Flower Mound Maxed Out Its Homestead Exemption. Here's What That Means for Your Tax Bill.

If you own the home you live in inside Flower Mound, your tax bill is about to shrink — by more than it ever has before.

The Flower Mound Town Council voted unanimously on June 16 to raise the town's residential homestead exemption from 12.5% to 20% — the maximum allowed under Texas law. That wasn't even the original target. The plan going in was 17.5%, but the council decided to go all the way to 20%. Sometimes governing bodies do exactly what the agenda says. This one went further.

Chief Financial Officer John Zagurski said the owner of a homestead at the town's average value of $465,000 would save around $352 compared to what they'd have paid under the old rate. Real money. Not a rounding error on a tax bill. The math scales up from there: on a $600,000 home, a 20% exemption knocks $120,000 off the taxable value, compared to just $75,000 under the old 12.5% exemption.

This is the fifth consecutive year Flower Mound officials have increased the town's percentage. The council has been chipping away at this since 2018, when the town's first homestead exemption was set at the greater of $5,000 or 2.5% of value. By 2021 it doubled to 5%, then doubled again to 10% in 2022, and reached 12.5% in 2023. Going from 12.5% to 20% in one jump is the biggest single leap they've taken.

Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam Schiestel put it plainly. "My neighbors are going to fight their taxes for the first time in a while," he said. "I'm having a hard time finding a rationale to go to 17.5 if we can go to 20 percent." Hard to argue with that logic.

A few things worth keeping straight about who actually benefits. The move lowers the taxable value of owner-occupied homes by one-fifth. It applies only to your primary residence — not rental properties, not investment homes, not commercial buildings. Renters see none of this directly. The benefit is largest in dollar terms for owners of higher-value homes, where 20% of appraised value represents the most actual dollars shielded from taxation.

The new exemption took effect for fiscal year 2025-26 and is the highest a municipality can set under current state law. Flower Mound is now at the ceiling. The only way to go higher from here is to change state law — and town officials have floated potentially lobbying the state legislature to raise the homestead exemption cap for municipalities above 20%. Speculation for now, but worth watching.

The change will show up on property tax bills issued later this year. If you own your home here and have already filed for your homestead exemption, you don't need to do anything. Once you receive the exemption, you do not need to reapply unless the chief appraiser sends you a new application. If you haven't filed yet — especially if you bought recently — you'll need to submit an Application for Residential Homestead Exemption to the appraisal district where your property is located, which for Flower Mound residents is either the Denton County Appraisal District or the Tarrant County Appraisal District.