Bexar County Homestead Exemption: Amounts, Eligibility, and Filing

A Bexar County homestead exemption removes $140,000 of your home’s appraised value from school district property taxes, adds a 20% market-value reduction on City of San Antonio taxes, and caps future appraised-value increases at 10% a year. Homeowners who are 65 or older or disabled get an extra $60,000 off school taxes and lock in a school tax ceiling for life. Filing is free, you apply once, and the application is Form 50-114 submitted to the Bexar Central Appraisal District.

Who Qualifies

The exemption is for individuals who own their home and live in it as their primary residence. Corporations, LLCs, and partnerships don’t qualify. Ownership through a qualifying trust counts, and the homestead can include up to 20 acres used with the home.¹

You can claim only one homestead in any year, and it has to be where you actually live for most of the year. Temporary absences for work, military deployment, or medical care don’t disqualify you if you intend to return. Renting the home out or converting it to business use does.

If you own a partial interest and aren’t married to the other owner, your exemption is prorated to your share. A 50% owner gets half the exemption amount.²

What the Exemption Is Worth

School District Taxes

Every qualifying homeowner in Bexar County gets a mandatory $140,000 exemption from school district taxes. The amount rose from $100,000 on January 1, 2025, after Texas voters approved Proposition 13.¹ If your home is appraised at $350,000, the school district taxes you on $210,000.

City of San Antonio Taxes

The City of San Antonio layers its own exemption on top. All homesteads get a 20% market-value reduction for city taxes. Homeowners 65 or older qualify for up to $85,000 in additional exempted value, and disabled homeowners receive the same $85,000.³ Other taxing units within Bexar County, such as flood control and hospital districts, may offer their own optional exemptions. Check your appraisal notice for the complete list applied to your property.

Extra Savings if You’re 65 or Older or Disabled

Homeowners who are 65 or older or who have a qualifying disability get an additional $60,000 school district exemption on top of the standard $140,000, for a combined school exemption of $200,000.¹ A qualifying disability has to meet the Social Security Administration’s standard for inability to engage in substantial gainful activity.

The bigger benefit is the school tax ceiling. The amount you owe in school district taxes during the first year you qualify becomes the most you’ll ever pay in school taxes on that home. The bill can drop in years when rates fall, but it can never exceed the ceiling. Many homeowners don’t realize they have this protection until years after they qualified.

Moving to a New Home

You can transfer your school tax ceiling to a new home anywhere in Texas. The new ceiling is calculated as the same percentage of taxes you were paying relative to what you would have owed without the ceiling, then applied to the new home. Request the transfer on Form 50-114 when you apply for a homestead exemption at the new address, and include the previous residence address and county.⁴

The 10% Appraisal Cap

Once your homestead exemption has been in place for at least one full year, the appraisal district can’t increase your appraised value by more than 10% of the prior year’s appraised value, plus the value of any new improvements. The cap holds even if your market value jumped 30% or more.⁵

Because the cap only kicks in after the exemption has been on the property for both the preceding and current tax year, every year you delay filing is a year your appraised value can rise without limit.⁶ File as soon as you move in.

Disabled Veterans and Surviving Spouses

Veterans with a service-connected disability rated by the VA receive exemptions on a tiered scale that can be applied to any property they own, not just a homestead:

10% to 29% disability: up to $5,000 off assessed value
30% to 49%: up to $7,500
50% to 69%: up to $10,000
70% or higher: up to $12,000

Veterans 65 or older with at least a 10% rating, those who are totally blind, or those who have lost the use of one or more limbs qualify for the $12,000 tier regardless of percentage.⁷

A veteran receiving 100% disability compensation with either a 100% rating or a determination of individual unemployability gets a full exemption on the total appraised value of their residence homestead. That means zero property taxes from every taxing unit, not just the school district.⁸ Bexar CAD requires a VA award letter confirming both the compensation level and the rating or unemployability determination.⁹

The surviving spouse of a 100% disabled veteran keeps the full exemption as long as they don’t remarry and the home remains their homestead. If the spouse moves, the dollar amount from the last year the exemption applied carries over to the new property.⁸ Surviving spouses of first responders killed in the line of duty receive a similar total exemption, with the same no-remarriage condition and the same portable dollar amount.¹⁰

How to Apply

Use Form 50-114, the Residence Homestead Exemption Application. There’s no filing fee.⁴ You’ll need the property identification number and legal description from your deed, your full legal name, and your Social Security number.

The one requirement that trips up most applicants is the ID match. You have to submit a Texas driver’s license or state-issued ID showing the same address as the home you’re claiming. Mismatched addresses get the application rejected. Two groups can get the address-match requirement waived: active-duty military members and their spouses, and holders of a driver’s license issued under Transportation Code Section 521.121(c) or 521.1211, which covers certain officials such as peace officers, prosecutors, and federal judges.⁴ Active military members without a Texas ID can submit a military ID and a utility bill instead.¹¹

Filing a false application is treated as tampering with a government record under Texas Penal Code Section 37.10, and when the intent is to defraud it’s a state jail felony carrying 180 days to two years of confinement and a fine up to $10,000.¹²¹³

Where and When to File

Submit the application through the Bexar Central Appraisal District’s online portal at bcad.org, by mail, by fax, or in person at 411 N. Frio Street, San Antonio, TX 78283.¹¹

The general deadline is before May 1 of the tax year you’re applying for.¹⁴ A missed deadline isn’t fatal. You can still file a late application up to two years after the original due date, and disabled veterans applying for the 100% exemption get up to five years.¹⁵ The savings are retroactive to the year you first qualified, so a late application still recovers money.

After You File

The chief appraiser has 90 days to approve, modify, or deny your application after you’ve provided all required information. If more documentation is needed, the office must send a written request within 30 days, and you then have 30 days to respond. The chief appraiser can grant a single 15-day extension for good cause.¹⁶

Once approved, the exemption appears on your annual tax statement as a lower taxable value. If your mortgage lender escrows property taxes, they’ll be notified and should adjust your monthly payment.

If the application is denied, you can protest to the Bexar County Appraisal Review Board. The deadline is May 15 or 30 days after the date on your denial notice, whichever is later.¹⁷

When Your Situation Changes

If you sell the home, move out, start renting it, or otherwise stop using it as your primary residence, notify the appraisal district in writing before May 1 of the following year. The same duty applies if you were receiving the 65-or-older or disabled exemption and your circumstances change, such as the Social Security Administration revoking your disability determination. Keeping an exemption you no longer qualify for carries the same consequences as filing a false application: back taxes plus penalties for every year you weren’t eligible.

1
State of Texas. Texas Tax Code 11.13 – Residence Homestead
2
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Residence Homestead Exemption Frequently Asked Questions
3
City of San Antonio. Property Tax Information
4
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Residence Homestead Exemption Application
5
State of Texas. Texas Tax Code 23.23 – Limitation on Appraised Value of Residence Homestead
6
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Valuing Property
7
State of Texas. Texas Tax Code 11.22 – Disabled Veterans
8
State of Texas. Texas Tax Code 11.131 – Residence Homestead of 100 Percent or Totally Disabled Veteran
9
Bexar Central Appraisal District. 100% Disabled Veteran Homestead Exemption – How to Apply
10
State of Texas. Texas Tax Code 11.134 – Residence Homestead of Surviving Spouse of First Responder Killed in Line of Duty
11
Bexar Central Appraisal District. Homestead Exemption – How to Apply
12
State of Texas. Texas Penal Code 37.10 – Tampering With Governmental Record
13
State of Texas. Texas Penal Code 12.35 – State Jail Felony Punishment
14
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Property Tax Exemptions
15
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Residence Homestead Exemptions
16
State of Texas. Texas Tax Code 11.45 – Action on Exemption Applications
17
Bexar Central Appraisal District. Property Owners Can Protest