Austin homeowners pay over $8K in property taxes. How does that compare across Texas?

Texas is known for relatively high property taxes — driven in part by the absence of a state income tax — but the burden varies widely by city.

More than one in four of the 100 U.S. cities with the highest property tax burden are in Texas, according to a study by personal finance website SmartAsset. The analysis examined 343 cities with populations over 100,000 using 2024 U.S. Census Bureau data.

SIGN UP: Get alerts on key dates and important information about property taxes and appraisal protests.

Edinburg ranked highest among Texas cities at No. 14 nationwide. In that South Texas city, homeowners with a mortgage spend about 5.3% of their income on property taxes, with a median annual bill of $4,366.

Here’s how Texas’ largest cities compare.

People are also reading: How to protest your Travis County appraisal — and lower your property taxes

How much do Texas’ largest cities pay in property taxes?

Among the state’s biggest cities, Fort Worth ranked highest at No. 24 nationally, followed by El Paso (No. 28) and San Antonio (No. 35).

Austin ranked No. 42, with homeowners paying about 4.7% of income toward property taxes. The median annual property tax bill in Austin is $8,172 — among the highest on the list.

Other major cities include:

Dallas (No. 40): 4.7% of income

Corpus Christi (No. 114): 4.0%

{ “__type”: “thirdPartyFreeformEmbed”, “__id”: “newslettersignupinlinemodule”, “__data”: { “variant”: “floating”, “newsletterSignupName”: “PropertyTax_Inline_Castle”, “sailthruSource”: “Castle_NLSignUp_Inline_AAS_PropertyTax”, “sailthruSignupLists”: { “AAS_NL_PropertyTaxes”: 1, “Email_Master”: 1 }, “sailthruSignupListForBC”: [ “AAS_NL_PropertyTaxes” ], “leftBorderColor”: “var(–primary)”, “headlineText”: “Prepare your property tax protest yourself with trusted data to support your case.”, “labelText”: “Email”, “placeholderText”: “Email address”, “buttonText”: “Sign Up”, “disclaimerText”: “By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use (including the dispute resolution procedures) and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy.”, “dynamicLinks”: { “disclaimerText”: [ { “text”: “Terms Of Use”, “url”: “https://www.statesman.com/terms/” }, { “text”: “Privacy Policy”, “url”: “https://www.statesman.com/privacy/” } ] }, “successMessage”: “Thank you for signing up!”, “successMessageGray”: “You’ll receive updates in your inbox.” } }

Texas cities dominate property tax burden rankings

In total, 27 Texas cities ranked among the top 100 for property tax burden.

Behind Edinburg, Georgetown (No. 15), Conroe (No. 16) and Grand Prairie (No. 18) were among the highest-ranked in the state.

Closer to Austin, Round Rock (No. 86) and Georgetown (No. 15) also made the list.

At the lower end, Tyler (2.7%), Amarillo (3.2%) and Abilene (3.2%) had the smallest property tax burdens among Texas cities included in the study.

Which U.S. cities have the highest property taxes?

Nationally, Paterson, N.J. ranked No. 1, with property taxes consuming 9.8% of income.

Several Northeast cities dominated the top of the list, including Bridgeport, Conn. (7.4%) and Waterbury, Conn. (7.1%).

— San Antonio Express-News staff writer Gabriella Ybarra contributed to this report.