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Texas keeps sale prices secret, and it doesn’t matter, because you can argue unequal appraisal from public assessed values.
The law and the data both work here. Texas is a non-disclosure state, so comparable sale prices aren’t public. But Tax Code 41.43(b)(3) lets you win by showing your appraised value exceeds the median appraised value of a reasonable number of comparable properties, and those appraised values are public. Texas is also the single biggest appeal market in the country at roughly 3 million protests a year.
So Texas gives you a ground that runs on published assessed values rather than on sale prices. You're not showing what your house would sell for. You're showing that homes genuinely like yours are assessed lower than yours is, using numbers the county already publishes.
Now that matters more than it sounds, because it means a state keeping sale prices private doesn't stop you. Illinois, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Kansas, Massachusetts and DC all have some version of it, and honestly it's usually the stronger argument even where sale prices are public.
May 15 or 30 days after your notice, whichever is later.
Miss it and you generally wait a year, so honestly the date matters more than the paperwork does.
And wherever you are, the single most useful thing you can actually do today is go find your assessment notice and read the date printed on it. That's what starts your clock, it's usually a much shorter window than people expect, and there's no getting it back once it's gone.
First, look up your own record. Every Texas county has an appraisal district, like the Harris Central Appraisal District or the Travis Central Appraisal District. Look up your home on its website and check the square footage, the year built, the condition and the features. If it's recorded as bigger or newer than it really is, it's probably valued too high, and honestly that's the easiest fix there is.
Next, know where to file. You file a protest with your appraisal district, not with the state. The Comptroller's protest form is 50-132, and most districts'll also let you file online. Most protests start with an informal meeting with one of the district's appraisers, and a lot of them pretty much settle right there. If it doesn't settle, you get a hearing in front of the Appraisal Review Board, which is a panel of local residents.
Then bring the evidence that wins here. Texas keeps sale prices private, so the strongest argument usually isn't what homes sold for at all. Under Tax Code 41.43(b)(3) you can win by showing your appraised value is higher than the median appraised value of a reasonable number of comparable homes, and those appraised values are public on the district's website. You're also entitled to a copy of the evidence the district's planning to use at your hearing, so it's really worth asking for it before you go.
Also, check your exemptions. The homestead exemption takes $140,000 off your home's value for school district taxes, and homeowners 65 or older or disabled get another $60,000 off. You only apply once, with Form 50-114 at your appraisal district, and the general deadline's before May 1.
Worth knowing before you pay anyone: every large Texas firm we checked, Ownwell, O'Connor, Home Tax Shield and Texas Tax Protest, charges nothing up front and takes a share of your savings instead. That’s an easier yes than paying in advance, and you should compare.
We only turn a state on once we've read its appeal rules and its actual board decisions, because that's how we make sure what we tell you is right and not generic. It takes a few days per state, and honestly it's the reason our answers are worth anything.
In the meantime our free check runs in parts of Illinois, Washington, Ohio, Georgia, Colorado, North Carolina and Oregon, and in every town in New Jersey. If you leave your email on the check page, we'll write to you the day Texas goes live, and we won't email you before that.
We've screened all fifty states and DC on the same two questions. Does winning a lower market value actually lower your bill, or is there a cap sitting in between? And can you even put the evidence together from public records?
This comes from our own fifty-state screen, where we checked each state's cap, whether sale prices are public, whether there's an argument based on assessed values, and how many appeals actually get filed. Where we've quoted an appeal count, it's from the state or county that published it. If you spot an error, please write to hello@propertytaxbuddy.com and we'll correct it and say what changed.