Travis County Will Now Reappraise Austin Property Every Year

The Travis Central Appraisal District board unanimously adopted its 2027-2028 reappraisal plan, the written schedule Texas law requires every appraisal district to approve every two years. The headline change is that the district will reappraise all real and personal property in Travis County every year during 2027 and 2028, rather than on the slower cycle state law allows. The plan keeps a six-year cycle for physical inspections, but pairs on-site visits with desktop reviews that use aerial and street-level imagery, creates a team dedicated to land valuation, and continues the district’s homestead exemption audits. It was built to International Association of Assessing Officers standards and expects the number of taxing units the district serves to grow from 209 to 238. For owners, the practical result is an annual value notice and an annual chance to protest, every year rather than occasionally.

Not automatically, and the answer depends on what you own. Annual reappraisal resets your market value each year, so in a rising market the assessed value can climb faster than it would on a slower cycle. But your actual tax bill is that value multiplied by the rates each taxing unit sets, and rates can move down even as values move up. For a primary residence, Texas caps the annual increase in taxable value at ten percent regardless of how far the market runs, which softens the effect. For a rental, a second home, or commercial property, there is no cap, so those owners feel the full swing. Annual reappraisal also means values can fall faster in a soft market, which occasionally works in an owner’s favor. The real change is frequency, and frequency is why the annual protest window now matters.

The homestead cap is a Texas limit that keeps the taxable value of a primary residence from rising more than ten percent in a year, even when the market value jumps far more. It only applies to a property that carries a homestead exemption, which means it must be your principal residence. A rental, a vacation home, an investment property, or anything held inside an LLC or partnership does not get the cap, so those properties are exposed to the full annual reappraisal. That distinction is the single most important thing for our clients to understand, because many of them own Austin property that is not their main home. Under an annual reappraisal cycle, the gap between a capped homestead and an uncapped investment property widens every year the market moves, which makes the protest process a genuine tool for the uncapped ones.

Texas now requires appraisal districts to verify homestead exemptions periodically to make sure only eligible owners are claiming them, and Travis County has been doing so at scale, reviewing more than 78,000 exemptions in 2026. The audit asks you to show that the property is genuinely your principal residence. If you cannot, the district can remove the exemption, and that costs you both the exemption amount and the ten percent cap on value increases at the same time. The owners most exposed are people who split time between Austin and another state, or who kept a Texas homestead after their living situation changed. Because a homestead claim is tied to residency, and residency also drives which state can tax your income, a homestead audit can open a second question you did not expect. Getting the residency position clean before an audit is far easier than defending it after.

In Texas the protest deadline is generally May 15, or 30 days after the appraisal district delivers your notice of appraised value, whichever is later. Under an annual reappraisal cycle you can expect a notice each spring, so the window becomes a recurring date rather than an occasional one. Missing it usually means living with the assessed value for the year, since the protest is how you challenge the number before it becomes final and feeds your tax bill. The protest goes to the appraisal district and, if needed, to the appraisal review board, and it is a separate track from paying the bill itself. For owners of uncapped property, walking into that window with evidence, comparable sales, condition issues, income data for a rental, is where the value of an annual cycle actually gets captured. The date is easy to miss when you live in another state, which is exactly why we track it for clients.

Yes. For clients whose Austin real estate we handle, we treat the appraisal calendar as part of the engagement. We watch for the annual value notice, flag increases that look worth protesting, confirm the homestead exemption is intact for those who qualify, and make sure the residency behind that exemption lines up with the position on the income tax return, because the two have to agree. We also coordinate the rental income and property tax reporting that flows onto your return, and for property held in an entity we keep the uncapped values and protest deadlines on the calendar. Out-of-state owners are the ones most likely to let a notice sit until the window closes, and an annual cycle multiplies the chances of that. If you own Austin property and manage it from a distance, a consultation is the right first step.