Does Texas have a real estate transfer tax when you buy or sell a home?

No. Texas has no real estate transfer tax, and the prohibition is constitutional rather than merely statutory. Article VIII, Section 29 of the Texas Constitution provides that after 1 January 2016, no law may be enacted that imposes a transfer tax on a transaction conveying fee simple title to real property. Voters added it on 3 November 2015.

That is the whole answer to the question as asked. The rest of this page is for the two things that follow from it and that cause most of the confusion: what the Constitution expressly left alone, and what you will in fact see on a Texas closing statement that is not a transfer tax but gets mistaken for one.

If you are relocating from a state where the deed itself is taxed — a percentage of the sale price collected at recording, sometimes by the state and the county and the city in layers — the absence is genuinely strange the first time you see it. It is worth understanding precisely, because the money you save there is not the same as the money you spend here, and because one category of charge in Texas is called a transfer fee and is a different creature with its own rules.

What does Article VIII, Section 29 actually say?

The section is short. Its heading reads "TRANSFER TAX ON TRANSACTION CONVEYING FEE SIMPLE TITLE TO REAL PROPERTY PROHIBITED," and subsection (a) reads:

"After January 1, 2016, no law may be enacted that imposes a transfer tax on a transaction that conveys fee simple title to real property."

Subsection (b) then lists what the section does not prohibit:

"(b) This section does not prohibit: (1) the imposition of a general business tax measured by business activity; (2) the imposition of a tax on the production of minerals; (3) the imposition of a tax on the issuance of title insurance; or (4) the change of a rate of a tax in existence on January 1, 2016."

The history line shown is "Added Nov. 3, 2015."

Two features of that drafting matter to a buyer.

First, it is a restriction on enacting law, not a repeal of charges that already existed. Subsection (b)(4) preserves the ability to change the rate of a tax in existence on 1 January 2016. So the section forecloses a future transfer tax; it does not sweep the field of everything a closing already costs.

Second, the prohibition is tied to a transaction that conveys fee simple title. That is the ordinary residential sale — deed from seller to buyer. It is the specific thing the section protects.

What does Section 29(b) leave untouched, and why does that matter?

The carve-outs are not decorative. Read together, they describe the categories of revenue Texas chose not to give up when it closed the door on transfer taxes.

Section 29(b) carve-out	What it preserves
(b)(1) a general business tax measured by business activity	A broad-based business tax is not a transfer tax and remains available
(b)(2) a tax on the production of minerals	Severance-style taxation of production is untouched
(b)(3) a tax on the issuance of title insurance	Taxation attached to the policy, not to the conveyance, is expressly permitted
(b)(4) a change of rate of a tax in existence on 1 January 2016	Existing taxes may still have their rates changed

Carve-out (b)(3) is the one most worth noticing. The Constitution draws a line between taxing the conveyance — prohibited — and taxing the issuance of the title insurance policy that accompanies the conveyance — permitted. A reader who hears "no transfer tax in Texas" and concludes that nothing at a Texas closing can carry a state charge has read the headline and skipped the text.

Note the limit of what is being said here. Section 29(b)(3) states what the Constitution permits. It does not itself impose anything, and this page does not state what any such tax is or what rate applies, because nothing establishing that was read for this article.

Then what are all those charges on a Texas closing statement?

They fall into four distinct categories, and the distinction is not cosmetic. Each one has a different source of authority, a different person who sets the amount, and a different answer to the question "can this be negotiated?"

Charge	What it is	Who sets the amount	Authority
Transfer tax	A tax on the conveyance itself, as a share of price	Nobody — prohibited	Tex. Const. art. VIII, Sec. 29(a)
Title insurance basic premium	The premium for the owner's or lender's policy	The Texas Insurance Commissioner	Tex. Ins. Code Sec. 2703.151
Recording fee	The county clerk's charge to record the instrument	Statute, per the clerk's published schedule	County clerk fee schedule
Private transfer fee	A private charge payable on transfer under a recorded covenant or agreement	The person who created it — and usually void	Tex. Prop. Code Secs. 5.201–5.207

Only the first of those is a transfer tax, and Texas does not have it. The other three are real, and only the last of them is, in most cases, unenforceable.

Who sets the title insurance premium in Texas — the title company or the state?

The state. This is the part that surprises people who have shopped title insurance in other states, and it is set out in the Insurance Code rather than left to the market.

Section 2703.151(a) provides:

"Except as provided by Subsection (b), the commissioner shall fix and promulgate the premium rates to be charged by a title insurance company or by a title insurance agent for title insurance policies or for other forms prescribed or approved by the commissioner."

Subsection (c) closes the loop:

"Except for a premium charged for reinsurance, a premium may not be charged for a title insurance policy or for another prescribed or approved form at a rate different than the rate fixed and promulgated by the commissioner."

Subsection (b) is the exception: the commissioner may not fix rates for reinsurance between title insurance companies, and companies may set those by agreement. The history line shown for the section is "Added by Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 1274, Sec. 6, eff. April 1, 2005."

The Texas Department of Insurance's Basic Manual carries the same rule from the operational side. Rate Rule R-1, "Schedule of Basic Premium Rates," states that the schedule "shall apply to all policies, unless the same be specified in other applicable Rate Rules," and that the basic premium rates "include the charge for title insurance, title examination and closing the transaction." Rate Rule R-2, labelled effective 3 January 2014 under Order 2806, states that "A company shall not issue or deliver a policy, binder or endorsement until a rate therefor has been adopted by the Commissioner."

A separate reporting duty sits behind the rate-setting. Section 2703.153 requires each title insurance company and agent in the state to submit an annual statistical report, "as required by the department to collect data to use to fix premium rates," covering loss experience, expense of operation and other material matters.

So the premium is a promulgated figure, not a quote. That is a different world from a transfer tax, but it is also a different world from a freely negotiated fee.

What does the current Texas title premium schedule look like?

The Texas Department of Insurance publishes the chart. Its rate page is headed "Rates Effective March 1, 2026," and the department's title insurance index page lists the authority for it as "Commissioner's order 2025-9697 | Title Rate Chart - March 1, 2026."

Figures read from that chart:

Policy amount	Basic premium, chart effective 1 March 2026
$25,000	$308
$50,000	$465
$100,000	$780
Above $100,000	Calculated in steps per the chart's own instructions
$268,500 (the chart's worked example)	$1,612

Above $100,000 the chart does not give a lookup value. It states that "Basic premium for policies in excess of $100,000 shall be calculated according to the steps below," and works a $268,500 policy through those steps to $1,612. Anyone quoting a premium for a typical North Texas price is doing that arithmetic, not reading a row.

One further line item appears on the department's index page. It states that a Guaranty Fee Charge applies "on each owner and lender title insurance policy issued in the state, beginning with closings after September 30, 2026," and that "the amount has been set at Three Dollars and no/100 Dollars ($3.00) per policy."

Three dollars is not a number that changes anyone's decision. It is in here because it is an example of the general point: Texas closings carry charges set by instruments other than the purchase contract, and knowing which instrument sets which charge is the difference between reading a settlement statement and guessing at it.

What about recording fees — is that a transfer tax by another name?

No. A recording fee is what the county clerk charges to record an instrument in the real property records. It is a fee for a service, set by statute and published by each clerk as a schedule, and it does not vary with the price of the house. A transfer tax does vary with the price, which is exactly why the two feel similar to someone arriving from a transfer-tax state and are not similar at all.

The Property Code itself draws this distinction in the private transfer fee subchapter: Section 5.202(b) excludes from the definition of a prohibited private transfer fee, among other things, "a fee payable to or imposed by a governmental entity in connection with recording the transfer of the property." The statute treats the recording charge as a category of its own.

This page states no recording fee amounts. The dollar figures would have to come from each county clerk's own published schedule, and the Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Rockwall and Kaufman county pages all refused the automated requests made for this article. Rather than carry a figure from a third-party summary, the honest answer is: ask the title company handling your file, or read the schedule on your county clerk's site, and expect a per-page structure rather than a percentage.

What is a private transfer fee, and is it enforceable in Texas?

This is the charge that genuinely does look like a transfer tax, and it is where the real money sometimes sits. A private transfer fee is a private obligation to pay somebody a sum on every future sale of the property — typically created by a developer in a recorded declaration, and typically expressed as a percentage of the sale price, so that it is collected again at each resale for decades.

Texas addressed it in 2011. Property Code Section 5.202(a) provides:

"Except as provided by this subchapter, a private transfer fee obligation created on or after the effective date of this subchapter is not binding or enforceable against a subsequent owner or subsequent purchaser of an interest in real property and is void."

The history lines shown are "Added by Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 211 (H.B. 8), Sec. 1, eff. June 17, 2011," with a later amendment "Acts 2017, 85th Leg., R.S., Ch. 812 (H.B. 755), Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2017."

The definitions in Section 5.201 are broad on purpose. A "private transfer fee" is "an amount of money, regardless of the method of determining the amount, that is payable on the transfer of an interest in real property or payable for a right to make or accept a transfer." A "private transfer fee obligation" is an obligation to pay one created under a recorded declaration or covenant, a contractual agreement or promise, or an unrecorded contractual agreement or promise. "Transfer" means "the sale, gift, conveyance, assignment, inheritance, or other transfer of an ownership interest in real property."

"Regardless of the method of determining the amount" and the inclusion of unrecorded promises are the two phrases that do the work. Renaming the charge or keeping it out of the records does not take it outside the subchapter.

Does the 2011 cut-off mean older private transfer fees are still collectible?

Not automatically, and this is the sequence worth knowing.

When the obligation was created	What the subchapter requires
On or after 17 June 2011	Section 5.202(a): not binding or enforceable against a subsequent owner or purchaser, and void
Before that date	Section 5.203(a): the payee had to file a "Notice of Private Transfer Fee Obligation" for record on or before 31 January 2012
Before that date, no notice filed	Section 5.203(f): the private transfer fee obligation is void

Where a pre-2011 obligation did survive, Section 5.204(a) requires a payee of record to accept a tendered payment "on or before the 30th day after the date the payment is tendered to the payee."

Two short sections sit alongside those. Section 5.205 provides in full: "A seller of real property that may be subject to a private transfer fee obligation shall provide written notice to a potential purchaser stating that the obligation may be governed by this subchapter." Section 5.206 provides: "A provision that purports to waive a purchaser's rights under this subchapter is void."

Enforcement is the Attorney General's. Section 5.207(a) allows an action for injunctive or declaratory relief to restrain a violation; subsection (b) caps a civil penalty at "an amount equal to two times the amount of the private transfer fee charged or collected by the payee in violation of this subchapter"; and subsection (c) provides that for a pattern or practice of violations, the Attorney General "may assess a civil penalty not to exceed $250,000."

What is not a private transfer fee, even though it is paid at closing?

Section 5.202(b) lists exclusions, and the list matters because it covers charges a buyer will actually see. Among the exclusions read for this article are a fee payable to or imposed by a governmental entity in connection with recording the transfer, and real estate broker commissions.

That second one is worth stating plainly, because the statute's name invites the inference and the inference is wrong: a brokerage commission is not a prohibited private transfer fee. It is a separately excluded category.

How should a buyer relocating from a transfer-tax state think about the difference?

Mechanically, rather than as a saving. Three practical consequences follow from everything above.

The cost that scales with price here is the title premium, not a tax. Because Section 2703.151(c) forbids charging a rate other than the promulgated one, comparing title companies on premium is not where a buyer finds variation. What varies between companies is service and the charges that sit outside the promulgated premium.

The charge that behaves most like a transfer tax is a private one, and it is usually void. If something in a declaration or a resale certificate reads like a percentage of the sale price payable to a developer or a third party on every transfer, Sections 5.202 and 5.203 are the sections it has to survive, and the date it was created is the first question.

The documents that would tell you are the ones you get in the option period. A seller's disclosure, the title commitment and its recorded exceptions, and an HOA resale certificate are where a transfer-fee covenant shows up. Reading them is the point of that window.

Who should you ask about a specific charge?

For a specific property and a specific closing statement, there are three different right answers depending on the charge, and none of them is a web page.

For the title premium and the recording charges on your file, ask the title company handling the closing; the premium is promulgated and they can show you the chart it came from. For a covenant that appears to impose a fee on every transfer, and for what it means for your title, ask a Texas real estate attorney — whether a particular obligation is void under Section 5.202 or saved by a Section 5.203 notice is a legal question about a specific instrument. For how a charge is treated on your return, ask your own tax professional.

What an agent can do is make sure the documents that would reveal a transfer-fee covenant are actually in your hands inside the window where you can still act on them, and that the question gets asked before you are bound rather than after.

Sources

Every figure and quotation on this page was read for this article on 5 November 2026. Where a source is not the official publisher, that is stated, because it matters.

Source quality, stated plainly. The official statute host, statutes.capitol.texas.gov, again returned only site navigation and no statutory text to automated requests — the HTML pages and the chapter PDF paths alike. This is the fourth consecutive run on which the official host has been unreadable. The constitutional and statutory text quoted here therefore rests on commercial and non-official restatements, identified below. Verify against the official text before relying on any of it in a transaction.

Texas Constitution, Article VIII, Section 29. Quoted from law.counselstack.com (Texas Constitution, art. VIII, Sec. 29), which shows the heading "TRANSFER TAX ON TRANSACTION CONVEYING FEE SIMPLE TITLE TO REAL PROPERTY PROHIBITED" and the history line "Added Nov. 3, 2015"; the site carries no currency label and disclaims any warranty of currentness. Cross-checked word for word against texaslegalguide.com (a MediaWiki page, not official, last modified 10 September 2020) and against Ballotpedia's page for Article 8 of the Texas Constitution, which attributes the addition to Proposition 1 approved on 3 November 2015. The three agree on the text of (a) and (b)(1)–(4); only the form of the history line differs. law.justia.com returned a client error and was not used.

Texas Insurance Code Sections 2703.151 and 2703.153. Quoted from texas.public.law, which labels both sections "Up to date" with "Verified: May 26, 2025" — roughly seventeen months stale as of this writing — and cites statutes.capitol.texas.gov as its source. History line for Section 2703.151: "Added by Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 1274, Sec. 6, eff. April 1, 2005."

Texas Property Code Sections 5.201, 5.202, 5.203, 5.204, 5.205, 5.206 and 5.207. Quoted from texas.public.law, same "Verified: May 26, 2025" label. History lines as shown: all seven sections "Added by Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 211 (H.B. 8), Sec. 1, eff. June 17, 2011," with Section 5.202 further "Amended by: Acts 2017, 85th Leg., R.S., Ch. 812 (H.B. 755), Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2017."

Texas Department of Insurance. Four official pages read directly. The title insurance index page, tdi.texas.gov/title/index.html, footer "Last updated: 9/30/2026," for the Guaranty Fee Charge of $3.00 per owner and lender policy beginning with closings after 30 September 2026, and for the notice "Commissioner's order 2025-9697 | Title Rate Chart - March 1, 2026." The rate chart page, tdi.texas.gov/title/titlerates2026.html, "Last updated: 6/5/2026," headed "Rates Effective March 1, 2026," for the $25,000 / $50,000 / $100,000 basic premiums of $308 / $465 / $780, for the instruction that policies above $100,000 are calculated in steps, and for the worked $268,500 example of $1,612. The Basic Manual Section III rate rules page, tdi.texas.gov/title/titlem3a.html, "Last updated: 12/12/2024," for the text of Rate Rule R-1 and for Rate Rule R-2, labelled effective 3 January 2014 under Order 2806. The Section III index, tdi.texas.gov/title/titlemm3.html, "Last updated: 4/23/2026," confirms the 1 March 2026 chart as the current one listed.

Not obtained, and therefore not stated. County clerk recording fee amounts. The Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Rockwall and Kaufman county clerk pages all refused the automated requests made for this article, and Texas Local Government Code Chapter 118 could not be read on the official host or on the fallback. No recording fee figure appears anywhere on this page. Texas Insurance Code provisions imposing any tax on the issuance of title insurance were not read, so nothing is claimed about one beyond the fact that Section 29(b)(3) permits it.

This page explains process and cites the sections it rests on. It is not legal or tax advice, and it is not a substitute for reading the documents on a specific property. Kenny Agbim is a REALTOR® with eXp Realty LLC in Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas licence 820897.