What evidence do you need for a property tax protest hearing in Texas?

In most Texas value protests the appraisal district has to prove the value, not you. Tax Code 41.43(a) puts the burden on the district by a preponderance of the evidence, and if the district fails that standard the protest "shall be determined in favor of the property owner." Your evidence decides what the board has to weigh against theirs.

That one sentence reorganizes everything else about preparing for an appraisal review board hearing. You are not walking in needing to prove your house is worth less. You are walking in needing to give the board a concrete, documented alternative to the number the district brought — and, in two specific situations, you can raise the standard the district has to clear.

Who has to prove the value at the hearing — you or the appraisal district?

The appraisal district, in most cases.

Tax Code 41.43(a) reads, in part: "Except as provided by Subsections (a-1), (a-3), and (d), in a protest authorized by Section 41.41(a)(1) or (2)" — those are protests about the determination of appraised value and about unequal appraisal — "the appraisal district has the burden of establishing the value of the property by a preponderance of the evidence presented at the hearing." The section then states the consequence plainly: "If the appraisal district fails to meet that standard, the protest shall be determined in favor of the property owner."

Two things in that sentence are easy to miss and both matter.

The first is "presented at the hearing." The standard is about what the district actually puts in front of the board that day, not about what is in its files.

The second is that the Texas Comptroller's own protest guidance does not describe this as a burden you can rely on passively. Its words are: "It is up to you to have what you need to prove your case," and, more bluntly, "You cannot go to the hearing and just say the appraisal district is wrong." Both statements sit on the same page as its evidence list. Read together with 41.43(a), the practical position is that the burden sits with the district and the record you build is what tests it.

What can you get from the appraisal district before the hearing?

Everything it intends to use — but you have to ask for it.

Tax Code 41.461(a) sets three duties on the chief appraiser that run "at least 14 days before a hearing on a protest." The chief appraiser shall:

1. deliver a copy of the Comptroller's taxpayer pamphlet prepared under Section 5.06 to the property owner initiating the protest, or to the owner's agent if the agent requests it;
2. "inform the property owner that the owner or the agent of the owner is entitled on request to a copy of the data, schedules, formulas, and all other information the chief appraiser will introduce at the hearing to establish any matter at issue";
3. deliver a copy of the hearing procedures the appraisal review board adopted under Section 41.01.

Note the shape of the second duty. The 14-day obligation is to inform you of the entitlement. The entitlement itself is "on request." On the text of the section, nothing happens automatically — if you never ask, you never receive it.

Three further details from the same section are worth knowing before you ask:

• It is free. Section 41.461(b): the chief appraiser "may not charge a property owner or the designated agent of the owner for copies provided" under the section, "regardless of the manner in which the copies are prepared or delivered."
• The district chooses how to deliver it. Section 41.461(c) permits regular first-class mail; electronic delivery, if you have elected to receive electronic communications under Section 1.085; or referral to a secure website or to "the exact Internet location or uniform resource locator (URL) address" on the district's website where the requested information is "identifiable and readily available."
• You can insist on paper or on picking it up. Where the district uses the website route, Section 41.461(d) requires the notice to carry a statement "in a conspicuous font" telling you that you may on request receive the information by regular first-class mail or in person at the appraisal office — and that on your request the chief appraiser "must provide the information" that way.

What the section does not contain is any deadline for your request, or any deadline for the district to deliver once you have asked. The only day count in 41.461 is the 14 days in subsection (a). That is an observation about what the section prints, not a statement about how any particular district handles it.

One more cross-reference makes the request worth making. Section 41.43(c) defines the term: "evidence includes the data, schedules, formulas, or other information used to establish the matter at issue." That is the same vocabulary 41.461(a)(2) uses, which is why the request reaches the district's working material and not merely its conclusion.

Collin Central Appraisal District puts this in sharper relief than most. Its public-information material states that sales information has not been open records in Texas since June 2007 — but that information "requested under Section 41.461 (a) (2), Texas Property Tax Code, for Appraisal Review Board hearings, must be disclosed." In other words, a protest is one of the narrow circumstances in which that material comes to you.

What evidence does the state actually tell you to bring?

The Comptroller's protest page frames it as "Take anything that will help make your case," then lists what to gather. Its list, in the order the page prints it:

• Property photographs (yours and comparables)
• Receipts or estimates for repairs
• Sales price documentation, such as listings, closing statements and other information
• Calculations of median level of appraisal, if protesting equal and uniform appraisal
• Affidavits, if needed
• Newspaper articles
• Architectural drawings or blueprints
• Engineering reports
• Property surveys
• Deed records

The same page is specific about what the board will not do anything with. It says the appraisal review board may consider general economic and environmental factors affecting value but "cannot take into account your personal economic situation," and that "Emotional arguments or baseless claims will have no bearing on an ARB's decisions." Its advice on presentation is to keep it clear and concise, and — its phrasing — "Do not get personal."

Two mechanics from the Comptroller's protest-and-appeal procedures form, 50-195, revision stamp 1-24/24, are easy to get wrong on the day:

• The parties exchange evidence with each other. The form describes the owner and the district as "required to provide each other with a copy of any materials (evidence) intended to be offered or submitted" at the hearing.
• Format is constrained. The form permits evidence on paper or on a small portable device such as a CD or USB drive, which the board keeps — and states: "Do NOT bring evidence on a smart phone."

Your own board's adopted hearing procedures govern copy counts and acceptable devices, which is one of the reasons 41.461(a)(3) puts those procedures in your hands 14 days out.

When does the district's burden rise from "preponderance" to "clear and convincing"?

In two situations, each with its own conditions, and in both cases the owner has to do something first. Both are in Tax Code 41.43.

	Standard on the district	What triggers it
Default — 41.43(a)	Preponderance of the evidence presented at the hearing	Applies to protests under 41.41(a)(1) or (2) unless (a-1), (a-3) or (d) applies
Independent appraisal route — 41.43(a-1)	Clear and convincing evidence	Property with a market or appraised value of $1 million or less as determined by the district; and not later than the 14th day before the first day of the hearing the owner delivers to the chief appraiser an appraisal supporting the owner's asserted value, performed not later than the 180th day before the first day of the hearing, by an appraiser certified under Chapter 1103, Occupations Code
Value-was-lowered route — 41.43(a-3)	Clear and convincing evidence	All three: the value was lowered in the preceding tax year; and the preceding year's value was not established by a written agreement under Section 1.111(e); and not later than the 14th day before the first day of the hearing the owner files with the board and delivers to the chief appraiser information sufficient to allow a determination of value (41.43 names income and expense statements and comparable sales as examples) or of whether the property was appraised unequally
Owner did not render — 41.43(d)	Burden moves to the owner, by a preponderance	The owner failed to deliver, before the hearing date, a rendition statement or property report required by Chapter 22, or a response to the chief appraiser's request under Section 22.07(c). On failure, "the protest shall be determined in favor of the appraisal district"

Three notes on the table.

The independent appraisal has formal requirements. Section 41.43(a-2) says that to be valid, an appraisal filed under (a-1) "must be attested to before an officer authorized to administer oaths" and must include the certified appraiser's name and business address; a description of the property appraised; a statement that the value was, as applicable, the appraised or market value as of January 1 of the current tax year and "was determined using a method of appraisal authorized or required by Chapter 23"; and "a statement that the appraisal was performed in accordance with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice." An appraisal that misses those elements does not do the job the subsection is there for.

The 41.43(a-3) filing is a condition, not a duty. Subsection (a-5) says so expressly: (a-3)(3) "does not impose a duty on a property owner to provide any information" in those protests, and "That subdivision is merely a condition to the applicability of the standard of evidence provided by Subsection (a-3)."

Failure cuts both ways, and the statute says so in both directions. Where the district carries the burden and does not meet it, the protest is determined for the owner — stated inside (a-1) and, for the (a-3) route, broken out into (a-4). Where (d) has moved the burden to the owner and the owner does not meet it, the protest is determined for the district.

What does unequal appraisal require instead?

A different showing, on medians rather than on your property alone.

For a protest on unequal appraisal, Section 41.43(b) gives the district three ways to defeat it: by establishing that your appraisal ratio is at or below the median level of appraisal of a reasonable and representative sample of other properties in the district; or at or below the median for a sample of a reasonable number of similarly situated properties or properties of the same general kind or character; or that your appraised value is at or below the median appraised value of a reasonable number of comparable properties, appropriately adjusted.

That is why the Comptroller's evidence list includes "calculations of median level of appraisal, if protesting equal and uniform appraisal" as a separate item. On an unequal-appraisal protest, comparables are not background color — the arithmetic is the argument.

What is the informal review, and does your evidence matter there?

It is a separate, earlier conversation with the district, and in at least one DFW county it is where values actually move.

The Comptroller describes it as optional and owner-initiated: the notice of appraised value includes "an explanation of the availability of an informal conference with the appraisal district prior to your formal ARB hearing," and after filing, "You may request an informal conference with the appraisal district to try to resolve your protest before the ARB hearing." Nothing on that page makes it a required step.

Collin Central Appraisal District goes further about what happens there. Its notice-of-appraised-value guidance states that "Appraisers will make property value decisions at these in-person informal meetings," and asks owners to "bring all information or documents with you for appraisal review." Its own list of what to bring for a real-property informal is: "closing disclosure, contracts, comparable sales data, appraisals, loan documents, repair estimates, photographs," plus anything else the owner considers relevant. For commercial property it adds "rent rolls, leases, income & expense statements, and/or construction documents"; for business personal property, "depreciation schedules, balance sheets, IRS returns, and letters from your CPA certifying the correct values."

Collin also prints the warning that matters most: "An informal review/meeting does not reserve your rights to a formal ARB hearing, only a timely filed protest will."

Two cautions about that material. Collin's list is published for the informal meeting with a district appraiser, not as a statement of what the appraisal review board accepts. And it is Collin's own, not a regional standard — see the next section.

Do the DFW appraisal districts all say the same thing?

No, and that is worth knowing before you assume one county's guidance applies to another.

Across the five county appraisal districts covering the core DFW counties — Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Kaufman and Rockwall — the published guidance varies widely. Collin publishes a detailed, property-type-specific evidence list and a 14-day pre-hearing statement about remedies, board procedures, postponement rights and the right to inspect documentation. Kaufman publishes the Comptroller's state form 50-195 as its appeal-procedures document — which carries the statutory framework and the burden-of-proof language, but leaves the form's district-specific blanks unfilled, including the section that would describe its own informal review and name a contact. The published guidance from Tarrant, Rockwall and Dallas could not be read directly for this article.

So: check the district that appraises your property, and check your own notice of appraised value for the deadline and the contact on it. The statutory floor in 41.43 and 41.461 is the same everywhere in Texas; what each district publishes, offers and calls things is not.

When does all of this need to be ready?

Earlier than most people assume, and the two 14-day clocks are the reason.

Both routes to a clear-and-convincing standard under 41.43 require the owner's material to be delivered "not later than the 14th day before the date of the first day of the hearing." The chief appraiser's duties under 41.461(a) run on the same 14-day margin. And the independent appraisal under (a-1) has a second clock: it must have been performed not later than the 180th day before the first day of the hearing — roughly six months — which means an appraisal commissioned after the hearing is set may already be too late to serve that purpose.

Working backwards from a typical year: the Comptroller's guidance, citing Tax Code Section 25.19, says a district appraising your property higher than the previous year must send a notice of appraised value by May 1, or by April 1 for a residence homestead, or as soon as practical after. The usual protest filing deadline is May 15. Hearings, per the Comptroller's appraisal review board page, "typically occur in May through July," with larger counties continuing past July.

Which puts the honest answer to "when" in the fall, not the spring. Repair estimates, photographs, the closing statement from your purchase, and the comparable sales you noticed in your own neighborhood are all easier to collect as they happen than to reconstruct in the two weeks before a hearing.

A note on the filing deadline itself: the Comptroller's protest page states the May 15 rule twice in terms that do not agree — one sentence anchors the 30-day alternative to the date the notice was delivered and the next anchors it to the date the district mailed it. Because of that, the only safe version to act on is the deadline printed on your own notice of appraised value. Collin's own guidance says the same thing: it calls May 15 "the typical deadline" and tells owners to check their notice for the specific date.

What this page does not answer

Being clear about the gaps is part of the point.

• Whether these sections read as they do today. The text of 41.43 and 41.461 quoted here was read from three and two independent legal publishers respectively, all matching word for word, not from the Texas Legislature's own site, which did not serve readable text when this page was researched. The most recent currency claim in that set is one publisher's statement that its text is "Current as of January 01, 2026." The most recent amendment any publisher shows is 2013 for 41.43 and 2023, effective January 1 2024, for 41.461. No source read establishes the effect, if any, of the 2025 legislative session on either section.
• Any deadline for your 41.461 request, or for the district's delivery. Not printed in the section.
• Who to call at your district, or what its portal is named. These differ by county and the available material is uneven.
• Whether a protest is worth filing on your facts, and what your property is worth. That is a valuation question and, past a point, a legal one. A protest that turns on an independent appraisal needs a Texas-certified appraiser; one that turns on the appraisal records, an exemption, or an appeal past the board is worth taking to a property tax consultant or an attorney. Nothing here is legal or tax advice.

Sources

All sources below were read on October 16, 2026.

Primary — state agency:

• Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, "Appraisal Protests and Appeals," comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/protests/ — page metadata modification date 2026-07-31. Source for the evidence list, the informal conference, the 15-day hearing notice and 14-day pre-hearing package, Form 50-132 and Form 50-162, the Section 25.19 notice dates, and the quoted lines on preparation and presentation. This page states the May 15 / 30-day rule in two inconsistent ways; that inconsistency is reported above rather than reconciled.
• Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, "Appraisal Review Boards," comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/arb/ — page metadata modification date 2026-07-29. Source for hearings "typically occur in May through July" and for board hearing procedures being adopted, posted and published.
• Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, "Property Taxpayers' Bill of Rights," comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/bill-of-rights.php — page metadata modification date 2016-09-01, a decade older than the pages above. Source for the right "to request and inspect non-confidential information used to appraise your property."
• Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts form 50-195, "Property Tax Protest and Appeal Procedures," revision stamp "50-195 (Rev.1-24/24)," statutory reference line "[41.41,41.70]," as published by Kaufman Central Appraisal District. Source for the burden-of-proof framing in state-form language, the mutual evidence exchange, the evidence-format rule, and Form 50-283. Note: the file is hosted under a path labelled "updated-4-2025" while the document itself prints revision 1-24/24; the printed revision is cited here. The district-specific blanks in the copy read were unfilled.

Primary — appraisal district:

• Collin Central Appraisal District, "Notice of Appraised Value – FAQs," collincad.org — no revision date printed. Source for the informal review description and evidence list, the "does not reserve your rights" warning, the 14-day pre-hearing mailing, and the May 15 "typical deadline" wording.
• Collin Central Appraisal District, "FAQs" category page including its Open Records section, collincad.org — no revision date printed. Source for the Section 41.461(a)(2) disclosure statement and the June 2007 sales-information point.
• Collin Central Appraisal District, "Property Tax Calendar," collincad.org — no revision date printed. Source for the April and May calendar dates.

Secondary — statutory text: Texas Tax Code Sections 41.43 and 41.461 were read from legal publishers, not from the Legislature's own host, which served no statutory text when this page was researched. Section 41.43 was read from Justia ("2025 Texas Statutes"; the site also states "These codes may not be the most recent version"), from texas.public.law (stamped "Verified: May 26, 2025"), and from FindLaw (stamped "Current as of January 01, 2026"); all three matched word for word on every subsection, subdivision, day count and cross-reference. Section 41.461 was read from Justia and texas.public.law, which also matched word for word. None of these is the official text. Where texas.public.law inserts cross-referenced section titles parenthetically inside the statutory text as an editorial addition, those insertions are excluded from every quotation above.

Not read, and therefore not relied on: The Comptroller's Model Hearing Procedures for Appraisal Review Boards and its Taxpayer Assistance Pamphlet (publication 96-295) are both published as PDFs that could not be retrieved. Tarrant Appraisal District, Rockwall Central Appraisal District and Dallas Central Appraisal District served no readable protest guidance. The Collin Appraisal Review Board's own site was not read.