What Montgomery County’s new tax rate adds to your bill
Commissioners adopted $0.3860 per $100, up from $0.3770. The calculator shows the county line only — not school, city, or MUD taxes.
Montgomery County commissioners voted 3–2 on Sept. 8, 2026, to adopt a $546.8 million budget for the fiscal year that runs through Sept. 30, 2027. The county property-tax rate that supports it is $0.3860 per $100 of taxable value, up from $0.3770 last year.
That is nine-tenths of a cent. On a home, it is real money, and it is also a small slice of the bill that shows up in October. School districts, cities, municipal utility districts, and emergency-service districts set their own rates. This article, and the calculator below, cover only Montgomery County’s line.
The county’s budget book splits the new rate into $0.3415 for maintenance and operations and $0.0445 for debt. The debt rate is unchanged. The no-new-revenue rate — the rate that would have raised the same amount from property already on the roll — was $0.3706. The voter-approval rate, the highest rate the court could set without an election, was $0.4136. Commissioners landed between those two.
What the county says a typical home will see
The budget materials use a median homestead value of $270,349. At the adopted rate, and before any local-option exemption, the county’s share of that home is $1,043.55. The same value at last year’s $0.3770 rate is $1,019.22. The rate change alone is $24.33 a year, about $2 a month.
County Judge Mark Keough has described the typical increase as $2 to $3 a month. That lines up with a rate-only change on a home near the median. It does not include a higher appraisal. If the appraisal district raised your value, that increase stacks on top of the rate.
On a home appraised at $270,349.00, last year’s rate produces $1,019.22. This year’s rate produces $1,043.55. The difference is $24.33 a year, or about $2.03 a month. No homestead exemption is subtracted in this example, so the taxable value is the full $270,349.00.
Where the extra money goes
The adopted budget is $546,808,952, about $38 million above the $508 million budget in 2025. ABC13 reported that the plan includes law-enforcement pay parity and a 5% raise for other county employees. The budget book says the tax rate will raise $17,483,672 more than last year, a 4.94% increase in property-tax revenue. Of that, $11,609,719 comes from new property added to the roll. Most of the new revenue is new rooftops, not the rate on a house that was already there.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Ritch Wheeler has pointed out that more than 80% of the county is unincorporated. In those neighborhoods the county, not a city, is the government that paves, polices, and answers the call. That is the argument the majority used for a higher rate. The two votes against it were an argument about the same bill: whether this was the year to ask for more.
What this calculator leaves out
The school homestead exemption is $140,000 for 2026. It reduces the school line only. It does not reduce the county line. An over-65 or disabled school-tax ceiling also does not cap the county. Some counties offer their own over-65 exemption and a county tax ceiling. Those are on your Montgomery Central Appraisal District notice, and this calculator does not guess them.
If your notice shows a local-option homestead exemption on the county, turn that on in the calculator and set the percent your notice uses. Texas law caps that optional exemption at 20% of appraised value, and it cannot be smaller than $5,000. The school district’s flat exemption is a different line. Leave the percent at zero if you want the rate change on the full appraised value, which is how the county’s median example is built.
How to read your notice
Find Montgomery County on the jurisdictions list. Use the taxable value for that entity, not the school taxable value. Multiply by $0.3860 and divide by 100. That is this year’s county share if the notice is current. The calculator does that for last year and this year so you can see the difference without mixing in Conroe ISD, Magnolia ISD, a MUD, or a city.
Sources: Montgomery County FY 2027 proposed budget (rate table, $546,808,952 budget, no-new-revenue rate, and the $17.5 million revenue statement) and ABC13, Sept. 8, 2026.
