Fort Worth proposes tax rate cut. But will it lower your bill from the city?
The Fort Worth City Council will consider cutting the property tax rate by a quarter of a cent next month, City Manager Jay Chapa proposed at a work session Tuesday. But the savings will likely be offset by increased fees for city services.
“One of my goals was to have as little impact to the taxpayer as possible, since we’re proposing several different increases on the fee side,” Chapa said.
He proposed lowering the city’s tax rate from 67.25 cents per $100 of value, to 67 cents per $100 of value.
Fort Worth residents who live in Tarrant County and have a homestead exemption will see the biggest tax savings, he said, since the Tarrant Appraisal District did not reappraise residential properties this year. Homeowners who lowered the taxable appraised value of their property by protesting will see bigger tax savings.
Those tax savings will offset hikes in fees for several city services, including stormwater, solid waste and street cleaning charges, among others.
Eight city departments recommended fee changes, according to Christianne Simmons, chief transformation officer with the Fort Worth Lab, an organizational initiative “focused on making government better,” according to the city’s website.
Those departments are Code Compliance, Financial Management Services, Parks and Recreation, Transportation and Public Works, Public Events, Environmental Services and Aviation.
“There are a number of reasons why departments recommend these kinds of changes,” Simmons said, including market competitiveness, cost recovery and addition of services.
One additional service is the new emergency medical service, which in 2026 will be run by the Fort Worth Fire Department after the dissolution of the MedStar emergency medical service. But fees for this service will be “substantially kind of unchanged from the way they looked at MedStar,” she said.
Long-term planning and sustainability also play a role in fee increases, Simmons said, pointing to concerns over cost recovery, long-term capital planning and landfill closure and replacement.
How much is the average Fort Worth property tax bill?
Simmons presented figures for the “average taxpayer” in Fort Worth, which included the average home value from TAD with a homestead exemption and monthly resident fees based on “typical usage.”
The average tax bill in her figures reduced from $1,598.77 in 2025, to $1,578.45 in 2026, a savings of about $20. The average annual fee charges rose from $1,237.15 to $1,294.03, an increase of $56.88.
The largest part of that annual fee increase — an average of $36 — will be what residents pay for solid waste removal. The average fee for environmental services will go up $9, and increases in fees for wastewater and stormwater management will add less than $12 to the average annual cost of those services.
With the offset of the lower tax rate, the average taxpayer in Fort Worth can expect to pay around $3 more a month in city charges in the next fiscal year.
A recommended 2.61% increase to the Crime Control and Prevention District fund will provide for two new school resource officers for Fort Worth ISD and eight new officers for the Neighborhood Police Officers program, an initiative that uses non-traditional methods to reduce crime. The City Council will hear public comments about the tax rate and budget, and vote on their adoptions, at a special meeting on Sept. 16.
This story was originally published August 12, 2025 at 4:47 PM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the cost per $100 of taxable value.
