Your Tarrant County Tax Statement, Your Escrow, and What Changes in 2027

The statement is the bill you can see. The escrow analysis is where it lands. And if the house is a rental, the line that matters most is not on the statement at all.

Every October the same envelope shows up and gets the same thirty seconds. People read the big number, wince or shrug, and put it on the counter. The number is not the problem. The problem is the three things the number sets in motion over the next four months: a payment deadline with a Sunday in it, a letter from the mortgage servicer that resets the monthly payment, and, for anyone who owns a rental in Tarrant County, an appraisal cap that is scheduled to run out on December 31, 2026.

As of October 2026, the Tarrant County Tax Office says 2026 statements begin mailing by mid-October, after the county's conversion to a new online system (Tarrant County Tax Office notice, read September 21, 2026). The rates on that statement were adopted in August and September. Fort Worth's is $0.70565 per $100 of value. Saginaw's is $0.586649. Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD's is $1.2857 (Tarrant County entity rate portal, 2026 tax rates per $100 valuation, read October 13, 2026). Below is what the statement has to tell you, what those rates mean in dollars, how the escrow rule turns the bill into a payment, and the part for landlords.

This is general information from a property manager, not legal or tax advice.

What does my Tarrant County tax statement have to show me?

More than most people read. Texas Tax Code Section 31.01(c) says the bill, or a separate statement with it, must identify the property, "state the appraised value, assessed value, and taxable value of the property," state "the type and amount of any partial exemption," state "the total tax rate for the unit," state "the amount of tax due, the due date, and the delinquency date," explain any split-payment option, and "state the rates of penalty and interest imposed for delinquent payment."

Three of those lines are worth a real look before you pay.

• The values. Market value, appraised value, and taxable value are three different numbers, and the statement's "assessed value" is the appraised value at 100 percent (Tax Code 26.02). The gap between market and appraised is the cap doing its work: no more than 10% a year plus new improvements on a homestead, 20% on a qualifying rental this year. The gap between appraised and taxable is your exemptions. If market and appraised match on a house you have owned for years, the cap did not have to do anything this year: the increase, whatever it was, stayed inside the cap. If they differ a lot, you are being eased into a higher number, not spared it.
• The exemptions. A rental usually shows none, and never a homestead exemption. A house you moved out of and rented should not show a homestead exemption, and if it still does, that is a problem for you, not a gift: we covered the May 1 notice requirement and the back-tax exposure in our homestead post.
• The rate for each unit. The statement lists every taxing unit separately. That is the only place most owners ever see that their house is paying several different governments at once.

When is it due, and what happens on February 1?

Section 31.02(a): taxes "are due on receipt of the tax bill" and become delinquent "if not paid before February 1 of the year following the year in which imposed." The Tax Office puts it as a postmark rule: payments must be postmarked by January 31 (Tarrant County Tax Office FAQ, read October 13, 2026).

This year has a wrinkle. January 31, 2027 is a Sunday. Under Tax Code Section 1.06, a deadline that falls on a weekend moves to the next business day, so a payment made Monday, February 1, 2027 is timely, and delinquency starts February 2. Do not plan on it. Plan on the Friday before.

Two more lines from the same FAQ. First, the half-payment option: "pay the first half by November 30 and mark the payment as 'Half Payment'," and the second half by June 30 of the following year, "with no penalty and interest." (The statute behind it is Section 31.03, and it only applies where the taxing unit has adopted it.) Second, the one that catches out-of-state owners every year: "Failure to receive a property tax statement does not waive penalty and interest." If the account carries the wrong mailing address, the county's position is that it was still your bill.

How much did the rate actually change?

The county's entity portal lists the adopted 2026 rates per $100 of taxable value. Here are the ones that cover most of the houses we manage in Fort Worth, Saginaw, and 76179 (Tarrant County entity portal, 2026 tax rates per $100 valuation, read October 13, 2026):

• Tarrant County: $0.186000
• Tarrant County Hospital District (JPS): $0.159000
• Tarrant County College: $0.120000
• City of Fort Worth: $0.705650 (was $0.670000)
• City of Saginaw: $0.586649
• Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD: $1.285700 (subject to the voter-approval election on November 3, 2026)
• Keller ISD: $1.085200

Fort Worth adopted its budget and rate on September 15, 2026, on an 11 to 0 vote. The city's own page says the budget "will raise more revenue from property taxes than last year's budget by an amount of $39,728,860, which is a 4.98 percent increase" (City of Fort Worth, FY2027 budget page, read October 13, 2026). The sentence the Tax Code makes the city print in the largest type on the page: the rate "will effectively be raised by 4.01 percent and will raise more taxes for maintenance and operations on a $100,000 home by approximately $21.54." Saginaw's version of the same sentence says 4.93 percent and $29.45 (City of Saginaw, Notice of Adopted 2026 Tax Rate, August 2026).

Read those two numbers for what they are. "$21.54 on a $100,000 home" is the city's statutory way of describing the operations side of the rate. It is not your bill. Your bill is your taxable value times every rate on the list above, and on a $350,000 house in Fort Worth inside Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD, the city, county, hospital district, college, and school district together are the biggest single check most owners write all year, with or without a mortgage company writing it for them.

Why will my mortgage payment go up after the tax bill is paid?

This is the part the statement does not explain, because the statement is from the county and the payment is from your servicer.

If your loan has an escrow account, you do not pay the tax bill. You pay a twelfth of last year's estimate every month, and the servicer pays the county. Federal rule 12 CFR 1024.17 governs how that account is run, and three of its lines decide what the next payment looks like. One thing first: the escrow year is not the calendar year. Section 1024.17(b) runs the computation year from the borrower's initial payment date, so the reset letter lands at a different month for every loan, usually within a few months of the servicer paying the bill (eCFR, current as of October 8, 2026):

• There is an annual reset. Section 1024.17(c)(3): "the servicer must conduct an escrow account analysis at the completion of the escrow account computation year to determine the borrower's monthly escrow account payments for the next computation year." Under subsection (i) you get the annual statement within 30 days of the end of that year, as long as the loan is not more than 30 days overdue, in foreclosure, or in bankruptcy.
• There is a cushion, and it has a ceiling. Section 1024.17(c)(1)(ii): the servicer "may add an amount to maintain a cushion no greater than one-sixth (1/6) of the estimated total annual payments from the escrow account." Two months of taxes and insurance, no more. The cushion is a balance the account is allowed to hold, not a separate monthly charge; it sits inside the target balance the servicer measures the account against.
• A shortage gets spread, not forgiven. Section 1024.17(f)(3)(ii): if the account is short by one month's escrow payment or more, the servicer "may require the borrower to repay the shortage in equal monthly payments over at least a 12-month period." Under one month, the servicer can ask for it within 30 days or spread it the same way.

Put those together and the shape of the letter is predictable. The county's bill came in higher than the servicer estimated last year. The servicer paid it anyway, which left the account below its target balance (the balance that already includes the cushion). The new monthly amount is next year's higher bill divided by twelve, plus the shortage if the servicer collects it, spread over at least twelve months (the rule also lets a servicer leave a shortage alone). Two increases in one payment, and the only new tax is the first one. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's plain version: "if your monthly mortgage payment includes the amount you have to pay into your escrow account, then your payment will also go up or down if your taxes or premiums go up or down" (CFPB, Why did my monthly mortgage payment go up or change?, page last modified May 21, 2026).

The other direction exists too. Section 1024.17(f)(2)(i): a surplus of $50 or more must be refunded "within 30 days from the date of the analysis," as long as the loan is current. If your value fell or an exemption kicked in, that check is yours, not a credit the servicer gets to keep.

What to do with the statement, then, is simple. Compare the county's number to the "projected taxes" line on last year's escrow statement. If the county is higher, you already know what the next escrow letter says. Build the shortage into the plan now, before the analysis, instead of discovering it as a payment change.

The landlord line: the 20% cap expires December 31, 2026

For a homestead, the appraisal cap is permanent: value for tax purposes can rise no more than 10% a year. For a rental, the cap is new, bigger, and temporary. Texas Tax Code Section 23.231 limits the annual increase in the appraised value of real property other than a residence homestead to 20% of the prior year's appraised value, plus new improvements. Then subsection (k), in full: "This section expires December 31, 2026" (Texas Tax Code 23.231, read October 13, 2026).

The Tarrant Appraisal District says the same thing from its side. "The Texas Legislature has currently only authorized the circuit breaker limitation for the 2024, 2025, and 2026 tax years." For 2026, it applies to real property valued at $5,320,000 or less, you must have owned the property for a full calendar year, a homestead is not eligible, and no application is required; the district applies it automatically (Tarrant Appraisal District, circuit breaker limitation pages, March 31 and August 25, 2026). The Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M flagged the expiry in July as one of the things holding effective tax rates down this year (TRERC, The Push and Pull of Texas Property Taxes, July 27, 2026).

What it means on a rental's 2027 appraisal: unless the Legislature extends the section, there is no cap. The 90th Legislature convenes in January 2027, before 2027 rolls certify in July, so an extension is possible. Watch it. Do not plan on it. If your rental's market value has been running ahead of its assessed value for two years, the 2027 notice is where the two catch up, and 2027 is the statement your tenant's rent has to cover.

The cap is the big line. These are the small ones that also move on a rental in the next year, each of them an owner's bill only while the house is empty or where the lease puts it on the owner:

• Fort Worth garbage. The city's residential solid waste rate for a 96-gallon cart is $30.90 a month (City of Fort Worth news release, September 29, 2026). Fort Worth also says water and wastewater rates rise January 1, 2027, by "$1.32" a month for the average residential customer.
• Electric delivery. Oncor's residential delivery charges on a 1,000 kWh month total $64.36 as of October 1, 2026, under the base rates the Public Utility Commission approved on April 17, 2026 (PUCT transmission and distribution rate report, October 1, 2026). Oncor's separate tracker rates took effect on a temporary basis for bills from October 4, 2026 (PUC Docket 59249, Oncor filing of August 20, 2026). On most single-family leases the tenant holds this account; the owner holds it between tenants.
• Gas. Atmos Energy Mid-Tex's residential customer charge is $24.40 a month for bills rendered on or after October 1, 2026 (Atmos Mid-Tex Rate R tariff sheet, effective October 1, 2026). Same rule: tenant's account during the lease, owner's between.
• Insurance. The Texas Department of Insurance's statewide average homeowners rate changes were 21.1% in 2023, 18.7% in 2024, and 4.3% in 2025 (TDI, January 22, 2026). Those figures cover owner-occupied, tenant, and condo policies, not landlord policies, so treat them as the weather, not your forecast. TDI's market page shows filed rate requests for September 2026 running negative. The insurance line, for now, has stopped climbing. The tax line has not.

Where we stand

On every rental we manage, the statement gets read the day it lands: values against last year's, exemptions against what should be there, mailing address against the owner's actual address. We put the escrow-reset conversation in front of owners in October, not when the servicer's letter lands. And we flag the end of the 20% cap now, so a value jump on next spring's notice is not a surprise, it is a line in a budget the owner already has.

If you own a house in Fort Worth, Saginaw, 76179, or anywhere in Tarrant County and want the statement, the escrow letter, and the 2027 question walked through for your actual address, ask us.

Andrew Chavis · Century 21 Alliance Properties · License #0845090 · IABS Notice · Consumer Protection Notice. This article is general information from a property manager and is not legal or tax advice. It is not written by an attorney or a tax professional, it does not create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing here is a recommendation about how to handle your own loan, escrow, or tax account; consult a Texas attorney and a tax preparer about your own situation. Tax rates are the adopted 2026 rates as posted on the Tarrant County entity portal, read October 13, 2026; utility figures are from the cited city, PUCT, and tariff pages on the dates shown. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed. View sources and disclaimers.