Walker County Property Tax & Sales Tax

Walker County Tax Rates - At a Glance

Walker County Current Tax Rates Summary

Tax Type	Rate	Notes
Property Tax (combined)	~1.78% of value	No single county rate - the sum of school district, city, county, and hospital district on a City of Huntsville / Huntsville ISD parcel. Representative nominal stack; typical effective rate runs about 1.18% of market value.
County's own rate	$0.457100 / $100	Walker County government portion only (M&O $0.438700 + I&S $0.018400)
Hospital district	$0.116140 / $100	Walker County Hospital District (Huntsville Memorial Hospital); levies countywide
Annual Vehicle (Car) Tax	None	Texas levies no annual value-based vehicle property tax
Sales Tax	8.25%	6.25% state + 0.5% Walker County + 1.5% City of Huntsville; groceries and most unprepared food exempt
Homestead Exemption	$140,000 school + 10% cap	Statutory school-district homestead; several county units add local-option homestead exemptions; over-65 owners get an additional $60,000 school exemption.
Due Date	January 31	Delinquent February 1; statewide protest deadline May 15

Walker County Property Tax

Walker County property tax comes in two numbers that are easy to confuse. The county's own adopted rate is $0.457100 per $100 of value for the 2025 tax year - and it is only the Walker County government's portion. Your actual bill is the sum of every overlapping taxing unit that covers your parcel: your school district, your city, the county, and the countywide hospital district. Combined, the typical total effective rate in Walker County is about 1.18% of market value - an estimate from Census ACS 2024 5-year data (median real estate taxes paid $2,669 divided by median home value $226,900). Because the mix of taxing units differs from parcel to parcel, there is no single "Walker County rate" for a full bill; the figures below are worked examples.

Walker County levies a single consolidated rate - a maintenance-and-operations rate of $0.438700 plus a debt-service rate of $0.018400, totaling $0.457100, with no separate road-and-bridge unit. What makes a Walker County bill distinctive is that a countywide Walker County Hospital District, which supports Huntsville Memorial Hospital, levies $0.116140 on parcels across the county, while there is no countywide community college district - Sam Houston State University is a state university and does not levy a local property tax. Another local quirk: the Walker County Appraisal District both appraises property and collects the tax for the county's taxing units, rather than a separate county tax assessor-collector office. That means a City of Huntsville parcel commonly stacks four taxing units: school, city, county, and hospital district.

How a typical Walker County (City of Huntsville) bill is built (taxing-unit stack)

School district City County Hospital district

City of Huntsville / Huntsville ISD parcel - adopted rates per $100 (2025 tax year)

Taxing unit	Rate /$100	Type
Huntsville ISD	$0.854800	School
City of Huntsville	$0.347500	City
Walker County	$0.457100	County
Walker County Hospital District	$0.116140	Hospital
Nominal total	~$1.775540	~1.78%

Rates from the Walker County Appraisal District 2025 tax-rate schedule. This example is for a City of Huntsville / Huntsville ISD parcel; your total depends on your city, school district, and any special district, but the hospital district applies across the whole county. Other school districts in the county include New Waverly ISD ($0.945200, the highest), Trinity ISD ($0.881200), and Richards ISD ($0.801500); the City of Riverside levies $0.142110 and the City of New Waverly levies no city property tax.

Where your property-tax dollar goes

Huntsville ISD ~48.1% City ~19.6% County ~25.7% Hospital ~6.5%

On a typical City of Huntsville / Huntsville ISD parcel, Huntsville ISD is about 48.1% of the nominal bill ($0.854800 / $1.7755 nominal total), Walker County about 25.7%, the City of Huntsville about 19.6%, and the hospital district about 6.5%. Percentages are rounded and use the nominal posted rates before any exemption - after the $140,000 school-district homestead exemption (and the local-option homestead exemptions several units grant), the taxable amount drops sharply, which is part of why the county's typical effective rate (about 1.18%) sits below the nominal stacked rate (about 1.78%).

Who appraises, bills, and collects in Walker County

• The Walker County Appraisal District sets appraised values, processes homestead exemptions, runs protests, and collects the property tax for the county's taxing units, at walkercad.org (1060 HWY 190 E, Huntsville; 936-295-0402). Pay or look up a bill at walkercad.org/pay-taxes.
• The Walker County Tax Assessor-Collector office (co.walker.tx.us) handles motor-vehicle registration and titling; property-tax collection is done by the appraisal district.

For value questions and to pay your bill, start with the Walker County Appraisal District.

Homestead exemption, the 10% cap, and key dates

If you own and occupy your home as your principal residence on January 1, you can claim a residence homestead exemption, and you generally apply through the Walker County Appraisal District. For a Huntsville ISD parcel, the statewide school-district exemption removes $140,000 from the value the school district taxes for the 2025 tax year. If the owner is 65 or older, an additional $60,000 ISD exemption applies.

Several Walker County units also grant local-option homestead and over-65 exemptions, but the exact per-unit amounts are published on the appraisal district's exemption schedule, which we did not extract in this pass. Because a percentage or fixed exemption interacts with each unit's own value, the calculator below models only the statutory $140,000 school-district homestead and treats its output as the conservative (high) end - a real Huntsville homestead bill is lower. Confirm the exact exemptions on your account with the Walker County Appraisal District.

Separately, the 10% homestead appraisal cap limits how much your homestead's appraised (taxed) value can rise to 10% per year, not counting new improvements. The cap applies to the appraised value used for your bill, not the market value the appraisal district sets, and it starts the year after you first qualify for the homestead exemption.

Key dates: payment is due January 31 and unpaid amounts become delinquent February 1. The statewide protest deadline is May 15 or 30 days after your appraisal notice is delivered, whichever is later. Texas Tax Code Section 1.06 rolls any deadline that falls on a weekend or holiday to the next business day. We were not able to extract a Walker County-specific penalty-and-interest schedule from an official source in this pass, so no penalty percentages are stated on this page.

How to protest your appraisal

Protests go to the Walker County Appraisal District, which publishes its protest procedures and deadlines and runs the property search and appeals process. File and track everything at walkercad.org. Some private firms offer to handle protests for a percentage of any tax savings; such firms exist and charge a contingency fee, but we do not cite any savings figure or success rate as fact - results vary by parcel and year.

Estimate your Walker County property tax

Sources: Walker CAD 2025 tax-rate schedule (county rate and the Huntsville-area unit rates), the Walker County Appraisal District (appraised values, exemptions, and tax collection), the Texas Comptroller (sales tax), and Census ACS 2024 5-year estimates (typical effective rate). See the tax guides for how Texas homestead, protest, and appraisal-cap rules work.

Vehicle Taxes in Texas

Unlike many states, Texas does not levy an annual value-based property tax on cars or other vehicles. There is no yearly "car tax" bill in Walker County. Instead, vehicle taxes in Texas work two ways:

• One-time motor-vehicle sales/use tax of 6.25% at purchase. For a private-party sale, the tax is charged on the greater of the actual sales price or 80% of the vehicle's Standard Presumptive Value (SPV). A vehicle received as a gift is taxed at a flat $10 instead.
• A flat annual registration fee (plus any local add-ons), which is a fixed fee, not a tax on the vehicle's value. In Walker County you register and title through the Walker County Tax Assessor-Collector.

So if you searched for a Texas car or vehicle sales tax, the answer is the one-time 6.25% charged when the vehicle is titled - there is no recurring vehicle property tax to budget for each year.

Walker County Sales Tax

The combined sales tax rate in the City of Huntsville is 8.25% - the Texas maximum. It is made up of the 6.25% state rate, a 0.5% Walker County rate, and a 1.5% City of Huntsville rate. Walker County is one of the Texas counties that does levy its own county sales tax, so the countywide rate outside a city is 6.75%. Texas law caps the total local portion at 2.0% as a shared ceiling, so once the county's 0.5% and the city's 1.5% together reach 2%, no further local rate can stack on top - which is why 8.25% is the maximum combined sales tax here.

City of Huntsville (Walker County) sales tax components

Component	Rate
Texas state rate	6.25%
Walker County	0.50%
City of Huntsville	1.50%
Combined rate	8.25%

The 2.00% local share (0.5% county + 1.5% city) is the maximum Texas allows. Outside city limits the combined rate is 6.75% (state plus the county's 0.5%). Groceries and most unprepared food are exempt from sales tax.

Real Example: a $226,900 Huntsville Home

Here is how the numbers flow on a representative $226,900 City of Huntsville / Huntsville ISD home (the county median value) with a homestead exemption (owner under 65), applying only the school-district homestead to the school unit:

• Market value: $226,900.
• Homestead exemption: the $140,000 school-district exemption drops the Huntsville ISD taxable value to $86,900. The other three units tax the full $226,900 in this simplified example.
• Stacked total: school $86,900 × 0.854800% = ~$743; city $226,900 × 0.347500% = ~$789; county $226,900 × 0.457100% = ~$1,037; hospital $226,900 × 0.116140% = ~$264.
• Estimated annual bill: about $2,832 per year.
• Monthly equivalent: about $236 per month.
• Effective rate: about 1.25% of market value in this simplified example.

How this compares to the county-wide median. The Census ACS county-wide median bill is about $2,669 (roughly 1.18% effective). This homesteaded example lands a little above that because the ACS median blends lower-value and non-city parcels. A non-homestead $226,900 parcel would pay closer to the full nominal ~1.78%, or about $4,029, while a real over-65 homestead - with the extra $60,000 school exemption and any local-option amounts - would be lower than this example.

Limitations:

• Your total varies by school district, city, and any special district covering your parcel; a New Waverly, Trinity, or rural parcel uses a different stack, though the hospital district applies across the county.
• Local-option homestead exemptions (and over-65, disability, and disabled-veteran exemptions) on the county, city, and hospital units are not modeled in the simplified example above; this example applies only the school-district homestead, so a real homesteaded bill is lower.
• Walker County's exact penalty-and-interest schedule was not available from an official source in this pass and is not stated here.
• New-construction homes are often taxed on land only in the first year, then jump once the structure is on the roll.
• This is an estimate, not a parcel-exact bill. The typical effective rate is a Census ACS estimate, not a guaranteed rate.