Is there a real estate transfer tax in Texas?

What does the Texas Constitution say?

The text of Article VIII, Section 29 is short. Subsection (a) reads:

“After January 1, 2016, no law may be enacted that imposes a transfer tax on a transaction that conveys fee simple title to real property.”

The Constitution notes that the section was added on November 3, 2015, the date of the statewide constitutional amendment election. Because the ban sits in the Constitution and not in an ordinary statute, a simple bill cannot remove it. Under Article XVII, Section 1, an amendment must be proposed by two-thirds of the members of each house of the Legislature and then approved by voters.

In plain terms:

• What it covers: any transaction that conveys fee simple title, which is full ownership of land and the buildings on it. A typical home sale, where the seller deeds the house to the buyer, is exactly this kind of transaction.
• What it blocks: any new law that would tax the transfer itself, such as a tax calculated on the sale price when the deed changes hands.
• When it applies: to laws enacted after January 1, 2016.

What the ban does not cover

Subsection (b) lists four things the section does not prohibit:

The ban is also only about the transfer. It does not touch the annual property tax that every owner pays to the county, city, school district and other local units. Texas has no state property tax, but local property taxes apply every year, as the Texas Comptroller explains. For how that bill is calculated, see property tax in Texas.

What a buyer pays instead

With no transfer tax, the government charges at closing are small and fixed by law. The two main items are recording fees and the title insurance premium.

County recording fees

The county clerk records the deed and the deed of trust (the mortgage document) in the real property records. Texas Local Government Code § 118.011 sets the fees a county clerk collects for real property records filing:

The same section lets each county add other fees, either by its own choice or if the commissioners court adopts them in the budget. These include a records management and preservation fee of up to $10, a records archive fee of up to $10, a records technology and infrastructure fee of $2, and an additional real property records filing fee of up to $10. The total therefore depends on your county and on the number of pages recorded. Your county clerk publishes the exact schedule.

Example of the statutory base fee: a 10-page deed costs $5 for the first page plus 9 × $4 for the other pages, so $41 before any optional county fees. In Dallas County, the clerk charges $25 for the first page ($5 recording, $10 records preservation and $10 records archiving) and $4 for each remaining page, as of October 2026, so the same 10-page deed costs $61 there.

Title insurance premium

Title insurance protects the owner, or the lender, against problems with the ownership record, such as unpaid property taxes, forged documents or an unknown heir. The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) explains three key points:

• The rates are set. All Texas companies charge the same rates for title insurance, although other closing fees can differ.
• The cost of an owner’s policy is based on the sale price. The cost of a loan policy is based on the loan amount.
• You pay the premium once, at closing, and you can choose any licensed title company.

Because the premium is based on the price, it grows with the value of the home. It is a premium paid to an insurer, not a tax. For the details of the two policies, see title insurance in Texas and our guide to title insurance explained.

All of these charges, plus lender fees, the survey and prorated property taxes, appear on your closing statement. For the full list, see closing costs in Texas.