Is the price you paid for your house public record in Texas?

Not from the deed. Nothing read in Property Code Chapters 11 or 12 requires an instrument conveying real property to state what was paid, and nothing in Tax Code Chapter 22 requires a buyer or seller to report a sales price. What is public is the instrument itself, and the appraisal district's record of the owner's name and address.

That is the whole answer. The rest of this page is where each half of it comes from, which statute says so, which protections are narrow, and which questions belong to a lawyer rather than to an agent.

A note on sources before anything else. Most of what follows is quoted from the Texas Legislature's own statute text. Where a section could only be read from a secondary publisher, the sentence says so, and the sources block at the foot separates the two. None of the pages read for this article prints a date establishing that its text is current today, which is a limit worth knowing about any statutory quotation, including these.

What does a recorded deed actually put on the public record?

The parties, the property, an address for the grantee, and an acknowledgment. Not, on the text read here, a price.

Property Code Section 11.001(a) sets the basic rule: "To be effectively recorded, an instrument relating to real property must be eligible for recording and must be recorded in the county in which a part of the property is located."

Section 12.001(a) states the eligibility condition: "An instrument concerning real or personal property may be recorded if it has been acknowledged, sworn to with a proper jurat, or proved according to law." Section 12.001(b) adds two more requirements for an instrument conveying real property — that it be "signed and acknowledged or sworn to by the grantor in the presence of two or more credible subscribing witnesses or acknowledged or sworn to before and certified by an officer authorized to take acknowledgements or oaths, as applicable," and that "any individual presenting the instrument in person for recording presents a photo identification to the county clerk as required by Section 191.010, Local Government Code."

One more requirement produces a piece of information people are often surprised to find public. Section 11.003(a) provides that an instrument conveying an interest in real property executed after 31 December 1981 "may not be recorded unless: (1) a mailing address of each grantee appears in the instrument or in a separate writing signed by the grantor or grantee and attached to the instrument; or (2) a penalty filing fee equal to the greater of $25 or twice the statutory recording fee for the instrument is paid." A mailing address for the buyer is therefore a condition of recording without a penalty fee — and the subsection immediately following says the omission does not void anything between the parties: "The validity of a conveyance as between the parties is not affected by a failure to include an address of each grantee in the instrument or an attached writing."

And the price? Across Property Code Chapter 11 read in full, and Chapter 12 read as far as Section 12.017, no section requires a deed or other recorded instrument to state a price, a consideration, or an amount paid. That is an absence rather than a quotation, so it is worth being exact about its boundaries: it covers those chapters and that extent of reading, and it says nothing about other statutes, about what a particular deed form happens to recite, or about what a contract between the parties requires. The sources block below records precisely how much of each chapter was read.

Is the recorded instrument open to anyone?

Yes, and the statute says so flatly.

Property Code Section 11.008 governs personal information in real property records. Subsection (g) reads: "All instruments described by this section are subject to inspection by the public. The county clerk is not criminally or civilly liable for disclosing an instrument or information in an instrument in compliance with the public information law (Chapter 552, Government Code) or another law."

The section's own definition of what it reaches is broad. Subsection (a): "In this section, 'instrument' means a deed, deed of trust, or any other record recorded by a county clerk related to real property, including a mineral lease, a mechanic's lien, and the release of a mechanic's lien."

Subsection (h) is the provision that explains why there is rarely a second route to try: "Unless this section is cited in a law enacted after September 1, 2003, this section is the exclusive law governing the confidentiality of personal information contained in the real property or official public records or the equivalent of the real property or official public records of a county."

What can you strike from a deed before it is filed?

Two numbers, and the statute requires the deed to tell you so on its first page.

Section 11.008(c) requires that "an instrument transferring an interest in real property to or from an individual must include a notice that appears on the top of the first page of the instrument in 12-point boldfaced type or 12-point uppercase letters and reads substantially as follows:"

"NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY RIGHTS: IF YOU ARE A NATURAL PERSON, YOU MAY REMOVE OR STRIKE ANY OR ALL OF THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION FROM ANY INSTRUMENT THAT TRANSFERS AN INTEREST IN REAL PROPERTY BEFORE IT IS FILED FOR RECORD IN THE PUBLIC RECORDS: YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER OR YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE NUMBER."

Read that notice for what it is. It is a right to remove two specific identifiers, exercised before filing, by a natural person. It is not a right to withhold a name, an address, or a price.

The section is also drafted so that nothing turns on getting the notice wrong. Subsection (d): "The validity of an instrument as between the parties to the instrument and the notice provided by the instrument are not affected by a party's failure to include the notice required under Subsection (c)." And subsection (e): "The county clerk may not under any circumstance reject an instrument presented for recording solely because the instrument fails to comply with this section." The same subsection adds that apart from the duty to redact a social security number under Government Code Section 552.147, "the county clerk has no duty to ensure that an instrument presented for recording does not contain an individual's social security number."

Subsection (b) is the companion rule for whoever prepares the document: "An instrument submitted for recording is not required to contain an individual's social security number, and the social security number of an individual is not obtained or maintained by the clerk under this section. The preparer of a document may not include an individual's social security number in a document that is presented for recording in the office of the county clerk."

There is one route to redaction from an online county database, and it is narrow. Subsection (j) requires the county clerk, on written request, to omit or redact the social security number, driver's license number and residence address of a listed set of officials — peace officers, certain federal judges, United States marshals, United States attorneys, state judges and defined family members of those judges, marshals and attorneys — from an instrument "available in an online database made public by the county clerk." Subsection (k) then requires the database to display a conspicuous statement that information has been redacted and that the database "does not constitute the official repository of real property records and may not reflect the complete or unaltered contents of those records as maintained in the official real property records."

That last clause is the honest limit on this route. The redaction is to the online copy, not to the record.

What is in the appraisal district's file on your house?

Eleven categories, listed in the statute. A sales price is not one of them.

Tax Code Section 25.02(a) provides that "The appraisal records shall be in the form prescribed by the comptroller and shall include:"

"(1) the name and address of the owner or, if the name or address is unknown, a statement that it is unknown; (2) real property; (3) separately taxable estates or interests in real property, including taxable possessory interests in exempt real property; (4) personal property; (5) the appraised value of land and, if the land is appraised as provided by Subchapter C, D, E, or H, Chapter 23, the market value of the land; (6) the appraised value of improvements to land; (7) the appraised value of a separately taxable estate or interest in land; (8) the appraised value of personal property; (9) the kind of any partial exemption the owner is entitled to receive, whether the exemption applies to appraised or assessed value, and, in the case of an exemption authorized by Section 11.23, the amount of the exemption; (10) the tax year to which the appraisal applies; and (11) an identification of each taxing unit in which the property is taxable."

Item (1) is the one to notice. The owner's name and address are the first thing the record is required to contain.

Those records are also published, by statute, in the larger districts. Section 25.01(d) applies "only to an appraisal district established in a county with a population of 120,000 or more," and provides that "The chief appraiser shall post on the appraisal district's Internet website the district's completed appraisal records required to be prepared under Subsection (a), other than records that are confidential under law, and must update the posted records at least once each week to include any change in the appraised value of property."

Note the carve-out inside that duty — "other than records that are confidential under law." The posting obligation and the confidentiality provisions below are written to work together.

If nobody has to report the price, how does the appraisal district get one?

Voluntarily, or from a private data provider — and both routes carry confidentiality with them. This is the part of the system that the phrase "non-disclosure state" is pointing at, and it is worth reading the actual words rather than the shorthand.

Start with the absence. Across Tax Code Chapter 22, Sections 22.01 through 22.41, nothing requires a buyer or a seller to report a sales price. Section 22.01(a) is the general rendition duty and it is limited on its face to a different kind of property: "Except as provided by Chapter 24, a person shall render for taxation all tangible personal property used for the production of income that the person owns or that the person manages and controls as a fiduciary on January 1." The words "residence," "residential," "homestead" and "real property" do not appear in that section at all. The phrase "sales prices" appears in Chapter 22 only inside the confidentiality section quoted next.

That section is Tax Code Section 22.27, headed "Confidential Information." Subsection (a) reads:

"Rendition statements, real and personal property reports, attachments to those statements and reports, and other information the owner of property provides to the appraisal office in connection with the appraisal of the property, including income and expense information related to a property filed with an appraisal office and information voluntarily disclosed to an appraisal office or the comptroller about real or personal property sales prices after a promise it will be held confidential, are confidential and not open to public inspection. The statements and reports and the information they contain about specific real or personal property or a specific real or personal property owner and information voluntarily disclosed to an appraisal office about real or personal property sales prices after a promise it will be held confidential may not be disclosed to anyone other than an employee of the appraisal office who appraises property except as authorized by Subsection (b) of this section."

Two conditions are doing the work in that sentence, and both of them matter. The disclosure must be voluntary, and the confidentiality attaches after a promise it will be held confidential. A price is not confidential under this subsection merely because it is a price.

The second route is a different statute, and it reaches a different kind of information. Government Code Section 552.149(a) — read for this article from a secondary publisher only, so treat the wording accordingly — provides that "Information relating to real property sales prices, descriptions, characteristics, and other related information received from a private entity by the comptroller or the chief appraiser of an appraisal district under Chapter 6 (Local Administration), Tax Code, is excepted from the requirements of Section 552.021 (Availability of Public Information)."

Again, read the condition rather than the summary. The exception is keyed to information "received from a private entity." It is not a general statement that sales prices in Texas are secret.

Who can still see a confidential sales price?

Nine categories, listed in the statute, plus two consequences attached to misuse.

Section 22.27(b) provides that information made confidential by the section may be disclosed:

"(1) in a judicial or administrative proceeding pursuant to a lawful subpoena; (2) to the person who filed the statement or report or the owner of property subject to the statement, report, or information or to a representative of either authorized in writing to receive the information; (3) to the comptroller and the comptroller's employees authorized by the comptroller in writing to receive the information or to an assessor or a chief appraiser if requested in writing; (4) in a judicial or administrative proceeding relating to property taxation to which the person who filed the statement or report or the owner of the property that is a subject of the statement, report, or information is a party; (5) for statistical purposes if in a form that does not identify specific property or a specific property owner; (6) if and to the extent the information is required to be included in a public document or record that the appraisal office is required to prepare or maintain; (7) to a taxing unit or its legal representative that is engaged in the collection of delinquent taxes on the property that is the subject of the information; (8) to an employee or agent of a taxing unit responsible for auditing, monitoring, or reviewing the operations of an appraisal district; or (9) to an employee or agent of a school district that is engaged in the preparation of a protest of the comptroller's property value study in accordance with Section 403.303, Government Code."

Subsection (c) makes an unauthorised disclosure by someone with legal access an offence. A person who "knowingly" permits inspection by a person not authorised under subsection (b), or discloses the confidential information to such a person, "commits a Class B misdemeanor."

Subsection (d) runs the other way, protecting the person who supplied the price: "No person who directly or indirectly provides information to the comptroller or appraisal office about real or personal property sales prices, either as set forth in Subsection (a) of this section under a promise of confidentiality, or otherwise, shall be liable to any other person as the result of providing such information."

Can you get sales figures for your own protest?

There is a statutory route, and it comes with a restriction on what you may then do with the figures.

Government Code Section 552.149(b) — again, read from a secondary publisher only — provides that notwithstanding the exception in subsection (a), "the property owner or the owner's agent may, on request, obtain from the chief appraiser of the applicable appraisal district a copy of each item of information described by Section 41.461 (Notice of Certain Matters Before Hearing; Delivery of Requested Information)(a)(2), Tax Code, and a copy of each item of information that the chief appraiser took into consideration but does not plan to introduce at the hearing on the protest." The same subsection adds that the owner or agent "may, on request, obtain from the chief appraiser comparable sales data from a reasonable number of sales that is relevant to any matter to be determined by the appraisal review board at the hearing."

Then the condition. Information obtained under that subsection "(1) remains confidential in the possession of the property owner or agent; and (2) may not be disclosed or used for any purpose except as evidence or argument at the hearing on: (A) the protest; or (B) the appeal under Chapter 41A (Appeal Through Binding Arbitration), Tax Code."

So the route exists, it is tied to a pending protest or appeal, and the data does not become the owner's to publish.

What is an appraisal district forbidden to put online?

Pictures of the inside of your house, and your age.

Tax Code Section 25.027 is short enough to quote whole:

"(a) Information in appraisal records may not be posted on the Internet if the information: (1) is a photograph, sketch, or floor plan of an improvement to real property that is designed primarily for use as a human residence; or (2) indicates the age of a property owner, including information indicating that a property owner is 65 years of age or older.

(b) Subsection (a)(1) does not apply to: (1) an aerial photograph that depicts more than one separately owned building; (2) a street level photograph of only the exterior of a building; or (3) a field record or overhead sketch of the property that depicts only: (A) the outline of one or more buildings on the property; (B) the general landscape features of the property, including ponds, pools, and walls; and (C) the dimensions of or distances between the buildings and features depicted."

The exceptions are what give the rule its real shape. An aerial image of a neighbourhood, a street-level photograph of an exterior, and an outline sketch showing a pool and the distances between structures are all outside the prohibition. The floor plan and the interior photograph are inside it.

The section was added in 2005 and, on the history note printed with it, amended most recently by Acts 2025, 89th Legislature, Regular Session, Chapter 1170 (S.B. 973), effective 1 September 2025. No earlier version was read for this article, so this page does not say what that amendment changed.

Can a homeowner have their address made confidential?

There is a route, and it is narrow by design: it is a list of occupations and circumstances, not an option available to any owner who prefers privacy.

Tax Code Section 25.025 is headed "Confidentiality of Certain Home Address Information," and subsection (a) opens "This section applies only to:" followed by thirty-seven numbered categories. They include current and former peace officers and their spouses and surviving spouses; current and honorably retired county jailers; employees of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice; commissioned security officers; federal and state judges, United States marshals and defined family members; current and former prosecutors and their employees whose jurisdiction includes criminal law or child protective services matters; medical examiners and forensic analysts employed by the state or a political subdivision; firefighters, volunteer firefighters and emergency medical services personnel; elected public officers; customs and border protection officers and border patrol agents; current and former child protective services and adult protective services caseworkers; county and district clerks and their employees; court administration employees; and employees of the Office of Court Administration.

Two of the categories are defined by circumstance rather than by job. Category (6) covers an individual who shows that the individual, the individual's child, or another person in the individual's household "is a victim of family violence as defined by Section 71.004, Family Code," by providing either a copy of a protective order or "other independent documentary evidence necessary to show" it. Category (7) is drafted the same way for a victim of "sexual assault or abuse, stalking, or trafficking of persons." Category (8) covers a participant in the attorney general's address confidentiality program who provides proof of certification.

The effect, under subsection (b), is that information in appraisal records under Section 25.02 "is confidential and is available only for the official use of the appraisal district, this state, the comptroller, and taxing units and political subdivisions of this state" if the information "identifies the home address of a named individual to whom this section applies" and the individual either "chooses to restrict public access to the information on the form prescribed for that purpose by the comptroller under Section 5.07," or is a federal or state judge or a judge's spouse, in which case it begins on the date the Office of Court Administration notifies the appraisal district of the judge's qualification for office.

Three details are worth holding on to. The election is made on the Comptroller's form — listed on the Comptroller's forms index as "50-284, Request for Confidentiality Under Tax Code Section 25.025." It does not expire on its own: subsection (c) reads, "A choice made under Subsection (b) remains valid until rescinded in writing by the individual." And it protects a person, not a parcel. Subsection (d): the section "does not prohibit the public disclosure of information in appraisal records that identifies property according to an address if the information does not identify an individual who has made an election under Subsection (b) in connection with the individual's address."

One thing the statute does not say, and this page will not fill in: the words "chief appraiser" do not appear anywhere in Section 25.025. What the district must do operationally to give effect to an election is not stated in the section, so anyone making one should ask their appraisal district how it is handled.

So what is public, and what is not?

This table summarises only what the provisions quoted above actually say. Every row traces to a section named in the sources block.

The item	Public?	Where that comes from
The deed and other recorded instruments	Yes	Property Code 11.008(g): "All instruments described by this section are subject to inspection by the public."
The price stated in a deed	Not required to be there at all	No section of Property Code Chapter 11, or of Chapter 12 as far as 12.017, requires an instrument to state a price or consideration
The buyer's mailing address in the instrument	Yes, and it is a condition of recording without a penalty fee	Property Code 11.003(a)
Your social security number or driver's licence number in the instrument	Removable by a natural person before filing	Property Code 11.008(c), the prescribed notice
Owner's name and address in appraisal records	Yes, and it is the first required entry	Tax Code 25.02(a)(1)
The whole appraisal record, in larger counties	Posted on the district's website, updated at least weekly, except records confidential under law	Tax Code 25.01(d)
A sales price you were never required to report	No reporting duty found in Tax Code Chapter 22	Tax Code 22.01(a); absence across 22.01–22.41
A sales price voluntarily disclosed to the district after a promise of confidentiality	Confidential, with nine listed exceptions	Tax Code 22.27(a), (b)
Sales price data the district received from a private entity	Excepted from the Public Information Act's availability requirement	Government Code 552.149(a), read from a secondary publisher
Comparable sales obtained for your protest	Released to you, but confidential in your hands and usable only at the hearing	Government Code 552.149(b), read from a secondary publisher
A photograph, sketch or floor plan of your home's interior	May not be posted on the internet, subject to three exceptions	Tax Code 25.027
That an owner is 65 or older	May not be posted on the internet	Tax Code 25.027(a)(2)
A home address, for a person in one of 37 listed categories who elects	Confidential, official use only, until rescinded in writing	Tax Code 25.025(a), (b), (c)

What this page does not answer

Five things, deliberately.

Whether a particular person qualifies under Section 25.025. The categories are quoted above in substance, but qualification is a question about a person's own circumstances. Read the statute and Form 50-284, or ask the appraisal district.

What a given title company or closing file will show. This page is about statutes and public records. What appears on a settlement statement, who receives a copy, and what a lender requires are questions about a transaction, not about the public record.

Whether taking title through an entity or a trust changes any of this. It changes who is named, which is a different question with its own tax consequences, and is covered on a separate page here rather than being summarised in half a sentence.

Any deadline under Tax Code Section 25.25. Section 25.25 governs correction of the appraisal roll. Its later subsections could not be read from the Legislature's page for this article — the served text stopped partway through subsection (c) on repeated attempts — so no deadline is stated here. That gap is recorded rather than guessed at.

Whether any of this is current today. None of the statutory pages read prints a currency date, and two secondary publishers consulted on one section printed currency dates that disagreed with each other. Section 25.025 is the clearest illustration of why that matters: the history note printed beneath it lists more than forty amending acts since 2001, several of them in 2025, the latest shown as effective 4 December 2025. A statute quoted accurately in October 2026 can be amended in the next session.

And the standing limit on all of it: this is a description of what documents and statutes say, not legal advice and not tax advice. A licensed real estate agent can explain the process and point at the text. A lawyer advises on what it means for you, and a tax professional advises on what it costs you.

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Sources

All retrieved 28 October 2026.

Primary — Texas Legislature statute text, tcss.legis.texas.gov

• Tax Code, Title 1 (Property Tax Code), Subtitle D, Chapter 25 (Local Appraisal), /resources/TX/htm/TX.25.htm — read in three windows, at offsets 0, approximately 39,400 and approximately 78,800. Sections 25.01(d), 25.02, 25.025 and 25.027 were read verbatim in full. The served text stopped partway through Section 25.25(c)(4) on three separate attempts at different offsets, so Sections 25.25(d) onward were not read and nothing about them is published here. The page prints no currency date.
• Tax Code, Chapter 22 (Renditions and Other Reports), /resources/TX/htm/TX.22.htm — Sections 22.01 through 22.41 read. Sections 22.01 and 22.27 quoted. The absence statement about sales-price reporting rests on this reading of this chapter and no other. The page prints no currency date; its latest amendment notes are effective 1 January 2026.
• Property Code, Title 3 (Public Records), Chapter 11 (Provisions Generally Applicable to Public Records), /resources/PR/htm/PR.11.htm — read complete and verbatim. Sections 11.001, 11.003 and 11.008 quoted. The latest amendment note on 11.008 is Acts 2025, 89th Leg., R.S., Ch. 1100 (H.B. 4350), Sec. 1, effective 20 June 2025.
• Property Code, Chapter 12 (Recording of Instruments), /resources/PR/htm/PR.12.htm — read verbatim through the start of Section 12.017(j); the remainder of the page was not read verbatim and nothing from it is used. Section 12.001 quoted.

Secondary restatement — used for one section only

• Government Code Section 552.149, from texas.public.law. Subsections (a) through (d) were read there; subsection (e) is shown as repealed by Acts 2021, 87th Leg., R.S., Ch. 557 (S.B. 334), Sec. 2, effective 14 June 2021. This is a secondary publisher, not the Legislature's own text, and it was not corroborated against a second source for this article — the FindLaw and Justia copies of this section both returned errors. The publisher displays an "Up to date" badge with a verification date of 26 May 2025 alongside a last-accessed date of 10 May 2025, which do not agree with each other. Every sentence drawn from this section is flagged as secondary where it appears above.
• The Legislature's text of Tax Code Section 25.025 was compared against two secondary publishers. FindLaw matched it on the items compared. texas.public.law did not: its copy carries a different definition of "family member," a different version of category (16), prints one item number three times, and omits eight of the categories. Where this page describes Section 25.025, it follows the Legislature's text.

Primary — Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

• Property Tax Forms index, comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/forms/index.php, used only for the exact title of the confidentiality form: "50-284, Request for Confidentiality Under Tax Code Section 25.025." Page metadata records a modified date of 9 June 2025. The form PDF itself was not opened, and nothing about its contents is published here.

Deliberately not claimed on this page

• Any statement that a Texas deed never states a price. The statutes read impose no requirement; what an individual instrument recites is a different matter.
• Any deadline, threshold or procedure under Tax Code Section 25.25, for the reason given above.
• Any account of what a specific appraisal district does with a confidentiality election, since Section 25.025 does not say.
• Any claim that the quoted text is current as of today's date. No page read establishes it.
• The contents of Form 50-284, the repealed subsection (e) of Government Code Section 552.149, or Property Code Chapter 12 beyond Section 12.017.