Property Tax in Potter County, Texas

What the Potter County numbers mean

A median is the middle household: half of owner-occupied households in Potter County pay more than $2,028, 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 1.50% for Potter 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.

Potter County by the numbers

*Estimate derived from Census medians (tax ÷ value), not an official rate.

Potter County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Texas: #110 of 250 counties
• Median home value rank in Texas: #160 of 250
• Population rank in Texas: #40 of 250 (116,634 residents)
• Population density rank: #40 of 250 (128 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Texas: #126 of 250 (908 sq mi, 0.4% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $169; per $1,000 of home value: $1.50

How Potter County compares

The median tax bill in Potter County is about 51% lower than the state median ($4,111 for Texas) and about 32% lower than the US median ($2,969 nationally). By median taxes paid, the county ranks #110 out of 250 Texas counties with published Census data — 109 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. Potter County's derived rate of 1.50% sits above the derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Potter County: the median bill works out to about $169 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $1,503 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 116,634 people — the #40 most populous county in Texas, spread over 908 square miles, a density of about 128 people per square mile. Its median home value, $134,900, ranks #160 among the state's 250 counties with data.

Nationally, Potter County's median bill of $2,028 ranks #1043 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 33% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 0.4% of Texas's population, its median home value is about 48% below the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 15.03% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Potter County to the most expensive county, Travis County ($7,487), is $5,459 a year.

Counties nearest Potter County in the Texas ranking

Potter County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Potter County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 116,634 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Potter County's median bill of $2,028 is #5 of 9.

The closest population match is Wayne County, Ohio (116,618 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $2,457 on a median home value of $204,600 — $429 less than Potter County pays.

Inside Texas itself, the counties closest to Potter County in population are Tom Green County (119,398 residents, median tax $2,523 on a median value of $186,700); Rockwall County (116,931 residents, median tax $6,341 on a median value of $386,000); Hunt County (104,917 residents, median tax $2,736 on a median value of $210,900); Bastrop County (102,370 residents, median tax $4,077 on a median value of $269,500). Same state, same broad tax framework — yet the median bills still differ, because assessed values and the mix of county, municipal and school-district rates are set locally.

How the tax is worked out

As an illustration of the arithmetic: at Potter County's derived rate of 1.50%, a home valued at $400,000 would carry a tax bill of roughly $6,012 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 Potter County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 1.50% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Potter 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 Potter County

Most successful appeals are won on facts, not arguments. Start with the property record card held by the Potter County assessor: wrong square footage, an extra room, or a missing homestead exemption are common and fixable. Next, line your assessed value up against recent sales of genuinely similar homes nearby. Many disputes end at an informal conversation with the assessor's office; if yours does not, file the formal appeal with the review board named on your notice before its deadline, evidence attached, and keep paying the bill in the meantime so penalties do not build up.

More Texas counties

• Rockwall County, TX — $6,341
• Tom Green County, TX — $2,523
• Gregg County, TX — $2,271
• Hunt County, TX — $2,736
• Wichita County, TX — $2,501
• Bastrop County, TX — $4,077

Frequently asked questions