Property Tax in Ector County, Texas

What the Ector County numbers mean

The median is the midpoint of the county's actual bills: half of Ector County homeowners pay more than $2,438 a year and half pay less. The exact bill for any one home depends on its assessed value, exemptions, and which school, municipal and special districts cover it.

Set against the median home value of $190,500, the median bill works out to a derived effective rate of 1.28%. That rate is an estimate computed from the two medians — no county publishes a rate calculated this way — but it adjusts for home prices, which makes comparisons between counties more meaningful.

The key figures for Ector County

For context, the Texas medians are $4,111 of tax on $260,400 of value, and the US medians are $2,969 on $303,400. *Derived figures are estimates from Census medians, not official rates.

Ector County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Texas: #71 of 250 counties
• Median home value rank in Texas: #73 of 250
• Population rank in Texas: #30 of 250 (163,206 residents)
• Population density rank: #34 of 250 (182 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Texas: #150 of 250 (897 sq mi, 0.3% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $203; per $1,000 of home value: $1.28

How Ector County compares

The median tax bill in Ector County is about 41% lower than the state median ($4,111 for Texas) and about 18% lower than the US median ($2,969 nationally). By median taxes paid, the county ranks #71 out of 250 Texas counties with published Census data — 70 counties in the state have a higher median bill.

Comparisons cut both ways: a county can have a modest rate but high bills because homes are expensive, or a high rate but modest bills because homes are cheaper. Ector County's derived rate of 1.28% sits above the derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Ector County: the median bill works out to about $203 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $1,280 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 163,206 people — the #30 most populous county in Texas, spread over 897 square miles, a density of about 182 people per square mile. Its median home value, $190,500, ranks #73 among the state's 250 counties with data.

Zooming out: of 3133 counties nationwide with published Census figures, only 735 record a higher median tax bill than Ector County — it sits in the top 23% nationally. The county holds roughly 0.6% of Texas's people. Its homes are worth less than the state norm (median $190,500 versus $260,400), and a decade at the derived rate of 1.28% adds up to about 12.80% of the median home's value in tax. The cheapest county in the state, Crockett County, medians $466 — $1,972 less than Ector County per year.

Counties nearest Ector County in the Texas ranking

Ector County and its population peers

Population is a useful lens on these figures, so the table below sets Ector County beside the counties closest to it in population anywhere in the country — communities of a similar scale operating under different state and local tax systems. Ranked by median tax paid within this peer group of 9, Ector County's $2,438 bill is #5 of 9.

The closest population match is Olmsted County, Minnesota (163,425 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $3,314 on a median home value of $304,500 — $876 less than Ector County pays.

Staying within Texas, the counties nearest Ector County by population are Comal County (174,552 residents, median tax $4,827 on a median value of $398,800); Midland County (171,496 residents, median tax $3,697 on a median value of $293,000); Kaufman County (160,718 residents, median tax $5,036 on a median value of $290,800); Parker County (158,079 residents, median tax $4,978 on a median value of $343,600). The spread in their median bills — all under the same state framework — shows how much of the property tax burden is decided county by county and district by district.

How the tax is worked out

Think of the final bill as three ingredients: the assessed value of the property, the exemptions subtracted from it, and the combined rate of every district the property sits in. Ector County's medians imply a derived rate of 1.28%; applied illustratively, a $400,000 home would owe about $5,120 a year, or around $427 a month spread evenly. Individual properties depart from the illustration in both directions.

Illustrative bills in Ector County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 1.28% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Ector County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 1.58% and the US figure of 0.98%:

Illustration only: real bills are computed from the assessed value, exemptions, and the combined rates of the property's actual taxing districts.

Checking your assessment in Ector County

If your bill looks wrong, work through these steps:

1. Get your property record card from the assessor and check the basics — living area, lot size, bedrooms, condition, and any exemptions you should have.
2. Compare your assessed value with recent sale prices of similar homes in Ector County.
3. Talk to the assessor's office informally first; clear errors are often fixed without a hearing.
4. If needed, file a formal appeal with the local review board before the deadline on your assessment notice, with your evidence attached.
5. Keep paying the bill as issued while the appeal runs, unless your notice says otherwise — unpaid taxes accrue penalties regardless of an appeal.

More Texas counties

• Kaufman County, TX — $5,036
• Parker County, TX — $4,978
• Midland County, TX — $3,697
• Comal County, TX — $4,827
• Guadalupe County, TX — $4,270
• Taylor County, TX — $2,670

Frequently asked questions