Harris County, Texas Property Tax Protest
Work out how far your assessment sits above comparable sales, what a reduction would save at your local rate, and what each of the three routes to it costs — filing yourself, a flat-fee service, or a contingency service. Every county deadline is cited to the authority that sets it.
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Estimate only — not legal advice. This is the published math for Harris County assessment appeals, shown as a range. Your actual outcome depends on facts, evidence, and decisions this page cannot see.
Protest deadline in Harris County
HCAD states it this way: the protest deadline is May 15, unless that falls on a weekend or holiday, in which case it is the next business day. You can file until May 15, or 30 days after the date your notice of appraised value was mailed, whichever is later. HCAD adds an operational gloss with no statutory counterpart — if the district does not mail a required notice on or before April 15, the deadline is 30 days after the date printed on the notice. That is arithmetically consistent with §41.44(a)(1) rather than a separate rule.
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The rule
Enter your notice date
HCAD states it this way: the protest deadline is May 15, unless that falls on a weekend or holiday, in which case it is the next business day. You can file until May 15, or 30 days after the date your notice of appraised value was mailed, whichever is later. HCAD adds an operational gloss with no statutory counterpart — if the district does not mail a required notice on or before April 15, the deadline is 30 days after the date printed on the notice. That is arithmetically consistent with §41.44(a)(1) rather than a separate rule. Enter the date on your notice to resolve which applies.
Evidence, in this county: HCAD publishes no owner-side upload deadline: evidence is handed over at check-in. Agents have until noon for morning dockets and 5:30 pm for afternoon dockets to correct omissions. Electronic evidence must be left on CD or USB in PDF form — email is refused. On the district's side the board's rules restate §41.67(d) exactly: information you previously requested and did not receive at least 14 days before the hearing may not be used at it.
Where it goes
- Assessing authority
- Harris Central Appraisal District ↗
- Hearing body
- the Appraisal Review Board (enlarged beyond three members, as Tex. Tax Code §6.41(b-2) requires in a county of 1.2 million or more)
- File online
- Their own portal ↗
- County taxing unit’s own rate per $100Not your total — see the note below.
- 0.3810
0.380960 is the Harris County taxing unit's own 2025 rate per $100, compiled by the Comptroller under Tex. Tax Code §5.091 and matching HCAD's own jurisdictions table exactly. It is a floor, not your total: the flood control district, port authority, hospital district, department of education, your city and your school district all levy on top of it, and which of them apply depends on where the parcel sits. No Texas authority publishes a single combined rate, so none is shown here. Source ↗
The authority above is the one that publishes this deadline, and its instructions govern. Most jurisdictions require their own form or portal — a letter alone may not open a protest.
Check whether you are over-assessed with the assessment calculator, see the rest of Texas’s appeal procedure, then organise the evidence with the letter generator.
Verified 2026-08-03 against Harris Central Appraisal District — protest FAQ, with the Appraisal Review Board 2026 Hearings Rules and Procedures (adopted March 6, 2026) for the evidence rules (effective 2026-03-06)
Verified 2026-08-03 against Texas Tax Code ch. 41 (Local Review) §41.44, §41.45, §41.461, §41.66, §41.67; ch. 6 §6.41; ch. 1 §1.06 as amended by Acts 2025, 89th Leg., R.S., ch. 119 (H.B. 1392) eff. 2026-01-01, and §1.07(c); ch. 41A and ch. 42 for the appeal routes; with Comptroller Publication 96-295 (rev. January 2026) for the published procedure (effective 2026-01-01)
Source of record
- USA.gov — State and local taxes ↗Federal
- Harris Central Appraisal District — protest FAQ, with the Appraisal Review Board 2026 Hearings Rules and Procedures (adopted March 6, 2026) for the evidence rules ↗County assessing authority
- Texas Tax Code ch. 41 (Local Review) §41.44, §41.45, §41.461, §41.66, §41.67; ch. 6 §6.41; ch. 1 §1.06 as amended by Acts 2025, 89th Leg., R.S., ch. 119 (H.B. 1392) eff. 2026-01-01, and §1.07(c); ch. 41A and ch. 42 for the appeal routes; with Comptroller Publication 96-295 (rev. January 2026) for the published procedure ↗State legislature
Run it against the official tool: HCAD Electronic Filing and Notice System (owners.hcad.org) ↗
🎓 Understand this tool
What it is
A calculator for the two numbers an assessment appeal actually turns on: how far your assessed value sits above comparable sales, and what a reduction would be worth at your local rate. It also puts the published cost of each route to that reduction beside the saving it would produce.
How it works
The comparison uses the MEDIAN of the comparable sales you enter rather than the average, because comparable sales are a small sample and one unusual transaction — a teardown, a family transfer, a distressed sale — drags an average badly. Assessing authorities reason in medians for the same reason. Where a state assesses at a fraction of market value rather than the whole, the assessed figure is divided by that ratio first so the two sides of the comparison are measured the same way. The saving is the reduction multiplied by the combined rate per hundred dollars of value, which is the form counties publish rates in.
Getting the most from it
- Take the assessed value and the rate straight off your notice and your bill — not from memory.
- Enter several recent sales of genuinely similar properties nearby. Three is a realistic minimum; one comparison is easy to dismiss.
- Leave out distressed sales, family transfers and teardowns. Including one weakens the rest of the list rather than lengthening it.
- Check your county deadline before doing anything else. A window that has closed ends the appeal whatever the numbers say.
Reading your result
A gap under about five percent is usually treated as within tolerance — valuation is approximate by design, and authorities expect to be roughly rather than exactly right. A larger gap is the argument, but it is an argument you still have to make with evidence. The saving figure assumes the reduction is granted in full, which is why it is shown as a range: meeting halfway is a common outcome.
What it can't tell you
This cannot tell you whether your comparables are genuinely comparable, whether your county assesses the way you think it does, how a particular review board tends to decide, or whether an appeal risks drawing attention to something else about the property. It does not file anything, and it is not a valuation. A licensed appraiser values property; a lawyer advises on appeals.
Frequently asked questions
Compare the assessed value against recent sales of genuinely similar properties nearby. If the assessment sits meaningfully above the median of those sales, that gap is the argument. A difference of a few percent is usually treated as within tolerance — valuation is approximate by design.
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