On Election Day, the city of Austin will ask voters to approve a massive 20% tax rate hike that many worry will spur further economic hardship, force families to flee, and grow government unnecessarily.
Austin’s extraordinary ask—which appears to be the city’s largest-ever proposed tax increase—raises an obvious question: How much do Austinites currently pay in property taxes?
To get an answer, let’s turn to Travis County’s Fiscal Year 2026 Budget in Brief, which provides a helpful graphic depicting the average area homeowner’s expected tax bill for the current fiscal year. What it reveals is that Austinites pay a lot of taxes!
On pg. 2 of the hyperlinked document, county officials estimate that the average taxable homestead in Travis County carries a value of $515,213. On the basis of this amount, the average homeowner’s tax bill has soared to $10,823 this year, which is up from $10,356 last year, $9,261 in 2022, and $7,167 in 2017. The county’s 2026 estimate assumes that voters will approve the city’s tax rate election.
Of the various taxing units that impose a property tax burden, the largest entities are: Austin ISD ($4,663); the city of Austin ($2,957); Travis County ($1,936); Austin Community College ($659); and Central Health ($608).
Source: Travis County’s Fiscal Year 2026 Budget in Brief
What role, if any, this bit of tax detail plays in voters’ upcoming decision is yet to be seen. But one thing is clear either way—Travis County homeowners are not undertaxed by any stretch of the imagination!
