Rockport-Fulton, TX: Property Tax Guide

The Real Number: Aransas County's Effective Tax Rate

State it clearly: Aransas County's median effective property tax rate has been reported at approximately 1.09%, according to an analysis of actual Aransas County property records by Ownwell, a property-tax aggregation service; a separate calculation of the county's average collection rate against assessed fair market value puts the figure closer to 1.29%. Both are real, source-attributed numbers, not invented ones, and the honest position is to state that range -- roughly 1.09% to 1.29% of assessed value -- rather than either refusing to name a number or picking one figure and presenting it as more precise than the underlying sources actually are. For comparison, the U.S. median effective property tax rate runs close to 1.02%, meaning Aransas County sits modestly above the national median -- consistent with the broader pattern across Texas, where property tax carries a heavier share of the local-funding load precisely because there's no state income tax to share it with.

Applied to real numbers: on Zillow's reported typical home value of $263,460 for Rockport, a 1.09%-1.29% effective rate implies an annual bill of roughly $2,870-$3,400. On the more recent median sale price of $384,265 (May 2026), that same rate range implies an annual bill of roughly $4,190-$4,955. Those are meaningfully different dollar figures depending on which home-price statistic you anchor to, which is exactly why this page states both rather than picking one. A separately cited "median Aransas County tax bill" of $1,849 appears tied to an older, lower median home-value baseline (around $129,900) from the same aggregator source -- almost certainly outdated relative to current market prices, and not representative of what a buyer purchasing at today's prices should expect to pay. Use the $2,870-$4,955 range, tied to current home-price statistics, as the more honest working estimate, and confirm the exact number for a specific parcel with the Aransas County Appraisal District.

What This Page Could Not Confirm: The Exact Combined Rate

Here is the honest gap, named directly rather than smoothed over: this research could not pull the exact, current, combined city-plus-county-plus-school-district millage rate for a specific Rockport or Fulton address, because the City of Rockport's own 2025 tax-rate notice document (hosted at rockporttx.gov) could not be fetched directly during this research pass -- the effective-rate figures above come from third-party property-tax aggregators (Ownwell, tax-rates.org) analyzing actual county property records, which is a real and reasonable source, but it is not the same as reading the county's own published rate-setting worksheet line by line. A full Aransas County property tax bill layers at minimum the county's own rate, the applicable city or town rate (Rockport's rate differs from Fulton's, since they're separate taxing entities), and the Rockport-Fulton Independent School District's rate, and may include additional special-district assessments depending on the specific parcel. The Aransas County Appraisal District (aransascad.org) is the correct primary source for that exact, current, per-taxing-unit breakdown -- confirm it there, or directly with the Aransas County Tax Office, rather than assuming the county-wide effective-rate figures above represent any one taxing unit's specific rate.

Texas's 2025 Homestead Exemption Increase: A Real, Current Change

Texas voters approved two related constitutional amendments at the November 4, 2025 election: Proposition 13 raised the mandatory school-district homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000 for every homeowner, and a separate measure, Proposition 11, added a further $60,000 exemption specifically for homeowners who are 65 or older or disabled -- combining for a total $200,000 school-district homestead exemption for a qualifying senior or disabled homeowner, both applying to the 2025 tax year and forward, per Ballotpedia's tracking of both propositions. (An earlier version of this legislation, Senate Bill 4 and Senate Joint Resolution 2 -- the basis for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's February 2025 public statement floating a smaller $150,000 combined figure for seniors -- was superseded in April 2025 by Senate Bill 23 and Senate Joint Resolution 85, which is what actually reached voters as Propositions 13 and 11.) That's a real, meaningful, currently-in-effect reduction in taxable value for anyone making a Rockport or Fulton property their genuine, permanent primary residence and filing the appropriate homestead exemption paperwork with the Aransas County Appraisal District. It's worth being precise about its limits, though: this exemption applies specifically to the school-district portion of the bill, not the full combined rate, and it applies only to a homesteaded primary residence -- not a second home, a vacation property, or a rental, all of which are common purchase types in a coastal market like this one and do not receive this exemption.

No State Income Tax: The Trade-Off Worth Stating Honestly

Texas is one of a handful of states with no state income tax at all, and statewide, property tax fills a large share of that gap: Texas local governments collected $81.4 billion in property tax in fiscal year 2023, with school districts alone accounting for 48.5% of that total, per Ballotpedia's reporting on the underlying property-tax and school-finance data. For a buyer relocating from a state with meaningful state income tax, that trade genuinely can net out favorably, particularly for retirees living on investment income, pension income, or Social Security, none of which Texas taxes at the state level -- but it means the property tax bill itself is not a small or secondary cost the way it might be in a lower-property-tax, higher-income-tax state. Anyone building a household budget for a Rockport-Fulton move should run both sides of that trade with real numbers -- their actual income-tax liability in their current state versus Texas's zero, against the county's real 1.09%-1.29% effective property tax rate on the actual property they're considering -- rather than assuming "no income tax" alone makes Texas cheaper across the board.

What This Means When You Budget a Purchase

Three things to do before finalizing a Rockport-Fulton purchase budget. First, don't anchor to the seller's current tax bill on the listing -- Texas reassesses property annually, and a long-held property's assessed value may sit well below its current market value, meaning your bill after purchase could be noticeably higher than what the seller has been paying, similar to the reassessment dynamics buyers face in other states' non-homestead property. Second, use the sourced 1.09%-1.29% effective-rate range against the actual purchase price you're considering -- not the outdated $129,900-baseline figure -- to build a realistic annual estimate, and then confirm the exact combined city/county/school rate for that specific parcel directly with the Aransas County Appraisal District before you make an offer. Third, if the property will be your genuine, permanent primary residence, file for the homestead exemption promptly and make sure the new $140,000 exemption (or $200,000 combined, for owners 65 or older or disabled, via Proposition 13 plus Proposition 11) is correctly applied to the school-district portion of your bill. None of this is tax advice -- a Texas-licensed tax professional or the Aransas County Appraisal District should review the actual numbers on any specific property before you rely on them.