Texas Total Property Tax Exemption for a 100% Disabled Veteran

Tax Code section 11.131 exempts the total appraised value of a residence homestead. There is no dollar ceiling and no income test. For a veteran who qualifies, the homestead leaves the tax roll entirely. The gate has two parts, and both have to be true. VA has to have awarded the veteran 100 percent disability compensation for a service-connected disability, and the veteran has to hold a rating of 100 percent disabled or of individual unemployability. Individual unemployability pays at the 100% rate, so Texas treats the two the same here. A combined schedular rating of 90% does not qualify, and neither does a 100% rating that is not paid at the 100% compensation rate. The property has to be the veteran's residence homestead. Unlike section 11.22, which attaches to any one property, this exemption is tied to the home the veteran lives in. The surviving spouse provisions are unusually generous. An unmarried surviving spouse keeps the total exemption if the property was the surviving spouse's residence homestead when the veteran died and remains the surviving spouse's homestead. If the surviving spouse later moves, the exemption is portable: the new homestead gets an exemption equal to the dollar amount of the exemption on the old one in its last qualifying year. That is a dollar figure, not a renewed total exemption, so a move to a more valuable home leaves some value taxable. The chief appraiser has to issue a written certificate with the figures needed to carry the amount over. Remarriage ends eligibility. File form 50-114 with the county appraisal district. The general deadline is before May 1, but section 11.439 requires the chief appraiser to accept a late application from the veteran filed up to five years after the delinquency date, with a refund of tax already paid. That five-year window covers the disabled veteran, not the surviving spouse. This exemption removes school, county, city, and special district tax on the homestead. It does not remove any other tax, and it does not reach a second property. A veteran with land or a second home should also read the section 11.22 entry, which can sit on a different property.