Property Tax in Kaufman County, Texas

What the Kaufman County numbers mean

A median is the middle household: half of owner-occupied households in Kaufman County pay more than $5,036, and half pay less. Your own bill is set by your home's assessed value, the exemptions you qualify for, and the local taxing districts your property sits in — so individual bills vary widely around the median.

Dividing the median tax by the median home value gives a derived effective rate of 1.73% for Kaufman County. It is an estimate built from two survey medians, not the county's official rate, but it is a fair way to compare the local tax burden with other counties where home values are very different.

The key figures for Kaufman 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.

Kaufman County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Texas: #11 of 250 counties
• Median home value rank in Texas: #20 of 250
• Population rank in Texas: #31 of 250 (160,718 residents)
• Population density rank: #32 of 250 (206 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Texas: #201 of 250 (780 sq mi, 0.3% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $420; per $1,000 of home value: $1.73

How Kaufman County compares

Of the 250 Texas counties with published data, 10 have a higher median property tax bill than Kaufman County's $5,036, putting the county at #11 in the state. Its bill is about 23% higher than the state median of $4,111 and about 70% higher than the national median of $2,969.

Rates and values pull in opposite directions: an expensive housing market can produce big bills at ordinary rates. Here the derived rate is 1.73%, versus 0.98% derived nationally, and the median home value ranks #20 within Texas.

Some extra context for Kaufman County: the median bill works out to about $420 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $1,732 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 160,718 people — the #31 most populous county in Texas, spread over 780 square miles, a density of about 206 people per square mile. Its median home value, $290,800, ranks #20 among the state's 250 counties with data.

Zooming out: of 3133 counties nationwide with published Census figures, only 124 record a higher median tax bill than Kaufman County — it sits in the top 4% nationally. The county holds roughly 0.5% of Texas's people. Its homes are worth more than the state norm (median $290,800 versus $260,400), and a decade at the derived rate of 1.73% adds up to about 17.32% of the median home's value in tax. The cheapest county in the state, Crockett County, medians $466 — $4,570 less than Kaufman County per year.

Counties nearest Kaufman County in the Texas ranking

Kaufman County and its population peers

Population is a useful lens on these figures, so the table below sets Kaufman 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, Kaufman County's $5,036 bill is #2 of 9.

The closest population match is Stafford County, Virginia (160,520 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $3,301 on a median home value of $458,800 — $1,735 more than Kaufman County pays.

Staying within Texas, the counties nearest Kaufman County by population are Midland County (171,496 residents, median tax $3,697 on a median value of $293,000); Ector County (163,206 residents, median tax $2,438 on a median value of $190,500); Parker County (158,079 residents, median tax $4,978 on a median value of $343,600); Taylor County (144,259 residents, median tax $2,670 on a median value of $190,300). 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

As an illustration of the arithmetic: at Kaufman County's derived rate of 1.73%, a home valued at $400,000 would carry a tax bill of roughly $6,928 a year. That is only an illustration using the derived rate — a real bill is computed from the property's assessed value, its exemptions, and the combined rates of its specific taxing districts, so it can be higher or lower.

The usual sequence is: the local assessor values the property; exemptions are applied; the taxable value is multiplied by the combined local rates; and the county bills and collects the tax, distributing it to the schools, municipalities and districts that levied it.

Illustrative bills in Kaufman County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 1.73% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Kaufman 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 Kaufman County

Believe your assessment is too high? The practical order of attack is: obtain your record card and audit it line by line; collect comparable recent sales in Kaufman County; ask the assessor's office to correct anything plainly wrong; and, if the value still seems off, lodge a formal appeal ahead of the deadline printed on your assessment notice. Windows are short — often 30 to 90 days — and late appeals are usually rejected outright, however strong the case.

More Texas counties

• Ector County, TX — $2,438
• Parker County, TX — $4,978
• Midland County, TX — $3,697
• Comal County, TX — $4,827
• Taylor County, TX — $2,670
• Randall County, TX — $3,587

Frequently asked questions