to a neighbor’s does not hold up.
Protesting annually is worthwhile regardless of whether this year’s number looks reasonable to you. Every year you argue the figure down, you lower the baseline your district builds from next year. Our overview of reasons Texans should protest makes the case for filing every spring.
If you would rather hand the work to someone else, the thing worth evaluating is whether the work actually gets done on your property, every year, by licensed, local property tax professionals who know your county’s market areas and hearing practices. Arrangements that only pay off when a reduction is found create an incentive to work the promising files and quietly skip the rest, which leaves you with no answer at all in the years your data looks thin.
A full protest carried through the entire process is the only way to learn whether your tax appraised value was fair. Keep in mind, too, that no company can legally promise a specific reduction, and any firm making that kind of guarantee is offering something the law does not allow.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often are homes reappraised in Texas?
Property is valued as of January 1 every year, and districts must complete full reappraisal activities for all property at least once every three years. Most districts in populated counties do this work annually.
Does Texas require property to be reappraised every three years?
Three years is the floor for the reappraisal plan, not a ceiling on how often values change. Since September 2025, a plan cannot include a timeline that blocks the chief appraiser from meeting the annual January 1 valuation requirement.
Can my tax appraised value change every year?
Yes. No rule prevents an annual change, and in most counties values are reviewed and updated each year.
Does an appraiser have to visit my house?
No. Districts may identify and value property through deeds, aerial and land-based photographs, surveys, maps, sketches, and market data. Field staff who do visit work from the exterior.
Why did my value increase if I made no improvements?
Market area recalibration is the usual reason. New closed sales nearby, updated records, or your county reaching its scheduled reappraisal year can all move your number without anything changing at your address.
When are homes reassessed in Texas after a sale?
A sale does not trigger a special reappraisal, and Texas does not reset your value to your purchase price. Your property is valued as of January 1 alongside everything else in your market area, though a recent closing document can be useful evidence.
Does a higher tax appraised value always mean a higher bill?
Usually, but rarely dollar for dollar. Exemptions, appraisal limitations, and locally adopted tax rates all sit between the value and the bill. Our guide to understanding your Texas property tax bill walks through the full calculation.
Get Ahead of Next Spring’s Notice
Now that you know how often homes are reappraised in Texas, the useful move is to stop treating your notice as a settled number. Pull your county’s newly approved reappraisal plan, find out whether your district runs an annual or multi-year appraisal district valuation cycle, and start tracking closed sales in your neighborhood before January 1 arrives.
If your county has been carrying stale values, the catch-up year can be a big one. Our licensed professionals handle that tracking remotely and carry a full protest through the entire process on every property we represent, every single year. If you would rather not track your annual home appraisal in Texas yourself, get started with Home Tax Shield today.