Property Tax Shock or Relief? What California Buyers Actually Pay in Texas

In California, Proposition 13 caps the base rate at 1% of the assessed value, and a recent buyer's total with voter-approved additions, bonds, and Mello-Roos districts typically lands between 1.1% and 1.2% [8]. In the Texas Hill Country, the combined tax-year 2025 rates run meaningfully higher [1][3][4]:

Notice what that means for a buyer. In California your taxable base is locked at the price you paid and grows at most 2% a year. In Texas your appraisal district values the property near market and starts a new buyer's base at the purchase price, with no lock [1][8]. Two people who bought the same house in the same week can have different bills forever after, because each state starts their base differently. That one structural fact drives everything else in this article [2][8].

Texas does not ask you to pay that full rate on your full value. Three mechanisms cut the bill, and each one is worth real dollars:

• The $140,000 homestead exemption. Since the 2025 tax year, a homeowner with a filed exemption removes $140,000 of appraised value from the school district maintenance and operations tax, the largest single slice of the bill [6][7]. On the Boerne ISD combined rate of $1.0109, that exemption is worth roughly $1,415 a year by itself [1]. Counties and cities may add their own exemptions on top.
• The 10% appraisal cap. With a homestead exemption in place, the appraised value used for taxes cannot jump more than 10% in a single year, even if the market soars [7]. California's 2% Prop 13 cap is tighter, but the Texas cap still protects you from a reassessment spike after a hot year.
• The protest. Texas is one of the few states where contesting your value is normal annual maintenance rather than an act of war. The deadline to protest is May 15 or 30 days after the notice, whichever is later, and a simple comparable-sales case regularly saves 3% to 8% [7]. Because the cap compounds on the protested value, this year's win keeps paying.

The order matters. File the exemption first, because the appraisal cap only applies once the exemption is active, then protest the value that remains, then watch the track run flat [7].

Let us run one realistic family through both systems. They sell a $1.2 million California home and buy a $650,000 home in Boerne, near the current 78006 median. The Texas column runs the bill two ways: without a filed exemption, and with the $140,000 homestead exemption applied to the school lines [1][6][8].

Reading the Table Honestly

The middle row is the shock Californians rarely see coming. If you have owned for ten years, your locked base can make your California bill smaller than your Texas bill on a house that is worth half as much. That is not a myth, and it is not a reason to stay. It is the predictable consequence of two different tax structures, and it is exactly why the full-budget picture matters more than the tax line alone [2][8].

The bottom row is the honest Texas number: about $890 a month with the exemption filed, before protest and before any county option. The delta between the no-exemption row and the filed row, roughly $120 a month on this house, is the price of paperwork. The one-page exemption application is worth every minute of the twenty minutes it takes [6][7].

The three counties that serve most Hill Country buyers produce meaningfully different bills on the same house, so the county you buy in is a line item, not a footnote [2][3][4]:

There is no free lunch here. Bexar County gives you urban amenities and the shortest airport commute, and it prices that into the tax bill. Comal County and Kendall County give you the Hill Country character and A-rated schools at a lower combined rate, and they ask you to trade some services and commute time in return [2][5]. The right county is a lifestyle decision first and a tax decision second, but it is worth deciding with the rate sheet in front of you rather than in the rearview mirror after closing.

The first-year bill matters, and the fifth-year bill matters more. With the homestead exemption filed, the appraisal cap holds annual growth to at most 10%, and protest usually holds real growth to far less. Two paths diverge after closing [7]:

The gap between the two columns is roughly $3,140 a year by year five, about $15,700 across the five years. That is the measurable value of 20 minutes of paperwork every spring. Californians who are used to ignoring their property tax bill entirely can take the opposite habit in Texas without any real cost, because the state built the protest process to be walked [7].

If you compare only the property tax line, the surprise is fair to call a shock, especially for long-time California owners whose Prop 13 base sits far below market. If you compare the lines that actually repeat every month, the picture flips. The same $250,000 household that loses to Texas on the property-tax line saves roughly $10,000 to $12,000 a year in California state income tax that simply does not exist in Texas [9]. The savings outweigh the tax-line delta before you even add the smaller mortgage, lower utility seasonality, and the exemption, cap, and protest on the Texas bill.

The practical playbook is short. Run the rate sheet for the exact property, not the county average, because ISD and special district boundaries move the number. File the homestead exemption the first year you are eligible, no exceptions. Protest every year after the notice arrives. And keep the total monthly budget, not the tax line, as the number you actually manage [1][6][7].