Bell County Property Tax Rates by City

There is no single Bell County property tax rate. Your bill is the sum of the taxes imposed by every taxing unit whose boundaries cover your lot — the county, your city, your school district, and often a college district, an emergency services district or a water district as well. The school district usually carries the largest single rate on that list, but a rate is not a bill, and the exemptions further down this page change the ranking more than most buyers expect.

The Tax Appraisal District of Bell County publishes the arithmetic plainly: Tax Amount = Taxable Value / 100 × Tax Rate. Every rate below is stated per $100 of taxable value, which is how Texas quotes them.

What follows are the adopted rates for the 2025 tax year from the district’s own rate table, which units offer which exemptions, and how to find the actual list of units for one specific listing. There is also a worked example showing what two comparable homes in two different cities really cost once exemptions are applied — the answer is not what the rate tables suggest. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

One note on the year. Texas taxing units adopt a new rate every fall, and the most recent consolidated chart the appraisal district has published is the 2025 table, dated September 30, 2025. Use the figures below to understand the structure and the gaps between places, then confirm the current year’s adopted rate for a specific address on the state’s property tax database before you rely on a number in an offer.

School district rates, and the exemption that flattens them

Ten independent school districts appear on the 2025 rate table.

Only one city in the county, Rogers at 1.050000, adopted a rate inside that range. Every other city came in below the lowest school rate on the list, which is why the school line is usually the biggest single rate on a Bell County bill.

Here is the part that gets left out. Every school district exempts a flat $140,000 of a residence homestead’s value under Tax Code Section 11.13(b), with another $60,000 under Section 11.13(c) for an owner who is 65 or older or who is disabled. A flat exemption compresses a percentage gap. On a $300,000 home the school rate applies to $160,000, not $300,000, so the 0.359500 gap between the lowest and highest district is worth about $575 a year rather than the $1,079 the full value would suggest. The lower the home’s value, the more the flat exemption flattens the difference.

The state amounts are identical across all ten districts. The optional local amounts are not: Troy ISD adds $6,670 for owners 65 or older, Academy ISD $6,000, Temple ISD $5,000 (and $5,000 for disabled owners), Salado ISD $3,330, and the other six add nothing.

One thing the second column tells you: two districts with similar totals can be built differently. Academy ISD’s debt service is about 43% of its total rate where Killeen ISD’s is about 24%. Debt rates move with the levy a district needs against its total taxable value, so they can fall as bonds are retired or as taxable value grows, and rise when voters approve new bonds.

The lines almost nobody budgets for

County, city and school are the three everyone expects. These are the rest, and one of them can move a payment more than any city rate does.

Look at the last three rows. A municipal utility district rate of 0.783000 to 1.000000 per $100 is larger than any city rate in the county except Rogers, it lands on top of everything else, and no homestead exemption on the chart applies to it. MUDs exist because someone had to finance the water, sewer and drainage for a development, and the district repays those bonds through your tax bill. The purchase price in a MUD is often lower; the annual carry is higher, the rate is reset with each annual district budget, lenders count the full tax figure against you when they qualify your loan, and the next buyer will price it in too.

Texas gives you a warning, and a deadline attached to it. Water Code Section 49.452(f) requires the seller of property inside a district to deliver a written notice before you sign a binding contract of sale, separately or as an addendum. If a contract is signed without it, you are entitled to terminate. Read the rest of that subsection though: if the seller hands you the notice at or before closing and you choose to close anyway, it is conclusively presumed that you waived the right to terminate and any claim for damages under that section. If the notice never comes at all, Section 49.452 still allows a purchaser to sue for the costs of the purchase plus interest and reasonable attorney’s fees, or alternatively for a capped amount plus fees — but Section 49.452(r) requires that suit to be brought within 90 days after you receive the first district tax notice, or within four years after the property is sold, whichever comes first. That 90-day clock is easy to miss and impossible to recover.

A public improvement district carries its own notice. Property Code Section 5.014 prescribes the notice of the assessment obligation and Section 5.0141(a) requires it before a binding contract is executed. Under Section 5.0141(b), if a contract is signed without it you may terminate for any reason no later than the seventh day after you receive the notice, provided the municipality or county filed the service plan with the county clerk under Local Government Code Section 372.013 before the contract date. Section 5.0141(c) works the same way as the MUD waiver: furnish the notice at or before closing, close anyway, and the right to terminate or to damages under Section 5.0145 is conclusively presumed waived. A PID assessment may not appear on the rate chart at all, because it is an assessment rather than a tax.

If the land is currently taxed as agricultural or open-space, there is one more trap. Under Tax Code Section 23.55 changing the use triggers an additional tax equal to the difference between what was imposed and what would have been imposed on market value for each of the three years before the change, and a tax lien attaches on the date the use changes. Build a house on a pasture and the bill follows. There are exceptions. Section 23.55(f) excludes a change of use caused by a sale for right-of-way, a condemnation, or a transfer to the state or one of its political subdivisions for a public purpose; Section 23.55(i) says claiming the land as part of a residence homestead under Section 11.13 is not by itself a change of use; and Section 41.41(a)(8) lets you protest a determination that the use has changed.

Exemptions, ceilings and deferrals worth knowing

School exemptions are fixed by statute. $140,000 off a residence homestead under Tax Code Section 11.13(b), and another $60,000 under Section 11.13(c) for an owner who is 65 or older or disabled. Both 11.13(c) and the local option in 11.13(d) cover disabled owners as well as owners 65 or older, which is often misstated. Section 11.13(a) also provides a $3,000 homestead exemption against a county levy authorized by Article VIII, Section 1-a of the Texas Constitution, so ask whether it applies to any county road or flood-control line on your bill.

Local percentage exemptions are optional and capped at 20% under Section 11.13(n), with a $5,000 floor. In Bell County, Temple, the Village of Salado and Temple College have adopted 20%; Little River-Academy has adopted 5%.

Disabled veterans get the largest exemptions available in Texas, which matters in a county next to Fort Hood. Section 11.131 gives a total exemption on the residence homestead of a veteran with a 100% disability rating or individual unemployability, and to the unmarried surviving spouse. Section 11.22 gives a graduated exemption of $5,000 to $12,000 by disability rating, rising to $12,000 for a veteran who is 65 or older with at least a 10% rating, or who is blind or has lost the use of a limb; it applies to one property, requires Texas residency, uses Comptroller Form 50-135 and has an April 30 deadline with a five-year late window. Section 11.132 covers a donated residence homestead. None of these are automatic.

The 65-and-older school ceiling. Under Section 11.26, once an owner qualifies a homestead for the 11.13(c) exemption, the school district may not raise the total annual school tax on that homestead above the amount imposed in the first qualifying year. Three qualifications: the ceiling can rise for improvements other than ordinary repairs, it is recalculated when the state compresses school rates, and it belongs to the qualifying owner, so it ends at a sale of that homestead. A surviving spouse aged 55 or older can carry a limitation forward under Section 11.26(i), and Sections 11.26(g) and (h) let a qualifying owner carry the limitation to a different homestead, using a written certificate from the chief appraiser of the district where the former homestead was. Section 11.261 lets a county, city or junior college district adopt a similar ceiling, and the rate chart flags which Bell County units apply one.

Flat local amounts vary a lot. Bell County gives $16,670 to owners 65 or older and $10,000 to disabled owners. Killeen gives $20,000, Belton and Harker Heights $10,000, Nolanville $3,000, and the Village of Salado $50,000. If you are buying at or near 65, that spread is real money.

Two deferrals exist and almost nobody mentions them. Section 33.06 lets an owner who is 65 or older, disabled, or qualified under Section 11.22 defer collection on a residence homestead by filing an affidavit with the chief appraiser; the lien stays and interest continues at 5% a year instead of the standard rate, and the deferral ends when the owner stops owning and occupying the home, including on a sale. It binds the taxing unit only — it does not stop a mortgage servicer. Section 33.065 lets a homesteader defer the tax on the portion of appraised value above 105% of the prior year’s value plus new improvements, which is the remedy for a single large reappraisal. Two limits on that one: interest runs at 8% a year under Section 33.065(g) rather than 5%, and under Section 33.065(e) it reaches only taxes imposed beginning with the tax year after the first year the owner qualified the property for a Section 11.13 exemption, so it is not open to a brand-new buyer in year one.

Exemptions are not automatic and do not transfer from the seller. The general filing deadline is before May 1. But a mid-year buyer is usually better off than they expect: Section 11.42(f) allows a person who acquires property after January 1 to receive the general Section 11.13 exemption for the applicable portion of that tax year immediately on qualifying, provided the previous owner did not receive the same exemption that year, and Section 11.43(d) gives that buyer until the first anniversary of the acquisition date to apply. The 65-and-over and disability exemptions under 11.13(c) and (d) are excluded from that subsection, and for a better reason: Section 11.42(c) makes them effective as of January 1 of the tax year in which the person qualifies and applies them to the entire tax year, so a qualifying owner who closes in June gets the full year rather than a part year. If you missed a deadline entirely, Section 11.431 allows a late homestead application up to two years after the delinquency date, and where the tax was already paid the collector refunds the tax on the exempted amount without a separate refund application.

The calendar that decides what you pay

• January 1. Property is appraised as of this date for the tax year.
• April 1, or May 1. Notices of appraised value go out by April 1 for a single-family residence that qualifies for a Section 11.13 exemption, and by May 1 for any other property (Section 25.19(a)).
• Before May 1. General deadline to file a residence homestead exemption. A mid-year buyer has until the first anniversary of closing.
• May 15, or 30 days after your appraisal notice was delivered, whichever is later. Deadline to file a notice of protest (Section 41.44(a)). Grounds under Section 41.41(a) include value, unequal appraisal and a denied exemption, and, directly to the point of this article, subsection (a)(6) lets you protest the identification of the taxing units in which your property is taxable, with (a)(10) catching any other action that adversely affects you. The rate itself is not protestable. Miss the deadline and Section 41.44(b) still entitles you to a hearing if you show the appraisal review board good cause before it approves the appraisal records.
• July 25. The chief appraiser certifies the approved appraisal roll to the taxing units (Section 26.01(a)).
• By August 7. Section 26.04(e-2) requires the appraisal district and each participating taxing unit to post the property-tax-database notice on their websites, and Section 26.04(e-6) requires the chief appraiser to publish that notice in a newspaper of general circulation by August 7 or as soon thereafter as practicable. Bell CAD describes this as the postcard with the database link. By the same date, Section 26.04(e) has each unit’s designated officer submit the calculated no-new-revenue and voter-approval rates to its governing body.
• August and September. Units adopt budgets and hold rate hearings, which is where the rate itself can be contested.
• Before September 30, or 60 days after the roll is received, whichever is later. Governing bodies must adopt a rate (Section 26.05(a)). Water districts set rates under a separate process in the Water Code.
• Around October 1. Tax bills are mailed (Section 31.01(a)).
• February 1. Taxes are due on receipt of the bill and delinquent if not paid before this date (Section 31.02(a)).

What delinquency costs. Under Section 33.01(a) a delinquent tax incurs a 6% penalty in the first calendar month plus 1% for each additional month before July 1, and a tax still delinquent on July 1 carries a flat total of 12% however many months have passed. Section 33.01(c) adds interest of 1% a month, running until the tax is paid. On top of that, Section 33.07 lets a unit that has contracted with a collection attorney add a collection-cost penalty, capped at the compensation it agreed to pay that attorney. The penalties are steep enough that paying under protest and sorting out the dispute afterward is usually cheaper than withholding.

Early payment discounts, with a caveat. Section 31.05 permits a unit to adopt discounts of 3% if the tax is paid in October or earlier, 2% in November and 1% in December. Adoption is optional, and in Bell County most units have not: the chart marks Temple ISD and Temple College as offering no discount, which in the worked example above is the largest and fourth-largest lines on the bill. If your taxes are escrowed, your servicer pays on its own schedule, so the discount is often out of reach regardless. Check the chart’s legend for your own units before counting on it.

Four installments for some owners. Section 31.031 lets an owner who is disabled or at least 65 and qualified under Section 11.13(c), or a disabled veteran or unmarried surviving spouse qualified under Section 11.132 or 11.22, pay in four equal installments with no penalty or interest, provided the first installment is paid before the delinquency date together with notice to the taxing unit. Where the delinquency date is February 1, the rest are due before April 1, June 1 and August 1. Miss any one of them and Section 31.031(b) makes that installment delinquent with a 6% penalty plus interest. There is one grace period worth knowing: Section 31.031(a-2) lets a qualifying owner still use the plan if the first installment is paid and the notice given before the first day of the first month after the delinquency date, so a February 1 delinquency date leaves the whole of February for that first payment.

Questions buyers ask about Bell County tax rates

Send me the address and I will work out the tax line

Give me a Bell County address and I will pull the parcel record, list every taxing unit that actually applies, apply the exemptions you qualify for and send back the annual figure in writing, before you are under contract. If it is on acreage, in a utility district or in agricultural use, I will tell you that too. No cost and no obligation.

Written by Dedrae Williamson, a Texas-licensed real estate agent with JD Walters Real Estate. Reviewed October 3, 2026.

Sources, all checked October 3, 2026: Tax Appraisal District of Bell County, 2025 Tax Rate Table (dated September 30, 2025) and Truth-in-Taxation — Tax Information; Texas Tax Code Chapter 11 Sections 11.13, 11.131, 11.132, 11.22, 11.26, 11.261, 11.42, 11.43 and 11.431, Chapter 23 Sections 23.23 and 23.55, Chapter 25 Section 25.19, Chapter 26 Sections 26.01, 26.04 and 26.05, Chapter 31 Sections 31.01, 31.02, 31.031, 31.05 and 31.08, Chapter 33 Sections 33.01, 33.06, 33.065 and 33.07, and Chapter 41 Sections 41.41 and 41.44; Texas Property Code Sections 5.014, 5.0141 and 5.0145; Texas Water Code Section 49.452; Texas Comptroller property tax exemptions and Bell County directory; Belton ISD; Village of Salado. All rates are per $100 of taxable value.